David Safier by David Safier Curtis Acosta, a TUSD teacher who taught in the dismantled Mexican American Studies program and often acted as its spokesperson, held a news conference at the Prescott College Tucson Center Tuesday. Acosta is taking a leave of absence from TUSD to finish his doctoral dissertation and to pursue other ventures. Whether he … Read more
by David Safier This may be the first time I've actually enjoyed watching a video by a congressman. Grijalva is not a scientist — he admits as much in the video — but he dons a lab coat and plays one in this enjoyable and informative 3 minute explanation of some of the downsides of … Read more
by David Safier I'll be doing my monthly Blogger Beat segment on the Bill Buckmaster radio show today. The show runs from 12-1PM on KVOI, 1030AM. The other guest on the show will be Pima County Bd. of Supervisors Chairman Ramon Valadez. Bill and I haven't talked about topics for the show, so we'll see … Read more
by David Safier Every morning I get a news brief from the Capitol Times listing the day's stories. Today's top four headlines and story openings speak of a Republican party in disarray at the state lege and Democrats, for the first time in awhile, having a significant seat at the table. Here they are. Votes … Read more
by David Safier
I'm not often in agreement with the Arizona Charter Schools Association, a well funded group whose purpose is to promote charter schools in the state, but for once, we're in sync. We both have problems with the current A-F grading system for Arizona public schools, district and charter.
In a detailed, scholarly analysis, the Center for Student Achievement, a part of the AZ Charter Schools Association, shows how the current school grading system is heavily weighted to make schools with high income students come out near the top and schools with low income students come out near the bottom. The reason is, half of a school's grade is based on the average student AIMS score, which tends to raise with students' family incomes. The other half is based on student growth — the rise in students' scores from one year to the next — which is far less economically biased. Unfortunately, the growth portion doesn't counterbalance the economic bias built into the schools' average AIMS scores.
The study doesn't recommend abandoning school grades. It suggests a revised grading system that relies on a number of variables related to student growth. It's complicated, and I don't know enough about the numbers to evaluate it, but it certainly would create a more level playing field than what we have now.