by David Safier

TUSD Board President Mark Stegeman has put together a  resolution to turn Mexican American Studies hisory courses into elective instead of core courses and look into the English courses to see whether they should be made into electives as well.

For a number of reasons based on the resolution, I see this as a wrong-headed move. The "Save Ethic Studies" group stated in a Media release the resolution contains "blatant misrepresentations of the facts regarding MAS's effectiveness, cost and class size" and the resolution's purpose is to "forward a blatantly political agenda." Those ideas will be presented in a press conference Monday, April 25, 10 am, at TUSD headquarters, ahead of the Tuesday Board meeting where the resolution will be proposed.

I'm not privy to the "Save Ethic Studies" arguments, so I'll present my evaluation of the resolution based on what I know. You can read the entire resolution after the jump.

The biggest problem with Stegeman's resolution is not what it includes. It's what it leaves out. The concerns he states don't warrant making major changes in the program. I'm more convinced than ever, the prime mover behind changing Mexican American Studies courses to electives is an attempt to appease Ed Supe John Huppenthal so he won't end the program completely. To the extent this is true, the resolution itself is both incomplete and disingenuous.

And if the proposed changes are passed in an effort to appease Huppenthal, it will almost certainly be a futile gesture. As I wrote 3 weeks ago when I first heard the fix might be in to change the program,

. . . if Pedicone and the three members of the board think throwing a bone to Huppenthal will make him back off — they have not learned the lessons of recent Arizona political history.

Now, to some of the arguments in the resolution (NOTE: Sorry about the length. The rest is written with Ethnic Studies wonks in mind.)

The traditional high school core curriculum substantially ignores the experience and contributions of many ethnic minorities.

This has nothing at all to do with the MAS program. It is a flaw in TUSD's standard curriculum, which can and should be changed.

. . . the MAS courses have helped about 10 more TUSD juniors per year to pass the AIMS reading test (with smaller gains for the writing and math tests) and have similarly helped about 10 more seniors to graduate.

This statement seems to disparage the value of the program, but it does nothing of the kind. The only measurable outcomes of the program are the increase in AIMS scores and graduation rates. From those, it is reasonable to infer that many students who passed the AIMS test as sophomores (MAS begins the junior year) and students who would have graduated without the program also benefit in other ways which we have no instruments to measure.

The annual cost of the MAS program is slightly over $1 million, several times the cost of educating the MAS students in standard core classes. The combined annual cost of the other three Ethnic Studies programs is about $1.6 million.

This statement begs more questions than it answers. Does the MAS program cost $1 million over and above what it would cost to educate the students if MAS were eliminated? If so, how much of that cost is classroom-based, and how much of it has to do with expenses outside of the classroom? Are there reasonable ways to trim the out-of-classroom budget at a time when all progams are facing cuts? After all, if the  Ethnic Studies programs other than MAS, which do not offer classes, cost a total of $1.6 million, that means there are a number of costs outside of the courses themselves. Trimming adminstrative and other overhead costs from MAS, if necessary or desirable, has no relation to changing core courses to elective courses.

The state’s requirements for the high school Social Sciences core . . . [have] an inherent limit on how much time can be spent covering particular events and themes. Whether the MAS Social Studies courses have maintained adequate coverage of the core topics is questionable.

I looked over the ADE's web page on the Social Science core and saw no expressed or implied statements about how much weight a course must give to the various items. Unless I missed something, the statement that there is "an inherent limit on how much time can be spent covering particular events and themes" is incorrect.

The Ethnic Studies departments (however titled) should adopt academic support for individual students as a primary mission, using proven models.

If there were such a thing as "proven models," we would see programs throughout Arizona and the country which result in consistent and significant gains in academic achievement for students from minority groups. The fact is, there are no proven models I have found which can be adopted with anything like a guaranteed track record of success. The MAS program is a rare "proven" success story, with academic and anecdotal evidence to indicate it's working. Abandoning its current successful formula is simply foolish.

Staff should require teachers to keep copies of their course examinations on file for a set number of years, for the purpose of examination and analysis.

Mark, don't go there. Don't. Go. There. If TUSD is going to insist MAS teachers keep their course examinations, it has to insist all teachers keep their exams, or at least all teachers of core courses — which I happen to think is a bad idea in any case. But this kind of selective monitoring, requiring only MAS teachers to keep their tests on file, smacks of a witch hunt where the purpose is to look for a reason to condemn the program. It is very, very bad policy, more fitting of Huppenthal and Pearce than of a progressive educator. [UPDATE: Mark Stegeman informed me his proposal that teachers keep their course examinations applies to all teachers, not just MAS teachers. I stand corrected.]

A FINAL COMMENT: It's hard to know if Stegeman and Pedicone have the votes lined up to pass this proposal. I hope not. I hope any Board members who are wavering decide to vote against the resolution.

As for Pedicone, he's either against the resolution, or he's playing verbal games. In an article in the Weekly, he expressed what seems to be support for expanding the program, not diminishing it. When he responded to the accusation that he wanted to end ethnic studies, he said,

"It is really the furthest from the truth," Pedicone said. "This is so politically out of control. If anything, I see the value in expanding the program, because the results show how successful the program is with students."

If this is an honest statement of support for the program, Pedicone should state it clearly and openly to the public and the Board so everyone knows exactly where he stands on the issue.

You can read the entire resolution after the jump: