Tuesday the TUSD board passed a resolution stating “the Governing Board and the District, and its administration, teachers, counselors and staff will support all students equally, whether their immigration status is documented or undocumented.” The vote was 4-1 with Michael Hicks voting No. The TUSD resolution isn’t as lyrical as the one put out by the Phoenix Unified High School District—it uses the more formal Whereas/Therefore format—but the intent is the same.
An important phrase in the PUHSD statement isn’t in TUSD’s resolution, which states that PUHSD will stand behind its students “regardless of changes in law or policy.” But really, until a district is put to the test—something we hope won’t happen, even with Trump’s anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim campaign promises and similar rhetoric which has been coming from the Arizona legislature for years—we won’t know how aggressively it will protect its students and their families. However, one portion of the TUSD statement is exceptionally relevant from an educational standpoint:
Discrimination against children, beyond being illegal, harms them emotionally, socially, and economically in ways and degrees that cannot be fully known or measured because their effects last throughout entire lifetimes.
I hear Pima Community College is preparing a similar statement. The more educational institutions that formalize a statement of support for all its students post-election, the better. If anyone knows of similar statements from other schools or school districts around the state, you can let me know at tucsoneditor@tucsonlocalmedia.com. Put my name in the message and it’ll get to me.
The entire TUSD resolution is below:
A RESOLUTION OF THE GOVERNING BOARD OF TUCSON UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 OF PIMA COUNTY, ARIZONA EXPRESSING COMMITMENT TO STUDENTS REGARDLESS OF IMMIGRATION STATUSWHEREAS, the Tucson Unified School District (“the District”) exists for the purpose of providing a free public education to children residing in Arizona;
WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Plyer v. Doe, held that the denial of equal educational opportunities to students on the basis of their immigration status (whether documented or not) was a discriminatory violation of the United States Constitution;
WHEREAS, the District serves numerous immigrant families and their children;
WHEREAS, discrimination against children, beyond being illegal, harms them emotionally, socially, and economically in ways and degrees that cannot be fully known or measured because their effects last throughout entire lifetimes;
WHEREAS, school districts and organizations collectively recognized their obligations to educate students regardless of immigration status earlier this calendar year by observing National Coming Out on April 7, 2016;
WHEREAS, the invitation and promise to the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” which is found at the feet of the Statue of Liberty must surely, if at all, be given effect in the lives of children;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Governing Board and the District, and its administration, teachers, counselors and staff will support all students equally, whether their immigration status is documented or undocumented.
This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2016.
For $10,000 per head, TUSD is willing to violate Federal Law. Tells a lot about exploitation by liberals to line their pockets.
Obama is right. We have not put slavery behind us. TUSD is using these kids for money. Say goodbye to federal funds as a sanctuary school/city.
The statement means nothing about the district’s commitment to protecting the vulnerable. It may mean something, as other commenters suggest, about the district’s commitment to protecting its revenues in the form of per-pupil funding.
The statement was passed last night in a Board room full of teachers demonstrating about the district’s failure to deliver 301 funds owed to them, in the same meeting where constituents spoke in the Call to the Audience about the district’s failure to protect students from bullying, failure to enforce disciplinary policies that protect teachers from harm, failure to protect substitute teachers’ wages and benefits from the for-profit firm to which Sanchez-Grijalva-Foster-Juarez outsourced their labor, failure to protect MAS students from punitive state actions, failure to use available desegregation funds to support magnet schools on the South side in a way that would protect them from losing their magnet status.
More hypocrisy, more attempts to mislead the ignorant, and a great illustration of why THEORY and pontificating statements like this mean NOTHING if they are not backed up by consistent, uniformly applied PRACTICE.
As usual, Safier either doesn’t know enough about what’s happening in the district to spot the hypocrisy, or (more likely) he is a willing accomplice in it.
David and TUSD could overthrow our city’s ability to attract good employers and well paying jobs. As long as they hold TUSD students as monetary hostages nothing will change. The illegals don’t know they are already slaves.
With all this talk about losing funding and federal dollars and magnet status for failure to have a sufficiently diverse student population no one is reporting the ethnic breakdown that purportedly lead to this situation — why? I can only assume the schools met the diversity thresholds before to garner the magnet designation and now they don’t, so again — what happened?
SG Smith:
They’re given magnet funding so they CAN diversify. If the programs installed with the extra “magnet” funding are sufficiently magnetic, i.e. if they offer something of value that is not obtainable elsewhere, like an outstanding fine arts program, people outside the neighborhood (and presumably people of diverse racial and SES backgrounds) are willing to drive across town and enroll. Then the demographics of the school change and it has achieved voluntary, successful desegregation.
If a so-called “magnet” school never actually receives sufficient funding and support to develop outstanding programs that attract diverse enrollment from a broader geographic area than its immediate neighborhood, after a certain period it is determined to be a failure and it loses its magnet status. That is what appears to be happening now with 6 magnet schools in TUSD.
