Steve Gallon removed from Mexican American Studies audit, but the costly audit continues

by David Safier

Steve Gallon III, who was supposed to be part of an audit of Mexican American Studies to determine if it complies with A.R.S. § 15-112 has been removed, or has removed himself (You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to) because of his checkered past. That's a good thing.

And having an audit to determine the legality of the program is better than having the Horne/Huppenthal tag team simply declare MAS illegal. So I guess, in a way, the audit is a good thing too.

But, you know, times is hard, as they said during the Great Depression, and money is scarce. According to the Star, the audit will take four to six weeks, and the paper refers to "a team" of auditors. If these folks are from out of the Tucson area, they have to be paid a salary, plus travel and living expenses for the time they spend in town. That's a serious chunk of change. And at the same time, the ADE staff has to spend taxpayer-funded time evaluating the whole situation.

The ADE has contracted with Cambium Learning Group to complete the audit. Budget hawks should be asking how much money that contract is costing the Arizona taxpayers.

Imagine a saner parallel universe where the Republican legislators and Ed Supe groused about TUSD's Ethnic Studies program, then said, "With all the educational issues we have in this state, we're not going to obsess about one small program in one school district."

What a wonderful world that would be.