If you look at the comments following my posts that have anything to do with TUSD, you’ll read over and over that the district is a complete, abject failure. You can hear the same refrain in other venues as well, of course. It comes from the “education reform” crowd who love to declare all traditional public education a failure so it can “solve the problem” through privatization. It also comes from a contingent of folks on the left who value public education but think nothing less than “throwing the bums out” will make things better — the bums being the current superintendent and his team of administrators as well as the school board members who enable the inept (and possibly corrupt) administration by rubber-stamping its agenda.

I have a question for the “TUSD is failing crowd”: Failing compared to what?

Compared to the Platonic ideal of education? By that standard, absolutely, TUSD is a dismal failure. So is every school that ever existed and every teacher who ever held forth in front of a group of students from the beginning of time. There’s no satisfying Plato. We teachers are all Parable-of-the-Cave-ers, showing kids shadows on the wall and pretending it’s reality — all teachers with the possible exception of Socrates, and look what happened to him.

Or are we comparing TUSD to other large urban districts across the country? Then, not so much. Urban school districts are troubled places everywhere, and many of the reasons are beyond the ability of the schools to solve. They’re embedded deep inside the urban socioeconomic landscape and need intervention that’s beyond the reach of educators.

Compared to charter schools? Again, not so much. A thorough study of the nation’s charter schools concluded that when you compare students in charter schools in Arizona with similar students in school districts, the charter school kids perform at a lower level on standardized tests.

Compared to private schools? No, not there either. I don’t know of any head-to-head studies of private and public school students in Arizona, but in other states, when studies compare students who are using vouchers to attend private school with similar students in school districts, it’s basically a wash.

Improving educational attainment for students is a slow, hard slog. There are no magic bullets, and no fixes that can be duplicated and dropped into schools like a new McDonalds franchise. TUSD doesn’t deserve the blanket assessment of “Failure.” It doesn’t deserve a blanket “Successful” label either. Like virtually every school and school district, it’s somewhere in between.

The “TUSD is a failure” meme is destructive to the district and the children who attend its schools. It refuses to acknowledge areas where the district is making progress. “Not enough! The district is still failing!” the nay sayers cry. They refuse to give a superintendent or a school time to make the kind of gradual improvements that become part of the school culture and create slow improvement over the course of years. Instead, we’re told we have to throw out the current group of bums because the district is failing under their leadership, then do the same thing to the next group of bums, followed by the next and the next and the next, ad infinitum.

It’s one thing to advocate for change in TUSD. People who care about education should keep pushing for better education, and more funding to help carry it out. Parents especially have cause to say, “My kids need better schools now!” They should advocate for their kids and do whatever they can to make the school experience as good as it can possibly be while their kids are there to benefit from it. But the “Pox on all of TUSD” crowd aren’t doing anyone any good. They just create a steady drum beat of negativity that gets in the way of positive change.

This article appears in Nov 6-12, 2014.

29 replies on “Is TUSD A Failed School District?”

  1. Oh David, where to begin?

    I know…

    Close TUSD. Do it for the kids.

    The negative change so far outweighs the positive it is pitiful.

    It has been run just like the VA, whose director now has a list of 1000 employees that should be terminated.

    But they won’t be.

    More money please….NYET!

  3. David as you all know I worked for TUSD for a long time. I am watching the inappropriate behaviors of the administration and some board members first hand. TUSD has some wonderful teachers , and some that shouldn’t be there , I’m sure everyone can agree with that. However when I look at what they have done to me and compare it to the letter of the 12 administrators , and the things that I have been told by friends that are still with TUSD , or just left it , I can not help but question their integrity , and if that is in question then we have a serious problem with TUSD educating our children. Dr. Sanchez has ignored my case , and since it involves inappropriate behaviors with his staff he should be concerned. Adelita Grijalva also ignored my case when I went to her for help, she refused to even hear it. After the election ms. Grijalva sent me a message referring to my comments on this blog. She accuses me of saying that I said she interfered with the investigation into my employment, I said nothing of the sort , actually I said she did nothing , she refused to hear my case. Grijalva says there is nothing she can do, but the ADE has said on many occasions that the board has full authority to over turn this decision , but Grijalva wont hear it. Grijalva’s solution to this was to wait until after the election and attack me. Right or wrong , innocents or guilt does not matter to her , if she ignores it , it will go away. I do believe you indorsed Ms. Grijalva David , I hope this will show you what she is really capable of. I again I challenge you to hear my story , even Grijalva doesn’t know my story, only what an untruthful administration has told her.