So in essence, you’re trying to get students to “bus” themselves from one neighborhood to another all for the promise of a better education from an organization that routinely graduates students who cannot read or write?
Here’s an idea, instead of trying to “game” money from the federal government, which I can somewhat understand since the state government’s support of public education is on life support, let’s stop playing politics with children’s lives and start giving them the tools to succeed in the 21st Century against nearly every other nation around the world.
Or…all schools could offer the exact same curriculum. And opportunity right in each childs neighborhood. Otherwise its a lot like scrambling an ant hill. Lots of anger and confusion until they can get it back to where it used to be.
What makes us think these leaders are education specialists?
Based on their performance — nothing.
I am so glad these districts and PCC are committed to teaching all children/people. We need that more than anything else in our country right now… commitment to all people. Of course there are those here who only attach a sinister reason behind their commitment. However, I am proud to say I support their decisions grandly.
Much fanfare and formality in print but this school district is simply stating what has always been the norm in public schools everywhere. Schools never checked immigration status. That would be a major policy change.
With you Guardians and thanks for that reminder Sunriser. And you, What, Again….what Federal Law is that that says that we can not either educate all children who are here in this country or we can’t issue a statement in support of that? Now THAT would be government over-reach.
SG Smith:
Desegregation funds come from desegregation levies on TUSD taxpayers. They are not federal funds.
There have been many problems through the four decades since the desegregation case was originally decided with funds being applied in ways that support achieving “unitary status” (equitable and high quality services delivered to all the district’s students). Last school year, in a context in which it receives more than $60 million in desegregation funding every year, the district cut the budgets of magnet schools that were already having trouble developing the programs that were supposed to make them “magnetic.” This at the same time they were adding positions to central administration and increasing (and in at least one case, radically increasing) the compensation of central administrators.
In Safier’s previous post on Phoenix Union, the point was made in the comment stream that Phoenix Union is a district that, in addition to making statements of intent to protect its diverse population, actually serves the best interests of its population by applying its desegregation funds in ways that BENEFIT STUDENTS and IMPROVE SERVICES IN SCHOOLS.
The important thing to note here, from my point of view, is that making statements like the one that is the topic of this blog means NOTHING when the statements are put forward for approval (and read aloud in the Board meeting) by Board members like Kristel Foster. She is probably the worst culprit on the Board in terms of giving a malfunctioning Superintendent carte blanche in every possible way — to lie repeatedly, to overpay himself while underpaying teachers, to cut the budgets of the magnets, to outsource the management of the substitute teachers filling too many TUSD classrooms and undermine their pay and benefits, to fail to protect teachers and students by allowing the district to suppress the reporting and action in response to disciplinary incidents to make themselves appear better than they are in the stats that must be reported — etc., ad nauseam.
When Kristel Foster puts statements like this forward for the Board to approve and the public to celebrate, she expects to continue to mislead ignorant constituents who do not take the trouble to know what her actual shameful record in office is. She hopes to give the impression that she cares about protecting diverse students when looking at her record in office would suggest that she is incapable of doing what is necessary in her month-to-month role on the Board to protect the students in the district from harm by a malfeasant district administration.
(And let’s not forget that she received a $5,000 campaign donation from a marketing executive at the company to which she voted to give a $21 million contract to manage (and profit from) outsourced sub labor. She kept the donation for weeks and only decided to return it once a lot of media attention had been focused on it.)
There are at this point thousands of people in TUSD who see through Foster’s sad, shabby act. She has four more years on the Board thanks to members of the Pima County Democratic Party establishment, who used every resource at their disposal to ram her back into office. For the next four years it will be reasonable to expect ongoing commentary that will call attention to what her ACTUAL commitments are. These can be determined by looking at her VOTING RECORD IN OFFICE and the degree to which she HOLDS THE SUPERINTENDENT ACCOUNTABLE — not by statements like this.
I understand the distinction of where the various monies come from, but no matter who is paying the bills, although ultimately it is the individual tax payers one way or another, we continue to see political and social agendas setting the course for what should be a simple goal — education for all in the basic skills of reading, writing and math.
Above all, we need to teach students critical thinking skills before one side or another begins the indoctrination and demonizing of whomever is the latest boogeyman foisted on the masses to maintain fear and the status quo.
The entire history of Affirmative Action has only produced a 1% rise in college graduation for minorities. So TUSD should not take the failure personally. Perhaps instead of magnet schools there should be more remedial schools. This is how California deals with its minority problem: 54.4% Hispanics enrolled in Special Education in California.
http://www.kidsdata.org/topic/97/special-n…
Our school systems are different than other countries. China separates all the middle school kids and sends the promising ones on and earmarks the underachievers for the APPLE IPAD LINE! This is how they show the success of their schools, by removing the weeds. In the US we are obliged to educate everyone so our standards must be LOWER!
You can not teach a person with an 83 IQ trigonometry.
The IQ of Mexico as a nation on average is 89.
The IQ of Mexican/Americans is 89. What can you extrapolate from that????
The IQ of Syria is 83.
13 years ago the IQ of the US was 103
Now it’s 98 – What can you extrapolate from that?
Perhaps bringing back aptitude tests may be a solution. Kids who are academically oriented should be encouraged to accelerate in academics as they will, most likely, have to subsidize those who have marginal aptitudes.
60% of Households Now Receive More in Subsidized Income Than they Pay in Taxes – REDISTRIBUTION OF INCOME!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-18/6…
The Impact of Low, Average, and High IQ on Economic Growth and Technological Progress:
in order to foster economic growth, governments should invest in facilities that benefit all societal groups of intelligence level, with highest priority given to the intellectual class, followed by the average ability citizens and the non-intellectual class respectively.
http://www.amren.com/news/2014/05/the-impa…
The IQ Breaking Point How Civilized Society is Maintained or Lost.
It seems like there is a point, somewhere around 97, above which a modern civilization can be maintained and below which things abruptly begin to fall apart.
https://staffanspersonalityblog.wordpress.…
The resolution changes nothing that TUSD is doing, which complies with the law and is similar to what almost all other districts do. The board has passed similar resolutions in the past. Several votes at the same meeting had a significant effect on TUSD’s actual actions and practices. It would be great if more news outlets reported the substantive content of the board meetings, rather than resolutions that have minimal or no practical impact.
Betts putnam hidalgo – Grijalva,
Unfortunately districts like TUSD have literally had a license to steal from the property taxpayers for these indoctrination centers which many legal residents have fled.
How will you fill the seats and pay the bills when the border is controlled and the flow of 10k dollar bills is turned off?
Nothing has changed. Move on folks, nothing to see here.
Mark Stegeman Grijalva,
You’re right. The statement made changes nothing. By almost any measurement TUSD has failed. And you seem to be just fine with that.
Amen to that, Mark Stegeman. Better media coverage of TUSD is absolutely needed. The district continues to benefit from many so-called “news” organizations (and some watch-dog organizations) being negligent in their reporting and / or pulling punches when they know of bad actions in office of PCDP-favored candidates.
It seems likely, though, that the media and watchdog organizations will have their attention trained on the January Board meeting and some will be hoping that the single largest problem in the district may be solved by one decisive, appropriate Board action. Whether it’s yea or nay, I imagine that decision will receive broad coverage.
What, Again: I ran an entire campaign dedicated to the platform that I am absolutely not fine with that.
I have to disagree Betts. Where does it end? You want education of everybody, at our expense. What’s next, healthcare for Guatemalans? You seem ready to take our money when it’s your industry, but sooner or later everybody has AN industry. Let them go home and let their government educate them.
Notwithstanding the fact that illegals, by their very nature have to be willing to break additional laws to keep from getting caught after breaking the first law.
Entering the country illegally.
@Postimpressionist re: Special Ed services in CA.
The majority of children receiving Special Ed services in CA receive services for speech and language impairment. Nice try making it seem as if those children are intellectually impaired. Guess what! Making statements that Latinos and Arabs have lower IQs is……..racism. (I noticed you had no link for your IQ statements.) It’s always good to get your info from more than one source and actually read the research with an open mind. http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/se/sr/cefspeced.a…
Mark Stegeman Grijalva – you ran a campaign not fine with that, and when it came time to vote, 100% in solidarity with the Grijalva’s.
@postimpressionist re: Your Malasian IQ study that the brightest should be educated the best.
Here’s some pushback from other researchers:
“IQ in this study is represented by cognitive skills, in which the rise in the IQ level brings about more efficiencies, thus potentially producing a higher productivity with the same amount of resources (i.e., doing more with less).
This justifies our finding that all three IQ classes have a significantly positive effect on economic growth, suggesting that the intelligence level is a fundamental component of all economic
activities, embracing both the high- and low-skilled labor forces, with the high-skilled labors having the largest impact on productivity.”
Mark Stegeman – as a board member, is TUSD looking, developing impacts of the border being secured and what that does to the financials of our public school system? You are fully aware that a substantial number of seats are in fact filled with illegals. Not doing a financial impact analysis would be a violation of fiduciary duties to the property tax payers in TUSD, would it not?
Or will this just be another Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil as TUSD falls further under the rule of the Grijalva’s?
What, Again:
Look into the history of TUSD governance for the last ten years before asking questions like this of Mark Stegeman. He is not an ally of “the Grijalvas.”
