Education

by David Safier

The Pima County Democratic Party has restated its support for TUSD's Mexican American Studies program in a Media Release. Not only do the Pima Dems condemn the idea of "capitulation or compromise," they say the program should be "expanded to include more ethnicities and cultures in every school throughout Arizona who want to enhance the academic, personal and social development of their students."

I read this as a clear statement to TUSD Board members and Superintendent John Pedicone not to preemptively weaken the Mexican American Studies program by taking the courses out of the core curriculum and turning them into electives. (See my earlier post on the topic.) As the media release states, "Capitulation and compromise will not deter Horne and Huppenthal's thinly disguised racist attacks on minorities just like Russell Pearce cannot be dissuaded from his attempts to marginalize immigrants and minorities. The only way to defeat bullies is to stand up against them."

You can read the entire Media Release after the jump.

by David Safier Forgive all the "insider baseball" stuff about education, readers, but what goes on in standardized testing, and what goes on with Michelle Rhee, the darling of educational conservatives who has bamboozled lots of progressives into thinking she has "the answer," is important to the future education here and nationwide. And when cheating … Read more

by David Safier Advocates for private school vouchers sell them as a way for students to leave lousy, union run, bureaucracy laden public schools — or "government schools," as they call them — for what they claim are the much, much greener pastures of private schools. Except that, in study after study, students attending private … Read more

by David Safier This is a very long story, but I'll try to make it short. Washington D.C. school administrators and/or teachers may have cheated big time on standardized tests over a period of years. It's possible to probable the city's test score "gains," which helped push former D.C. Superintendent Michelle Rhee to national conservative … Read more

by David Safier I wrote yesterday the fix may be in to make the Mexican American Studies program into a series of elective courses rather than courses which fulfill core graduation requirements in history and English. My sources say Superintendent John Pedicone, who has taken a neutral stance on the elective issue in public, has … Read more