Huppenthal’s MAS decision flies in face of research he commissioned

by David Safier

I keep running this around in my head. Horne, at the end of his Ed Supe tenure, said MAS violates state law and has to go. When Huppenthal stepped in, he said, no, let's not rush to conclusions. Let's study this. Let's spend a few hundred thousand dollars hiring a company to do an audit. Then when the findings came back saying MAS benefits its students and doesn't violate HB 2281, Huppenthal ignored the findings and slid back to Horne's unsubstantiated position.

Anyone who has heard Huppenthal knows he's a research junky. His speeches are larded with facts, figures and conclusions from education studies. Of course, he cherry-picks the studies, then cherry-picks the conclusions, but he pretends to think research is the way you arrive at answers.

A reporter once told me, an interview with Huppenthal sends your head spinning as he plays the research-fueled Energizer Bunny.

And then, Huppenthal denies the validity of the study done by his hand-picked group. They only visited 37% of the MAS classrooms and stayed for about 30 minutes each, he complains. Apparently the concept, "representative sample," doesn't seem to apply to this audit in Huppenthal's mind. Huppenthal, I believe, visited one class one time to arrive at his decision. He said MAS DIrector Sean Arce didn't cooperate and the auditors didn't see enough class materials. Would a talk with Arce, who is intelligent, knowledgeable and convincing, have made the auditors come away with a more negative opinion of the program? Doubtful. And if the audit team felt it was denied access to vital information, its report would have reflected that, and its conclusions would have been less positive. Was Huppenthal's decision based on extensive discussions with Arce and a thorough study of class materials? Doubtful.

There's lots more to say here, but the point is, Huppenthal's decision was a foregone conclusion. If the audit report agreed with him, he would have called it an exhaustive, conclusive study of the program. But since it disagreed with his already-made-up mind — hell, trashing Ethnic Studies was a central part of his campaign for Ed Supe — he shoved it aside as worthless.

Simply astounding.

Absolutely typical.