Robb: Is Arizona saving career education the right way?

Given the strong support of the business community and the large state surplus, restoration of funding for Joint Technical Education Districts has been inevitable. One way or another, the $30 million will get through. Not even Gov. Doug Ducey’s preference for a slower and smaller restoration could prevail against the political battering ram.

Nevertheless, put me down as a skeptic. Not about the value of vocational education. I think the state should be doing more of it, rather than chasing the unicorn of rendering every high school graduate ready for college. Instead, skepticism about the way Arizona provides and funds vocational education.

There are two basic approaches. There are dedicated vocational education campuses, such as the East Valley Institute of Technology. And then there are cooperative arrangements between school districts, where voc ed courses are embedded in the curriculum of general-purpose high schools.

Viewpoints: Why career-education cuts hurt Arizona

Because voc ed courses are supposedly more expensive, state law provides additional state aid for students enrolled in them and permits districts to assess an additional property tax for them.

Students of government won’t be surprised at what came next. An expansion of courses designated “voc ed” for purposes of getting the additional money, including courses not really more expensive to provide or leading to a decent-paying job right out of high school. That budgetary gamesmanship was the reason for the spending cut in the first place.

The restoration funding bill attempts to crack down on this through tighter regulation of course offerings. But I’m not sure that will really get the job done.

Will funding cuts doom Arizona's growing career and technical education programs?

A student attending a dedicated voc ed campus is probably pretty serious about getting trained to the point of securing a decent-paying job directly out of high school. A student taking a few voc ed courses embedded in the curriculum of a general-purpose high school, maybe not so much. However, about 90 percent of Arizona’s voc ed students are taking the embedded courses.

My guess is that the $30 million would be better spent restoring funding to the dedicated campuses and plowing the rest into general state aid to education.

Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com.

Inside Arizona career and technical education: