David Safier

by David Safier

I have to admit, I'm confused about the whole TUSD deseg thing, and Mari Herreras' cover story on the subject in the Weekly confused me still more, because it makes it clear just how complex the whole thing is and how important the next few years are in what we hope will be a movement toward greater desegregation and better education at TUSD.

Naturally, I'm all for the deseg effort — "What do we want?" "Desegregation!" "When do we want it?" "Now!" — and I support the main points of the court-ordered Unitary Plan the district has to follow. But should special master Willis Hawley be putting so much pressure on the district so soon after the plan has been ratified? Shouldn't he give the new guy and his newly constituted board a little breathing room?

I admit I have a soft spot for H.T. Sanchez and the two new board members, Cam Juarez and Kristel Foster. And I understand soft spots make you soft hearted which can make you soft headed. So maybe I'm giving them too much latitude by saying, "Take the school year and get an idea of what's going on before you make any big decisions. It's been 40 years. What's another year?"

by David Safier Raena Janes, who founded the La Paloma Academy charter schools, has a Q&A in today's business section. Naturally, she sings the praises of her schools. What's her secret? The school emphasizes character. "We demand that our students are respectful and caring." Sounds good, right? Why can't school districts do that? The answer … Read more

by David Safier

The Douglas County School District near Denver broke campaign laws by paying a scholar to write a "scholarly" puff piece about the district just before the school board elections. The TUSD connection is, the Douglas district's superintendent is Elizabeth Celania-Fagen, who was TUSD supe before John Pedicone. What makes the connection less than trivial is, Fagen is one of the few public school superintendents in the nation to embrace vouchers, and the recent school board elections pitted her pro-voucher, anti-union candidates against a more progressive slate. (The progressives lost.) Meaning, we may have been lucky that Fagen chose to leave Tucson.

Also part of this story is, national conservative money poured into the elections on the pro-voucher, anti-union side. Both the Koch Brothers and Jeb Bush supported the "reform" candidates, with direct contributions to candidates and by funding independent campaigns. School board elections are being nationalized, mainly by big money conservatives, because the "school reform" movement is both pro-privatization, anti-government and anti-union, a three-fer for conservatives. Schools are a political battlefield, now more than ever.

While the conservative money flowing into a local school board election is perfectly legal, the district buying a "scholarly report" before the election isn't, according to a Denver judge. The report was written by Rick Hess, a somewhat respected conservative educational scholar working with the American Enterprise Institute, who should now lose whatever respectability he currently has. He got $30,000 to write about how wonderful and innovative the school district is.

by David Safier Only four giving days until the end of the public school tax credits for the year. Please, if you pay state taxes, take advantage of the 100% back offer. Give $200 for an individual, $400 for a couple, to any public school or combination of schools — charters count — and you … Read more