  4. David, as a member of the ranks down in the proverbial trench of the classroom, saying that TUSD is a failure is ridiculous… it’s too big and has too many people of widely varying skill to make that kind of blanket statement. There is much good to say about many TUSD people and programs. What *would* be an accurate to say is that TUSD -over the long haul- has implimented SO MANY new programs, systems, protocols, mandates, structures, training and put so many Band-Aids on so many boo boos that we’ve grown weary and skeptical. EEI? Down our throats for an entire year. Now? Zip. SuccessMaker? Choking on it for two years. Now? Late implementation, and oh, it’s un-supported this year, don’t call us. Harcourt literacy… “follow with ultimate fidelity!” Now? I can’t even get a replacement workbook after multiple requests and there are no less than three different literacy approaches in place in my school alone. Man, I’m tired of the wheel being reinvented with nothing to show but wasted hours and blown money. As a result, my trust in leadership has wavered and morale just plain sucks. I’m only 15 years into this TUSD gig, imagine how strung out on this bologna the ultra long timers are. *sigh*

  5. The fact remains that for every “failure” in TUSD, there are many successes. Yes, this is a huge district, but it is also a diverse district with various approaches needed to reach everyone. There are many very talented teachers doing the best they can with little support and fewer $$$ allocated to support their programs. As a person with 40 years of relationship with TUSD and a high knowledge of its history, I can tell you that people working within the district are trying to satisfy everyone and as a result burning themselves out at a terrific rate. The individual Halls of Fame at the various high schools have many distinguished people in their ranks, some of whom have stayed right here in Tucson, while others have gone far afield, even into space. When the constant drumbeat from the media and the public is how “terrible” American schools are, it is hard to stand up to the lie. Every parent is talking about someone else’s kid as being the ones who are failing, never their own.

    Don’t give up, teachers and principals. You are the closest to the kids, and I know you aren’t doing the daily grind for the money! You do it because you believe that education matters.

  6. That’s right, David: some of us on the left aren’t drinking the same Kool-Aid you and your friends are drinking.

    Failing compared to what, you ask?

    Failing compared to school districts that have uniform and reliable processes in place to prevent hiring decisions from being influenced by factors that have nothing to do with the candidates’ qualifications; failing compared to school districts that don’t have a $15 million deficit in the news one week and a $20 million surplus a few weeks later; failing compared to school districts that use such a secretive process to recruit a superintendent that the local paper files a law suit against them; failing compared to districts that know how to get three bids from three reputable firms that can actually supply the services bid for; failing compared to districts that have a curriculum in place. Failing compared to other troubled urban districts throughout the nation that don’t have this kind of malfeasance going on, and failing compared to other local districts serving populations that are challenging in some of the same ways, but that don’t have the kinds of problems TUSD does: problems that are entirely avoidable if you have responsible leadership in place. It’s not rocket science; it can be done. The fact that TUSD is an “urban” district does not excuse its leadership from being accountable to reasonable standards.

    What is “destructive to the district and the children who attend its schools,” David? It’s not people who see the problems and try to advocate for change. It’s people like you who are apologists for the status quo.

    I know most of your career was spent teaching high school. Perhaps your transparent rhetorical strategies worked with the teenagers you taught, or perhaps the students pretended they couldn’t see through you because they didn’t want to make the teacher angry. The group of people who have been reading and commenting on your sad little “essays” or “blogs” or whatever you call them are not high school students. They are teachers or former teachers, administrators or former administrators, activists, and political organizers, most of them with graduate degrees or multiple graduate degrees. Remember the post from the teacher who observed your behavior at the October TUSD board meeting? “You sat next to Darland’s campaign manager [Ann-Eve Pedersen] at the October 14th board meeting while she and you applauded and cheered every time the Grijalva-recruited and staged TEA group (less than a half dozen of the same old “leadership-guard”) hailed to Sanchez and Adelita, asking that any criticism of the District be halted. This is far from leadership: they are sell-outs and followers.” “The [curriculum] audit also reports that the District has not abided by the desegregation court order. Why wouldn’t a progressive guy like you care about that?” “David, David, David — and you call yourself someone who cares about education?” “Your blogs reek of subjectivity and if that is what you want to provide to this community — I guess that is your choice, but know it is not serving TUSD.”

    Good luck continuing to fill the role you have chosen for yourself as chief propagandist for the district. It will be interesting to see how that goes for the next couple of years.

  7. Well with Adelita at the helm, just compare TUSD to say Vail School District and you can say it is a failed district.

  8. I don’t know what comments Mr. Safier is reading, but they are not the ones that represent any sort of majority opinion among those of us who make regular comments about TUSD. Yes, there are one or two folks who believe TUSD should be broken up (creating jobs for a whole lot more superintendents and other central administrators,) but they neither get the most “likes” nor do they represent the false and misleading description of regular commentators Mr. Safier provides at the top of this column.

    I don’t know what a failed district looks like. Indeed, I have never said TUSD is a failed district. I have said that TUSD has failed leadership, both elected and appointed. If Mr. Safier gets confused by the difference between “TUSD” and “leadership,” he just needs to ask for clarification. That is pretty much what the comments from most other folks also say. I have been an advocate for public education since I began teaching more than four decades ago. I recognize the difference between the folks who work their butts off in the classrooms and in the schools and those who push paper in the central offices. I guess that Mr. Safier either can’t or won’t see those differences. I have consistently opposed the corporate version of education reform advocated by President Obama, US Secretary of Education Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Eli Broad, Bill Gates, and the usual gang of hedge fund managers and publishing companies who profit from the so-called reforms they push.

    This column is nothing but a huge red herring he has written to justify his defense of the indefensible. There is no other way for him to defend leadership that continues to lower the percentage of its funds going into the classroom. One of Dr. Stegeman’s more recent constituent letters noted that the percentage of TUSD funds going into the classroom dropped below 48% according to the most recent audit. Despite all the verbiage to the contrary if a district puts less than 48% of its funding into its classrooms, we know that student learning is not a priority of the leaders who developed and approved the spending. TUSD gets at least $1,500 per student more than Sunnyside, a district with similar demographics. Sunnyside, despite the far lower per pupil revenue and a lack of TUSD’s economies of scale, does not perform worse then TUSD in student learning as measured in the usual ways…student test scores, graduation rates, and college admissions. They both get grades of C from the state.

    Just to state it once more… TUSD has failed leadership that makes the jobs of even the best teachers that much harder. Unless the leadership and trajectory of TUSD are changed the district will continue to experience large annual enrollment drops, increased loss of state funding, and more closed schools. Perhaps at some point in the future even Mr. Safier will see just how misguided the TUSD leaders he supports have been, but I am not exactly holding my breath.

  9. Choosing an inexperienced superintendent, and hiring his also inexperienced henchman to run a huge urban district in a community they knew nothing about was a giant Board mistake. Promoting only one candidate did not inspire confidence in the district or the community.

    The gentlemen from Texas are in way over their heads, and the results are showing up in the trenches, as Amy reported in her post above. They killed a federally funded teacher mentor program leaving new teachers to struggle with no consistent support. New principals, all 30 of them, (why ARE there so many?) are receiving no mentoring support, while admin plots behind closed doors to throw them under the bus, if there is a problem. Instructional programs that were already paid for have been shelved.