Studying the impacts of border policy is not the role of the TUSD Board. Overseeing the Superintendent, setting district policy, and trying to ensure that the district budgets in such a way that it is using the limited available resources to provide the best possible education to the students in the schools are tasks that belong to TUSD Governing Board members. These tasks, in the current context, are challenging enough for Board members who are volunteers. Most of these people work for a living in addition to doing the time consuming and difficult work of serving on the Board of a very troubled school district.
In other posts recently you have emphasized the importance of the Constitution of the United States and the Supreme Court as its interpreter. Did you read this portion of the TUSD resolution:
“the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Plyer v. Doe, held that the denial of equal educational opportunities to students on the basis of their immigration status (whether documented or not) was a discriminatory violation of the United States Constitution.”
This is the framework within which school board members, including Mark Stegeman, must operate. As he wrote, “The resolution changes nothing that TUSD is doing, which complies with the law and is similar to what almost all other districts do. “
Get the facts right on TUSD & Its Board
The impact of border policy is the biggest financial planning factor for TUSD in the next ten years. If the stream of illegals is shut off, you will see TUSD with a drop in enrollment of at least 30%. Do you have any clue what that means. Beginning next year or in 2018 you may see a significant drop in K-3.
It is imperative and fundamental for the superintendent to present to the board realistic budgets which are almost entirely based on forward enrollment projections.
Let me get the facts straight. The SC ruled we educate everybody, regardless of citizenship. And the federal government through the BP has the right to arrest and deport people here illegally.
If that is right, why not wait at the schools for them to show up?
Pima Muje – Just the facts:
If IQ can be changed how come the IQs of Mexico and Mexican/Americans are the same?
EXPLAIN that FACT????
Also some more educational help for you:
These are the parents of the “Special Ed” kids –
Nevada saw 90% of immigrants flunk the written test in the first few weeks a new driver authorization card was offered. The California DMV (90% failed) is also concerned that immigrants might not have the literacy proficiency needed to pass.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada-a…
I didn’t use 1 source. I used 4 sources. You only used 1 source!
@Postimpressionist You reached the wrong conclusions from your four sources. I actually only needed one source, the CA Dept of Education, to prove your conclusions wrong. Once again, I’ll explain it to you. The Special Education (no quotes. It’s a real thing), category with the most students in California is speech and language. Not intellectual disability.
Concluding that certain countries have people with low IQs is really ugly.
Arguments based on essentializing / reifying quantitative measurements like IQ or standardized test scores are so invalid to begin with that you waste your time arguing with people who put these arguments forward, Pima Mujer.
What are the factors (economic, political, social, educational) that lead to individuals having the IQs they do?
IQ is not something that is genetically predetermined. It’s something you develop, based on what kind of experiences and opportunities you have from the time you are conceived until the time the test is administered.
If a certain demographic population has a lower IQ, there may be any number of causes for that, including that deficient nutrition and / or deficient health care and / or deficient educational opportunities were available to that population.
Have the people who make these “deport ’em all” arguments ever heard, first hand, the stories of recently deported immigrants? By in large, we are talking about people who are faced with a circumstance where they must undertake a dangerous journey and leave their country — something most people do not WANT to do — or face a life of grinding poverty and inability to support their families. People like the ancestors of most Americans. (Let’s keep in mind that the people in this country who have the prior claim to “ownership” of the land are now living on the reservations people of European descent relegated them to, against their will. Perhaps they should deport us all.)
Bottom line: the vast majority of people living in this country benefited from immigration policies that permitted economic migrants to cross American borders and obtain legal status. It is a sad shame that some of the descendants of these immigrants have turned so hard-hearted they seem unwilling to even consider the valid policy question of whether and in what fashion and at what rate it is feasible to return the favor to people in the same position a few generations down the line. “Deport ’em all” and “Build a wall!” are neither feasible nor humane, as public policy, but they sure get a lot of play in America these days.
Dear Impressionist,
Spare us with the statistical data. Love doesn’t grow in your scientific Petri dishes, and I’m pretty sure we don’t want to be a mini California who distinguish or segregate our kids by economic socio status or biological status. Please excuse yourself…thank you. THE UNIVERSE
Ouch I see my truthful comments that i posted have been removed. Shocker!
Im sure that tyats thanks to a county ally.shameful and it’s speaks for itself.
We as a communith will wait for the next “maasage parlor” scandal involving the elite. The families in this town deserve better. So how about trying to do that instead of controlling suppressing and ignoring the people andissuescobtroledabd committed by professional predators clearly allowed to wipe out people families. Dozens of families have been victimized by this and condoning it makea it even worse.
I love this town and the injustice and excuses for failing to protect and serve the ones who don’t make the 1% cut doesn’t fly here
Dear researchers,
I think you need to have a genuine “come to Jesus” meeting and realize at some point you have to interact with minorites, engage in human to human contact and have ferlings…