Arizona legislature gets sneaky in its embrace of a nuclear future for Arizona’s public schools
By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings An agenda for a meeting of the Senate Rules Committee for Tuesday has been posted, with the committee scheduled to meet upon adjournment of the Senate floor session. Advertisement There are two items on it: 1. Permission for the late introduction of 13 budget-related bills. Given yesterday's news that … Read more
Before redistricting, consider increasing the number of districts
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Before you get upset and spit out your coffee over the mere thought of the idea of adding more elected representatives to the Arizona Legislature, hear me out. I have always believed that there should be a per capita formula for the number of residents served by state legislators. As the population … Read more
LWV of Cochise County on Arizona Competitive Districts Coalition
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Members of the League of Women Voters of Cochise County (LWVCC) Invite you to join us March 19, 2011 at 10:15 AM Sierra Vista Library Mona Bishop Room 2600 E. Tacoma St., Sierra Vista, AZ Guest speaker: Mr. Ken Clark, Chair, Arizona Competitive Districts Coalition Topic of discussion: The Arizona Competitive … Read more
AZ budget action Wednesday?
By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings From AP, via the Arizona Capitol Times – Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce says the Senate will act Wednesday on a proposed state budget even though it doesn’t have an agreement with Republican Gov. Jan Brewer. Pearce says Republican senators are anxious to approve a budget and that … Read more
Danger increasing at nuclear reactors
by David Safier From a NY Times article, 9pm, our time: Japan’s nuclear crisis verged toward catastrophe on Tuesday . . . [skip] . . . most of the 800 workers at the Daiichi facility had been told to leave to avoid exposure to unhealthy levels of radiation at the plant. They said 50 workers … Read more
More on the Star’s up-is-down reporting on Ethnic Studies
by David Safier
I posted yesterday about a truly terrible, misleading article in the Star written by Alexis Huicochea about the achievement of students in the Mexican American Studies program. Read the first half, and you would think the MAS people are liars claiming their students achieve and graduate at a higher rates than other students. Read the second half — the part few people get to — and you'll find that the TUSD statistician and the Supe, John Pedicone, agree the program raises students achievement scores and graduation rates.
I'm going to go into a longer analysis after the jump, but I want to keep it short here. Here is a summary of the findings put together by the TUSD statistician David Scott.
- In February, Scott analyzed the graduation rate of all Hispanic students in TUSD in the 2010 cohort and those in Mexican American Studies. The Mexican American Studies students graduated at an 11% higher rate: 89% compared to 78% for all Hispanics. The AIMS passing rate of Hispanics in Mexican American Studies was 3 to 5% higher than among Hispanics in general.
- In March, Scott created a different comparison: every TUSD student who did not participate in Mexican American Studies (took no classes or less than one credit) compared to students who took one credit or more of Mexican American Studies. In 2010, Mexican American Studies students had a 93.6% graduation rate compared to an 82.7% rate for everyone else. Remember, the "everyone else" includes Hispanic and non-Hispanic students, including those at University High and other high performing schools.
- Also in March, Scott looked at the percentage of students in and out of the Mexican American Studies program who did not pass AIMS their sophomore year, then passed it their junior year. The junior year passing rate for Mexican American Studies students tended to average more than 10% higher than those not in the program. To understand how significant this is, you have to realize that Mexican American Studies begins at the junior year, so more students passing as juniors can most likely be attributed to their participation in Mexican American Studies.
By any standard I can think of, those are incredibly impressive results.
Read more about the problems with Alexis Huicochea's article after the jump.
What can we learn about school reforms from Detroit?
by David Safier Detroit hasn't been doing so well improving its schools by taking the advice of today's "reformers." It's not a fair example, because as a city, Detroit is pretty much a basket case. Still,it's instructive to see how the city's educational reforms have been working out. Detroit has been down the charter school … Read more
