Claudio Sanchez, a 25-year veteran of education reporting, provided the keynote address Thursday at the ASBA/ASA conference.
Sanchez believes education can provide a "window to the nation's future." His own background set the stage for some of this belief, starting his early years in Sonora Mexico and immigrating to America, where he studied at Northern Arizona University and went on to earn numerous awards for local and national education issues
Through his experience, he gave the audience a set of education predictions for education - largely circling equity issues - in 2016, including:
- There will be more scrutiny by parents and organized parties for better funding and better teachers;
- The Common Core controversy will die down;
- There will be more calls for a common space and conversations between charter schools and traditional public schools;
- Charter schools will become a lead education issue in the presidential race;
- There will be a strong backlash to undocumented students — or " Dreamers" — in higher education, mostly due to the anti-immigration rhetoric;
- The U.S. Supreme Court will ban ethnicity and race in college admissions; and
- Higher education institutions will have to "mobilize to justify the enormous money" students and parents have to borrow.
Mr. Sanchez went on to call on the heroes of education - those in the audience - to rise up those hard working teachers who are "fully invested" in meeting the needs of every single student.
"Teachers are fighting against incredible odds and they are doing an incredible job," he said. "Losing one child is losing one too many."
Arizona's 2016 Teacher of the Year Christine Marsh from Scottsdale Unified's Chaparral high School, encourages school board members to keep fighting on behalf of students' and our country's future.
ASBA Associate Executive Director Tracey Benson presents the Media of Excellence Award to Dennis Welch from KTVK Channel 3 in Phoenix.
Maxine Hill presents the ASBA Black Caucus Reading Contest award to the Governing Board members from the Solomon Elementary School District. Students at Solomon read 900 books.
Students from Verrado High School accept a check that comes with winning the ASBA Black Caucus President's Award.
NSBA President John Tuttle shares thanks to Arizona school board members for their service to students and their communities.
Christine Crossen from Red Mountain High School in the Mesa Unified School District is one of the recipients of the Jack Peterson Student Photography Contest.
Dr. Jack Peterson presents the Jack Peterson scholarships to high school seniors. 2015 recipients are Jennifer Reyes and Rachel Copeland, both of Washington High School in the Glendale Union High School District; and Taicey Johnson from Antelope High School in the Antelope Union High School District.
Panfilo Contreras presenta the Panfilo H. Contreras scholarships to Jody Fores from Yepiz Nogales High School and Shandies Gorman from Westwood High School.