    My guess is HT Sanchez will hold on long enough to get his post third year bonus of $120,000. Then he’ll go back to Texas and kiss the earth, while we here in Tucson will finally be able to thank our lucky stars, this regime is over.

  10. The amount of money, ink, and vitriol spent on something as natural as learning is truly astounding. The main problem with TUSD seems to be people using the district as a political base or to advance socio-political agendas.

  11. Given the results of the last election, those of us who do not subscribe to the liberal/progressive agenda need to urge our neighbors to move an additional 30,000 kids to charter schools that reflect our values and watch TUSD collapse under it’s own bloated, cancerous, weight. Let Adelita and Betts Putnam, and their cronies fight over who gets to control the rubble. FORWARD!

  12. David, with all due respect, the leadership of the District that you so arduously defend really needs substitute teachers–especially long term subs for a whole lot of classes on the south and west sides. You have stated many times that you were a teacher once yourself. Why don’t you apply? You would be amazed at how a little bit of time at a school site or in a classroom reduces that endless patience you seem to have for seeing change occur. At the same time, it would reorient your thoughts back to the kids and away from the increasingly toxic nature of adult debate over how best to improve TUSD. It might even make you wonder how leadership can talk about “stability” when we have lost a huge number of administrators, principals and teachers over the last few years with little explanation. And it would really help the kids! Please consider.

  13. Some of the commenters would like to see more of the charter schools that reflect the backward and anti-education values of the peculiarly toxic brand of Republican that rules this state– these include schools that don’t hire certified teachers, that don’t have transparent governance (constituents can’t attend meetings where policy decisions are made), that don’t provide sufficiently qualified special education professionals to support students’ learning needs, and schools that are run for profit.

    Pretty soon this state will be fit only for rattlesnakes and scorpions. I am a Democrat, but most of my Republican friends with teaching degrees and / or kids enrolled in the schools don’t support this state’s education policy any more than liberals do. The relevant distinction here is not liberal / conservative or Democrat / Republican, it is between those who understand how publicly funded educational systems should be structured and those who do not.

    The problem with Safier is that he is an apologist for the TUSD leaders who, as Marty points out, have not made decisions that support the district’s teachers and students. In defending insupportable leadership decisions, Safier provides ammunition to the people who want to dismantle our public schools. As one of the commenters points out through their screen name, “supporting public education means supporting local reform.” Most of the commenters who have attended TUSD board meetings within the last year or who work in the district understand that reform is desperately needed. Safier either does not understand it, or he refuses to acknowledge it publicly. Through his disingenuous commentary, he has made himself an integral part of the problem in TUSD, rather than part of the solution.

  14. Lots of interesting comments. For anyone offended that I painted the commenters with one “Pox on the whole district” brush, I apologize. I was mostly referring to the drumbeat from a few regulars, then broadening it out to others in the community who have similar negative feelings. But even in many of the reasonable comments above disagreeing with me, there’s lots of anger that I think is overstated. I respect people’s feelings that the current administration is hurting the district. I just don’t agree. I know there are problems, of course. That’s not the issue. The question is the extent of the problems that are based in the administration.

    And Betts, all due respect back to you. However, I’ve had my go-round in the classroom, 30-plus years worth, and I’m not about to go back. It was wonderful and stressful and frustrating and sometimes exhilarating, but enough is enough. I left teaching when the numbers in my high school English classes were climbing — and that was in Oregon where the funding at its worst was better than it is in Arizona — and I knew if I stayed I’d have to assign less writing and give individual students less attention, which would have broken my heart. The current financial situation in the schools is phenomenally disheartening for teachers, and my personal experience is, a lot of teachers’ anger over problems based in budget cuts gets directed at the administration.

    I’m very much on the teachers’ side, but it’s not always clear what that is, since teachers have different views of what’s best for their classrooms, their schools and their districts. I’ll continue to write what I think, read your comments and as much else as I can absorb about the state of education in the U.S. and try to post honestly.

