Get ready for the Arizona Department of Education’s War on TUSD, Part 2. It’s almost inevitable. Almost. Only Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal can call off the bitter, destructive battle by declaring a truce. And that’s exactly what he should do.
If you remember, Tom Horne and Huppenthal turned TUSD’s Mexican American Studies program into a Republican bête noire, using it to rile up the base and win their 2010 elections. The Legislature joined in the fun when it passed HB 2881, which gave Huppenthal the authority to play judge, jury and executioner and declare MAS illegal. By January 2012, the program was gone.
The problem is, there’s a federal desegregation order saying TUSD has to create “culturally relevant courses of instruction” for African-American and Latino students, putting the district somewhere between a state rock and a federal hard place. TUSD wrote its new Culturally Relevant Curriculum—similar in many ways to the MAS curriculum—and began teaching the classes in August. To no one’s surprise, Huppenthal issued an ultimatum: either water down the course content or expect the wrath of HB 2881 to come down on the district’s head once again.
Huppenthal can and should defuse this whole ugly confrontation by simply letting TUSD go about its educational business. Here are a few reasons why:
The other 99.6 percent of Arizona’s students deserve Huppenthal’s attention. Students in the dismantled Mexican American Studies program never comprised more than four-tenths of 1 percent of Arizona’s million-plus K-12 students. The time and effort Huppenthal spent crushing the program was wildly disproportionate to its size, and the same will be true if he goes after the new CRC program. Better to put all that energy into, say, persuading Huppenthal’s former legislative colleagues to increase education funding next session, something Huppenthal says he supports. More funding would benefit 100 percent of Arizona’s students.
Still, if students suffered academically from being in the MAS or CRC program, Huppenthal would have good reason to interfere. But in fact . . .
The kids are doing all right. Better than all right, actually. A study concluded that students in MAS scored higher on the AIMS test and graduated in greater numbers than similar TUSD students who weren’t in the program. Some people disputed the findings, but one fact is indisputable. The students in the program were doing just fine academically, and most likely the CRC students will do just fine as well.
A suggestion: If Huppenthal wants to improve Arizona’s student achievement, he should close some of the state’s worst charter schools. A recent national study says the achievement scores of students in Arizona’s charters are about 14 percent lower than similar students in school districts, and the main reason is, some lousy charters are bringing down the average. Huppenthal should conduct a thorough investigation and close down the charters that aren’t educating their students.
Still, if TUSD students were forced to take classes taught from an African-American or Latino perspective against their wills, that would be a problem. But in fact . . .
It’s the students’ and parents’ choice. No one was forced to take MAS courses, and the same is true with the new program. Students sign up because they want to take the classes, and parents give their consent because their children are thriving. Students who “don’t like school” have been known to talk to their parents—proudly—about what they learned in class instead of muttering “Nothing” when asked what they did in school today. That’s gotta make a parent happy.
And those same parents should be even happier knowing …
Their children are learning the meaning of true grit. Huppenthal has spoken positively about the educational concept of “grit,” the idea that students’ tenacity in the face of frustration, can be as vital to their success as their grades or their AIMS scores. Anyone who has talked to students from the dismantled MAS program knows what a gritty bunch of kids they are. No wonder so many of them say they never would have made it to college, or earned their bachelor’s degree, without the strength and tenacity—the grit—they gained in those MAS courses.
Come on, Superintendent Huppenthal. We’re talking about a small program that’s succeeding academically and is popular with students and parents. Declare a truce, move on, and let everyone get back to the important business of educating our children.
This article appears in Sep 5-11, 2013.
Huppenthal is on the same “mission from God” as Francisco Franco was in 1936 and Agustin Pinochet was in 1973. He’s a whacked-out rabid right wing catholic who never spent a single day in a public classroom. Research doesn’t matter to fanatics. This is “Faith-based” public education in action. Take the cretin to court, TUSD.
Why does the Weekly hate charter schools?
No one hates ALL charter schools. The problem is in Arizona charter schools are being used to destroy public education. The state funds charter schools at a higher rate, they have stripped the flesh of funding for public education to a skeletal condition and the incentives they offer to increase funding benefit charters, who are able to pick and choose students, over public schools who take everyone. The state of Arizona wants to privatize education and make it a growth industry which would be a disaster.
Charter schools are accountable to almost no one. The right wing fetish is for minimally regulated charter schools regardless of performance. They self perpetuate their board, they are not voted upon. They can procure from their own board members’ businesses. If they went out of business, the charter board members own the buildings and property acquired with the charter, they don’t revert to the State, or the local district. If all this deregulation or innovation is good for charters, why are they not good for conventional school districts? If charter boot a student for any reason, they end up in the regular school district. It doesn’t go the other way. Charters have for profit schools. Those are reasons enough.
This column is full of misrepresentation as well as out and out lies. Here’s one: “A study concluded that students in MAS scored higher on the AIMS test and graduated in greater numbers than similar TUSD students who weren’t in the program.” Mr Safier may be referring to the sorry excuse for a study put together by Augie Romero that led to the out and out lie that 98.4% of MAS students graduated. Or, he may be referring to the study done by one of the UA professors who helped develop the original MAS curriculum. The non-MAS sample in that study had more than twice as many special education students in it than the MAS sample. And they wonder why people do not believe anything TUSD and the UA Ethnic Studies departments say in defense of MAS.
The actual stats from TUSD’s statistician show that 84% of MAS students as well as 84% of Mexican American students who never took an MAS class graduated from TUSD. Students who never took MAS classes actually did marginally better than MAS students on the AIMS tests.
BTW, the desegregation order signed by Judge Bury requires culturally relevant classes. It does not require the programs of indoctrination that were in the defunct MAS classes and that ideologues like Augie Romero are trying to put back into this sort of classes.
Huppenthal and Horne did what Tucsonans lacked the good sense and courage to do.
Neither one of these guys are interested in education. There only interest is destroying it. The Republican and Tea Party agenda is to destroy public education and go to private schools where the Republicans can control the teachers and the programs that are taught.
It is like North Carolina who has taken Civic classes out of the schools, teaching kids how to vote, when the Republicans are suppressing voter rights. Republicans are not for a democracy. They are for a limited voting base who will support big corporations and the NRA.
As you rip Huppenthal and TUSD, I wonder why anyone questions parents’ decisions to put their children in a charter school. Mine are in a charter school that scores well above TUSD, state, and national average on those silly tests. And I think it means little that they do, because those tests are ridiculous. But if you use the testing as a valid measure, I will point out that our local TUSD school is well below average. In large part it’s due to lack of funds. I want my children to be ready to meet the challenges of the world, to be able to think, resolve problems, and work with people, and their school focuses on those skills. Yes, they need background knowledge taught in the schools, but these tests don’t tell me anything about the skills I am most concerned with. I have nothing against public schools in concept, but if they don’t deliver, I will look for other alternatives.
Another note about those tests: I was amazed the first year those tests were given. Our school generally doesn’t use tests, and I thought the kids would be anxious going into them. It was a bit of a concern of mine that they didn’t get tests regularly, in fact. Yet, every child I asked was looking forward to the tests. They were excited. It was something different. And then after the tests, they reported that they thought they were easy. Now, every year they look forward to the tests. They are easy, and they look at it as a break from school. I didn’t think my children would score that well, but they did great. It actually reinforced my decision to keep them where they are.
I would like to fit in a whole conversation about this, but this is already more than enough for a comments page. I just hope this state does education right.