Rundown of the MAS hearings

by David Safier

The Weekly's Mari Herreras has a long, detailed rundown of the two administrative hearings on MAS up in Phoenix. The third and final hearing is going on today.

Herreras' rundown defies summary, so I won't try here. If you're interested, you should read it, and if you're even more interested, you can download audios from the hearings.

My takeaway is, Huppenthal & Co. basically got nuthin', but nuthin' may be enough for them to carry the day. Most of their "evidence" is questionable or nonexistent. Their complete dismissal of the audit they set up through Cambium Learning is ludicrous. Stegeman's testimony is worthless from a factual standpoint. And so on. And yet . . .

As Herreras states at the beginning of her piece, the final decision of these hearings, if things come down against MAS, isn't the end of the story. There's still the federal lawsuit by 11 ethnic studies teachers questioning whether the anti-MAS legislation (that's not what they call it, but that's what it is) is actually constitutional. I'm not a betting man, but even if I were, I wouldn't put money about where this thing will end up. But if there are educational angels out there fluttering over our heads, they should be on the side of MAS.