Terrific Star editorial on Ethnic Studies

by David Safier

Mark this date on your calendar. It's the day I write:

The Star editorial is the best piece on the War of Ethnic Studies I've read anywhere, period.

Here are a few highlights. You really should read the whole thing.

Whether one agrees with Tom Horne's opinion of TUSD's ethnic -studies program (and we do not), one fact remains – it's a sideshow.

For all the fuss and bother about what a small number of high school students might – or might not – be exposed to in a small number of classes within a very large school district, this expense of time, energy and resources boils down to political theater that distracts people from the real problems with public education in Arizona.

Zealotry, of any stripe, is a refusal to let facts deter the zealot from a belief.

Tom Horne, who until Monday afternoon was the state superintendent of public instruction and now is the state attorney general, has made it his mission to rescue minority students who are evidently so intellectually fragile they'll follow any teacher who has the temerity to point out that American history and society contain injustices.

[snip]

By obsessively focusing on ethnic studies, which is admittedly a politically sexy topic that gets him in the news, Horne gives the impression that if only TUSD did what he wanted, kids in the district and across Arizona would suddenly find themselves in classrooms with talented, qualified teachers in every subject, using the latest technology and keeping kids in school and headed toward college or work.

That's not reality.

Ethnic studies is not standing in the way of educational achievement for the roughly 53,000 students in TUSD schools, or the hundreds of thousands of kids across Arizona.