David Safier

U.S. universities at the top of the 2012 patents list

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by David Safier Interesting stat. On the list of the top 100 universities receiving U.S. utility patents in 2012, U.S. universities hold 15 of the top 20 spots. I'm ignorant enough not to know how much of a big deal this is. After all, it's universities all over the world filing for U.S. patents. But … Read more

The Tucson charter link to unrest in Turkey

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by David Safier

The current unrest in Turkey isn't big news in Tucson. Corruption in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government doesn't merit front page, or even inside page news here. But there's a connection. Erdogan has close ties to a Turkish Sufi preacher living in Pennsylvania, Fethullah Gulen. And Gulen is the glue holding together a number of charter schools across the country including the Sonoran Science Academies here in Tucson, which has a number of campuses including one on the Davis-Monthan Air Force base.

There's nothing new about the news that Sonoran Schools are loosely affiliated with what is known as the Gulen movement in the U.S., or that Sonoran Science charters are affiliated with similar charters across the country. I've written about it. The Star's Tim Steller has written about it. It's been on 60 Minutes and other news programs. But with Turkey, Erdogan and Gulen back in the news, it's worth mentioning.

University High admission changes may not be a battle worth fighting

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by David Safier

I'd like H.T. Sanchez and the newly constituted TUSD board to be given time to change University High's admittance process in their own way before Special Master Willis Hawley tells them what to do. But I'm not sure TUSD should fight this battle to the bitter end. Both changes to UHS's admissions process are reasonable ways to increase minority enrollment at UHS, which is the goal. There's no telling which would be more effective. TUSD taking the issue to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is an overreach, and the district's stubbornness on the issue could make later battles with Hawley harder, not easier.

TUSD wants to add a motivation test to the current UHS admissions process. It's a reasonable idea. Students who just miss the cut on the GPA and entrance exam requirements but are determined to succeed have a good chance of doing well at UHS. Even if their achievement is a bit lower than other students, if they pass fewer AP exams or end up with lower GPAs, they likely will have received a more rigorous education and be more ready for college than if they had attended another district school, which is the point of attending the school.

Hawley wants to add items you normally see on college entrance exams — student essays, teacher recommendations, participation in activities, and so on. That's a reasonable idea too. If those things are good enough to get students into college, they'll likely be good indicators of potential success at UHS.

The origins of the phrase, “Education is the civil rights issue of our generation”

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by David Safier

I've been researching the phrase, "Education is the civil rights issue of our generation" for a column I'm writing for the Tucson Weekly. I traced the concept back to the early days of the school voucher movement in the 1950s, followed it as it was used to embrace charter schools and vouchers in the 1990s and watched it become a buzz-term for the whole conservative "education/privatization/corporate reform" movement in the past few decades. Today it's a regular part of conservative phraseology. It has been used frequently by at least one (former) president and is, regrettably, on the lips of our current U.S. Secretary of Education.

The people and groups promoting this seemingly pro-civil rights phrase are often ambivalent about civil rights legislation and downright hostile to government programs that help minorities and the poor. The purpose of the phrase is to focus the civil rights struggle inside the school and remove it from the rest of society. "We've solved all the other civil rights problems," the phrase implies. All that's left to do is to push "school choice," meaning vouchers and charter schools, and we will have achieved Martin Luther King's dream of a just and equal society.

The most important word in the phrase, "Education is the civil rights issue of our generation," is the tiny word, "the." That one word transforms the phrase from a reasonable statement — that education is part of the larger push for greater civil rights — into a pronouncement that education is the one and only civil rights issue left to be addressed. Watch what happens when the word "the" is replaced by "one of the": "Education is one of the civil rights issues of our generation." The meaning changes significantly. The revised phrase maintains that education is one of a list of civil rights issues needing to be addressed in the country, a list that can include blatant and subtle racial/ethnic discrimination, LGBT rights, immigration reform issues, inequitable salaries for women and voter suppression. But if education is "the civil rights issue of our generation," we can ignore all the others. That's why the phrase is such an effective conservative weapon; it informs us that all our civil rights problems have been taken care of — except, of course, for education — and we don't need any more of that meddlesome, unnecessary, expensive government intrusion.