Horne unveils “Ed Crime of the Century”

by David Safier

Back in January, I posted about Horne sending auditors to the Pima County School Superintendent's Office, then to Ajo to trace whether the Lukeville bus was transporting children from Mexico to attend Ajo schools. I said he was going to break the Educational Crime of the Century story in late April or early May.

Here it is, right on schedule.

The state Department of Education is calling on a southern Arizona school district to return nearly $1.2 million of state funding on grounds that the district illegally provided free education to Mexican students not living in Arizona during three recent school years.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne says state auditors found that the students involved claimed to live in Arizona but actually reside in Mexico and crossed the border daily to attend school in the Ajo Unified School District.

Ajo Superintendent Robert Dooley says the district relied on documentation provided by Pima County and that district officials have no desire to break the law. He says he anticipates state and district will try to negotiate an agreement.

Timing is everything. SB 1070, the anti-immigrant bill, passed. HB 2281, the anti-Ethnic Studies bill, passed. Horne has said he wants teachers who don't speak English to his standards fired. The bill to make schools report any children who are here illegally to the DOE didn't pass, but hey, even racists can't win 'em all.

And now, here's the Ed Crime of the Century story on the heels of all that other stuff, and right in time for Horne to burnish his conservative credentials for the skeptical Republican primary voters.

You'd almost think all this was planned well ahead of time.