The Arizona Attorney General’s Office has filed an action for intervention on behalf of the State of Arizona in the matter of Tucson Unified School District’s desegregation order. At issue is the development of the district’s Unitary Status Plan.
The Attorney General’s Office is intervening due to concerns that Dr. Willis Hawley, the special master assigned to the desegregation matter, may require the district to bring back the segregating Mexican American Studies classes. Dr. Hawley was named special master by federal Judge Bury.
The Attorney General argues that the “education of Arizona’s school children is not delegated to the federal government. As a sovereign state, Arizona retains the authority to set educational policy for its citizens. The implementation of a Unitary Status Plan (“USP”) that impairs the administration of state educational policy impermissibly interferes with Arizona’s exercise of its retained powers under the federal constitution.”
The Attorney General argues for the right to intervene based on the “Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution” which “reserves any power not expressly delegated to the federal government to the states.” The Tenth Amendment constrains the federal government from interfering with the powers reserved to the states.
However, despite the 10th Amendment, the federal government has had the authority to make sure students from groups that have faced discrimination are being treated equally ever since Brown v. Board of Education. In that case, the Supreme Court outlawed segregated classes…like those in the now-dismantled MAS program.
In July, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals placed the district back under court oversight due to its neglect of children of color. For over 30 years and one billion dollars, the district has failed to close the achievement gap for underserved students, preferring g instead to use millions of desegregation monies as a slush fund for pet projects and untested programs.
The Ninth Circuit Court found that the district had acted in “bad faith.”
In January, the federal Court appointed Special Master Dr. Hawley.
Just last month, the district’s Superintendent Pedicone, placed Augie Romero in charge of developing the new multicultural curriculum which was to replace the Mexican American Studies classes. Romero, who had failed to develop a comprehensive equity plan, which led the Ninth Circuit to make the finding of bad faith, was placed in the position of oversight over the objections of district leaders and community members.
Pedicone knowingly put Romero, Adelita Grijalva’s good friend, in the position to please Grijalva according to district insiders. He did this, despite the fact that Romero will certainly create a multicultural curriculum based on his critical race “Barrio Pedagogy.”
Romero’s “Barrio Pedagogy” is based on the works Peter McLaren and Bill Ayers. Bill Ayers is a leader in the social justice movement in colleges of education across the country, and a former member of the Weather Underground. McLaren, a professor at USC, believes that children must be “problematized” so that they can bring about “transformation.” In other words they need to be made angry before they will participate in his Marxist revolution.
With Romero in place, most likely the MAS curriculum will return as it was with or without Hawley’s approval or a court order.
“No school district should allow any curricula to be designed by someone who supports the theories of a 1970’s style revolutionary bomber like William Ayers, who only escaped punishment for his crimes because his daddy was the CEO of Chicago’s largest public utility, or Peter McLaren, who has written that the purpose of Critical Race Pedagogy is to increase opposition to the “exploitation” of the capitalist economic system among ethnic minority students. Once again, radical extremists… with the aid and comfort of Dr. Pedicone… are attempting to use TUSD to promote ideology that is offensive to the majority of the public,” said Rich Kronberg, co-founder of TU4SD.
Dr. Hawley has advised community members that he may bring the classes back. He advised Hispanic who opposes the classes that “Should I recommend reinstatement of the courses, it will be on the bases of evidence about the effectiveness of these and similar ethnic-focused learning experiences, not because of the opinions of particular groups.”
Despite pleas from district staff, the district’s administration withheld accurate evidence of the classes’ effectiveness and instead originally provided Dr. Hawley with statistics generated by MAS staff. Those statistics have not held up under scrutiny.
Mr. David Scott, using newer and more comprehensive data in February found that the classes did not close the achievement gap as required by the original desegregation order.
In fact, Scott found a “slightly negative relationship between MAS course participation and college readiness scores” which suggested that “participation in the MAS program does not necessarily increase the likelihood that students will be successful in college after graduation.”
Scott’s conclusions include:
Disaggregating the Hispanic graduation rate by the frequency of student participation in interscholastic activities, reveals the same relationship found for MAS and CTE courses. Students who participate in interscholastic programs are far more likely than their peers to graduate and less likely to dropout or continue past their fourth year of high school.
In 2010, TUSD began providing a free opportunity for all eleventh graders to take the ACT College Readiness test through a pilot program funded by a grant from the Helios Foundation and the Governor’s Office. Because of this effort, TUSD now has the ability to analyze the college readiness of each graduating cohort, beginning with the graduating class of 2011.
Disaggregating the ACT scores of the 2011 graduating class (see Table 6), reveals that Hispanic students who attempted MAS course credit scored on average 1 to 2 scale score points below Hispanic students who did not take MAS courses.
While participation in MAS program courses does appear to have a positive impact on the graduation rate of Hispanic students, even greater positive impacts can be attributed to Hispanic student participation in CTE program courses and Interscholastic activities.
Hawley has only had access to those who support the classes. The district has not invited any experts in who are concerned about or opposed to the classes.
In January, Judge Lewis Kowal found that the classes (1) promote resentment toward a race or class of people, (2) are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, and (3) advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals in its course of study.
The Special Master did not “recommend that the Court order the reinstatement of the MAS courses. Instead, he asserted that the USP that he was preparing would include “comprehensive strategies for moving forward to ensure a quality education for all of the district’s students, the majority of whom are Mexican American.”
In fact, on February 29, 2012, the Court issued an order refusing to reinstate the TUSD MAS program, stating that “[t]he Court finds that the question of whether MASD courses should be reinstated may be adequately addressed within the context of the development of the USP in the same way that all the provisions in the PUSP are being considered for inclusion in the USP.”
However, on March 14, 2012, “the Mendoza plaintiffs moved the Court to reconsider its denial of their previous motion to reinstate the MAS program. The Special Master submitted another memorandum addressing the Mendoza plaintiffs’ Motion to Intervene, which was subsequently filed on April 5, 2012. In his memorandum, the Special Master stated his intent to design curricula that would allow “in-depth study of specific ethnic groups” that would give TUSD “one of the most culturally responsive curriculums in the country.”
The Court denied the Mendoza plaintiffs’ request, stating that “the appropriate remedy at this time, within the context of this case, is for the Special Master to consider the MASD courses in his development of curriculum revisions for the USP.”
As a result, Dr. Pedicone placed Augie in a position where he would be able to have nearly unlimited access to the Special Master, Since then Romero has brought in outside forces to bring pressure to bear, including one closely associated with Ayers.
As a result, the AG argues that “If the Special Master and TUSD develop curricula for the USP that violate state law, the State would be harmed.”
The AG asked the court to find that “Arizona has the right to ensure that curricula required in the USP do not violate state law.”
Related articles:
Romero works to maintain the mythology of Mexican American Studies
TUSD’s Pedicone testifies in “Ethnic Studies” hearing
TUSD’s MAS curriculum for grades K-12 includes Aztec spirituality Part II
America Without Borders: TUSD’s Mexican American Studies elementary lesson