For Bill Ayers and Augie Romero unhappy children will transform our world

“….these students have been encouraged to seek out and engage in different forms of transformative resistance…” ~ Augie Romero

The topic of former fugitive bomber Bill Ayers’s keynote speech at the 2011 AERA Annual Meeting & Exhibition was “Heeding the persistent cry of the young.” This is a key part of the circular reasoning so loved by critical race theorists. The dissatisfied and crying child is Ayer’s and his fellow “educators” ideal educational product. One of the primary goals of critical pedagogy and social justice education proponents is to “problematize” a child’s world. After all, it is the child who begins to view his world as a problem, that may develop enough anger and resentment to transform the world.

TUSD’s Director of Student Equity, Augie Romero is an integral part of this circular mix of ideology and pedagogy. He and his dog and pony show are frequent performers at conferences convened to “spread the gospel” of critical race pedagogy. The 2011 American Educational Research Association’s Annual Meeting in New Orleans was the debut performance of Augie’s production of, “Making Education Matter: Youth, Teachers, Professors, and Community Organizers as Activist-Scholars.”

TUSD students were the cast, and critics speculate that the New Orleans show might have been the sneak peak premier of the School Board take over by “students” two weeks later.

According to the abstract of Augie’s performance, “….these students have been encouraged to seek out and engage in different forms transformative resistance through which they can alter the trajectory of not only their lives, and the social trajectory of their barrios…..The students will also discuss how they have organized against Arizona’s HB 2281(Anti-Ethnic Studies) and SB 1070 (Anti-Latino/Immigrant). Their efforts have included a Justice and Equality run from Tucson to Phoenix (in June in 117°degree heat); a March on the State Capital; numerous community protests; art show etc.”

For the finale, “Our students will offer their perspective on the lack of neutrality in their lives, in education experiences, and in the American social condition, and how reality has influenced not only their research, but their commitment to the social transformation of their communities.”

Ironically, it is precisely the lack of neutrality that most supporters of public education find so disturbing about the Mexican American/Raza Studies classes and the Social Justice Education Project at TUSD.

Was this performance a dress rehearsal of sorts for the big Board take over by “students” two weeks later? How did the current TUSD students left behind benefit from this visit to the Big Easy? Why was this acceptable to Superintendent Pedicone, and was the Board aware of this trip and project?

The public is waiting to hear the details of this blatant exploitation of students to promote an ideology that voters in Tucson and Arizona never even knew was being used in classes paid for with their tax money.