David Safier by David Safier I've been told over 40 languages are spoken by students at Catalina Magnet High School, and the students and staff work hard to make the school's multicultural identity an asset. The 7th Annual Finding Voice Celebration is "an outstanding annual event that features literary and performance pieces from many of the refugee … Read more
by David Safier
As part of its Education Nation series, MSNBC sent Chuck Todd to Phoenix for a discussion with a panel consisting of John Huppenthal (Superintendent of Education), Sen. Leah Landrum Taylor (Senate Minority Leader), Joe Thomas, (Vice President of the Arizona Education Association) and Rep. Andy Tobin (House Speaker). The conversation ranged all over the education landscape. Not surprisingly, one segment was about BASIS, where I saw a fascinating transformation take place. First came The BASIS Legend from the mouths of two media people who've heard it so often they've memorized it, followed by Julia Toews, Head of BASIS Tucson North, and Hupp, who repeated and embellished it. Then came Joe Thomas — the man is ready for prime time, he did a great job all through the discussion — who busted out with The Truth and deflated The Legend.
The best line came from Joe near the end. When they were talking about whether the BASIS method could be scaled up or transported whole to other schools, Joe said, "If we could scale up BASIS, BASIS would have scaled up in Tucson, and they would be 10,000 strong by now." Perfect.
Chuck Todd led off with The BASIS Legend. It's the story he knows, because it's been repeated ad nauseum by the conservative "education reform" crowd that created it. Here's what Todd said, with my comments in brackets:
I've seen huge solutions from BASIS Schools [No you haven't. You've seen misleading stories about huge solutions]. Right now, BASIS Tucson North is considered the best high school in the country [No, there's nothing near universal agreement that BASIS is close to being the best high school in the country. U.S. News & World Report put out a deeply flawed high school ratings list that had BASIS Tucson as Number 2, and uninformed members of the media, prodded by conservative propagandists, swallowed it whole]. What are you doing right? [Better question: What are you doing, right or wrong, to get those high ratings?]
by David Safier
I'm delighted to see that Diane Ravitch featured my recent post, Conservatives on BASIS charter schools: "Print the legend," on her blog. Through her blog and the group she's begun, Network for Public Education, Ravitch is bringing together the progressive side of the education debate, linking to some of the best articles, columns and ideas coming out each day, things I've had to hunt for before and often missed. It's turning into an invaluable gathering place. (If, by the way, you want to keep up on education news, "Like" NPE's Facebook page and follow it on your own FB page.)
The gist of my post is that the BASIS legend promoted heavily by the conservative "education reform" movement misrepresents the school as a successful answer to our "failing" traditional public schools. The truth behind the legend is, BASIS begins with a reasonably select group of students in the 6th grade which becomes ever more select as weaker students withdraw. By the 12th grade, two-thirds of the original students have left — maybe more if other students are picked up along the way. It's no great feat to produce terrific test scores if your student body is made up of a small group of very intelligent, highly motivated students.
In today's Star, Tim Steller does a good job of printing the truth about BASIS, not the legend. He writes about the number 2 ranking BASIS received in the recent U.S. News & World Report high school survey and says he's not overly impressed. "You can count on me for polite applause and a sigh," he says.
by David Safier May 6 through May 12 is National Teacher Appreciation Week. I spend a great deal of time picking apart education and not nearly enough time celebrating my brothers and sisters in the classroom, where I spent over 30 years. Teachers perform countless educational, counseling, semi-parenting tasks, usually with too many students, as … Read more
by David Safier
Ethan Orr (R, LD-9) is my representative, so I emailed him criticizing his Yes vote on HB 2455 which forbids a city — like, say, Tucson — from destroying guns. As today's Republicans go, Orr is a reasonably reasonable guy who I've had reasonable conversations with, so it's not a wasted effort to email him. The problem is, after he hits on some lovely sounding general principles we agree on and gets down to specifics, he and I usually part company.
Orr sent me an email reply which you can read in full below the fold. The first paragraph is all about what a sensible guy he is, cosponsoring a bill with his Democratic LD-9 Rep Victoria Steele to put more money into mental health training — a good bill that never made it to a vote. He's for expanding funding for school resource officers, meaning basically, more armed guards in schools, and — I'm not sure exactly what this means — "I'm currently working to change the allocation formulas to favor schools in the Tucson area."
We get to guns in the second paragraph. He says buyback programs are marginally effective at best, though I have no idea what that has to do with allowing a city to destroy guns it purchases in a buyback program. He then says he thinks nonprofits should organize buyback programs, though if they're ineffective, why bother, and if it's OK for them to destroy guns, why shouldn't the city have that option as well? He also writes, if the city buys back guns, it makes sense to sell them to a legitimate dealer to generate money for the police. Well, that's a fine idea if that's what the city wants to do, but that doesn't explain the need for a bill mandating the city resell the guns. This is classic Orr, semi-logical doublespeak that sounds like it puts us on the same side but means almost nothing.