David Safier

Expand UHS admissions criteria and add a new campus

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by David Safier

Sarah Garrecht Gassen got it right in her Sunday column saying TUSD should expand the criteria for admitting students to University High. The deseg plan mandates that UHS have an ethnic makeup closer to the district's, and that's only going to happen if the criteria for admission are expanded beyond a student's GPA and entrance exam score. After all, colleges look at essays and recommendations along with GPA and SAT scores. Why not UHS? When you broaden the enrollment base of a school, you enrich the campus by giving all the students a broader social experience, and you enrich the community by increasing the diversity of its best educated students.

The district should also look seriously at creating a second UHS campus. Its current campus, which it shares with Rincon High, is bursting at the seams. Along with TUSD students, the school attracts students from neighboring districts. This year's freshman class has about 175 out-of-district students, including some from top academic districts like Vail and Foothills. That's very healthy for TUSD, but district students have to come first, especially those who need to be included because of the deseg ruling.

Instead of seeing potential overcrowding as a problem, TUSD should consider this a golden opportunity to expand the UHS franchise. The district has lots of empty school buildings, and I've been told some high schools have enough space to create another UHS/Rincon-like situation. Either way, the space for a new campus already exists, so the cost of creating a new campus would be reasonable. And if creating a new campus means attracting more out-of-district students along with keeping in-district students who would otherwise flee to charters or neighboring districts, the construction and remodeling costs would pay for themselves.

A couple of “What is the Star thinking?” notes

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by David Safier

A little venting about a few items in the Sunday Star, in print and online.

First, the big news of the day is that the U.S. and Russia have reached a deal to rid Syria of its chemical weapons. It's still a work in progress and no one knows how all this will work out, but it's big news, no? So the Star decides to put a decent, factual story about the deal from the Washington Post on page 5: "Deal reached to seize Syria's chemical arms." What the Star put on the front page is an AP analysis which readers see before they come to the story: "Chemical-arms deal puts Russia back at Mideast table." Before readers know the details in the page 5 story, they learn on the front page that Obama has given away the political farm to Putin. The deal, according to the analysis, means Obama gets some cover for the "White House waffling" on the airstrikes while it "restore[s] Moscow to its place as a pivotal Mideast player."

Man, the U.S. lost big on this by deciding not to bomb Syria — a move that wouldn't get rid of Syria's chemical weapons — and working together with Russia to try and destroy Syria's chemical arsenal. At least that's the AP take on the story — a take the Star thinks is more important than the facts of the story itself.

About that AP analysis: Like lots of what comes out of the AP, it has a strong anti-Obama slant. It backs up its assertions by quoting two experts. One is Jonathan Adelman, professor at the University of Denver Korbel School of International Studies. You can also find him listed as part of the speakers bureau for the Jewish National Fund. Nothing wrong with that, of course, except that it means Adelman views the Mideast through the lens of what's best for Israel, not through a more objective, global perspective. The other expert is R. Nicholas Burns, professor of international relations at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Not mentioned is that Burns was appointed by George W. Bush to serve as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under Condoleezza Rice. So we have an ardent supporter of Israel and someone from the previous Republican administration to serve as the only experts in the article on the Mideast and the U.S./Russia balance of power. Not exactly a balance of "expert opinions."

Second is the Star's choices on coverage of Obamacare.

Health insurance story from healthcare.gov

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by David Safier I hope and expect to see more stories like this one on the healthcare.gov website in the coming weeks and months.   Malik is 23, which means he may be able to stay on his parents' plan until he's 26, and if not, he can choose from a number of health care … Read more

This doesn’t qualify as good news

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by David Safier Arizona is no longer Number One in the percent we've cut our spending per student since 2008. We're Number Three. Oklahoma and Alabama are now occupy the top two spots on the Education Spending Wall of Shame. Last year, we topped the list with a 21.8% in per student cuts since 2008. … Read more