  15. Citizens should have taken responsibility to direct and support teachers in public education. But they got lazy and politics took over. Right now there are no viable solutions.

    And once again charter schools are run by liberals as well as conservatives. They are even run by Muslim sympathizers. And it is all because of the non contact with the parents left and the higher good of the public.

    Until that changes downsize or close it. That will help straighten it out.

  16. Interesting article in today’s NYT

    http://www.nytimes.com/pages/education/ind…

    “In a letter to state superintendents released Monday, Deborah S.
    Delisle, an assistant secretary at the Department of Education, said states
    must develop plans by next June that make sure that public schools comply
    with existing federal law requiring that “poor and minority children are not
    taught at higher rates than other children by inexperienced, unqualified or
    out-of-field teachers.””

    How will TUSD answer this latest federal challenge? With hundreds of open teaching positions filled by substitutes, this could be viewed as another case of administrative failure.

  17. Mr. Safier said, ” I know there are problems, of course. That’s not the issue. The question is the extent of the problems that are based in the administration.”

    I think the administration is a significant part of the problem, but an even bigger part of the problem is the majority on the TUSD Governing Board…the elected leadership. Under our system of public education ultimate responsibility for the running of a school district does not reside with administrators. Ultimate responsibility resides with those elected by the public. The proverbial buck does not stop with Dr. Sanchez; most recently, it has stopped with Grijalva, Foster and Juarez. If they automatically endorse what Sanchez proposes, the failures are theirs to own. It is the Governing Board that votes on the budget that allows Sanchez to starve TUSD classrooms and, at the same time, waste huge amounts of money…tens of millions of dollars…on unnecessary administration and useless programs (according to TUSD’s own studies of its programs.) It is the Governing Board that has refused to hire an internal auditor who reports to them in order to make sure TUSD’s finances are in good health. And it is the Governing Board that has put their own personal, political and ideological desires ahead of student learning.

    I could also write several lengthy comments about the myriad ways the Tucson Education Association has repeatedly failed its own members by flat our refusing to provide leadership to distinguish the TEA (and TUSD’s teachers as a whole) from the failed actions of both the elected and appointed leaders of TUSD, but that will have to wait until that becomes the major focus of a discussion. At least one of those lengthy comments would reflect on what other local teacher associations (both NEA and AFT affiliates) have done in districts with the same kind of truly awful leaders TUSD has had.

    The problems TUSD has had did not begin recently, and there is abundant evidence that the elected leadership has been failing TUSD’s students, parents, teachers and taxpayers for a long, long time, regardless of who occupied the big chair in the superintendent’s office.

  19. The shift of responsibility to the Board is an important one. Some of the extent to which we experience upheaval with a new Superintendent IS the Board’s responsibility–if they want to hold the new Supe to “old” District policies, like the USP–they can represent the will of all of the people who worked on forging that relationship and those policies and make sure that they are respected through the transition. So to some level the amount of churn caused by a new arrival can be mediated by a Board that exercises strong oversight. As a few of the Districts’ bought, paid for and delivered audits have noted, that is not a TUSD tradition.

    For me, the issue is not about TUSD being a failure–at all. (For one thing, why would I have my kid in a failed school district and why on gods green earth would I put this much energy into trying to improve it?!) It is about a longterm inability of the District, its Board(s) and its leadership(s) to reach the full potential of public schooling and to be a shining example of same, instead of an example tarnished by lack of oversight and toxic adult games. Its about the infrastructure and the Board and the Administration and 1010 and the whole ball of wax living up to the incredible work done by low paid hard working teachers, support staff and volunteers who continually have to do more with less in order to try to teach ALL of our kids!

  20. David, you say you “try to post honestly,” but that is not my impression, nor is it the impression of many of the commenters on your TUSD blogs.

    In the run-up to the election, in particular, you knew of very grave problems that you actively tried to minimize and excuse in your writing. The election had the outcome you hoped for, in re-installing the current President of the Board and protecting the majority she has used to make what many of us consider to be catastrophically bad decisions for the district. Now you want us to stop criticizing the district and you say our “negativity” is “destructive to the district and the children who attend its schools.” That’s simply not true, as just about every well-informed commenter in this stream has pointed out.

    In your post above you play the wounded, noble former teacher, just doing his best, just trying his hardest to write in support of education and in support of teachers. This is just more of your manipulative rhetoric, and it is 100% transparent. You write, “The current financial situation in the schools is phenomenally disheartening for teachers….” That is correct, and even more disheartening is the fact that the current administration takes what little money the district has and uses it to create more administrative positions and award fat bonuses to the Superintendent’s proteges, while teachers continue to try to get by on shamefully low salaries and the classrooms are disastrously under-supplied. New faculty positions were added; but many of them in the most challenged parts of the district are filled with subs, as Spanier, Putnam-Hidalgo, and others point out. Another good question is: are the new faculty positions sustainable, if, as Stegeman asserted in a recent constituent update, the district may have a surplus of $20 million, but it has a current operating deficit of $1 million a month? All of this is inexcusable, insupportable, indefensible and yet you continue to excuse it, support it, defend it.

    As I said in another post recently, the push for reform will not stop just because the election is over. It will continue. Attention will be directed to the deficient processes and policies promoted by the district’s leadership, and pressure will be exerted for positive change. First on the list will be the installation of an independent auditor who reports to the Board. The continuing absence of this position is intolerable, especially in light of what we know about the failures of financial planning and the misplaced funding priorities established during the last year. You will no doubt choose not to be a part of the process of asking for this beneficial reform because you have shown clearly and repeatedly what you stand for, and not many of us find ourselves able to believe that it is the best interests of the students and teachers in TUSD.

  23. Betts, your second paragraph is close to my feelings about the issue: different in emphasis from what I might say, but similar in intent. I think you and I are fighting for similar goals in somewhat different ways, which I think is wonderful. The more people who are working for positive change in intelligent, caring ways, the better. If we all agreed, that would be a problem.

  24. Certainly, David, you’d like to get back in with the people you alienated and offended by your pernicious commentary in the weeks leading up to the election. Here you are in the nice comment addressed to Betts: “You and I are fighting for similar goals in somewhat different ways, which I think is wonderful.” What complete BS.

    Similar goals? Not in the view of this campaigner, who knocked on God knows how many doors on Betts’ behalf during the month leading up to the campaign. SOMEWHAT different ways? Entirely different, completely irreconcilable ways. She is honest, direct, and committed to social justice — not to kissing the a**es of those who can raise her a few pegs in the local influence networks. Those are VERY significant differences indeed.

    The pre-election game is over. In that game, you pulled out all the stops and played well on behalf of the machine / network with whom you wanted to strengthen your ties. Nicely done. Now you’re showing your “soft” side again and trying to wheedle your way back into the good graces of those on the left who are in every way superior to you. “It would have broken my heart if I’d had to assign less writing and give less individual attention.” “I’m very much on the teachers’ side….” You think hearts will soften and everyone will say, “Gee, what a sweet guy David is! How could anyone stay mad at him?”

    It remains to be seen, but I think you’re underestimating many of us, just as you consistently underestimate the intelligence of your readers.

  25. Actually, I think Betts and I have many similar interests and priorities when it comes to education. Not identical, but similar. It’s a shame, Not Taken In, that you would try to pit people against one another. That speaks badly of you and makes me think your primary objective here is to vent your spleen, not engage in serious discussion.

  26. Not trying to pit people against one another, David, just trying to call a spade a spade — but that’s the sort of motive — to tell the TRUTH — which you entirely fail to understand.

  27. David, please take Brian Taber up on his offer. I think it might help the community better understand TUSD.

    Taxpayers are looking for trust they can build on.

  28. thanks Rat T the offer is out there , but I don’t think he ‘ll take it , it does challenge all of his beliefs in TUSD and Grijalva

  29. It sure seems like it does. They do a great job of protecting each other. Talk about the “good old boy network.”

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