On March 18, 2013, the Special Master in the Fisher Mendoza desegregation case, Willis Hawley, submitted three names to the federal court to act as Hawley’s advisors on the in the implementation of court-ordered desegregation plan. Hawley proposed “experts” with close ties to the American Education Research Association (AERA).
In his letter to the court, Hawley wrote that the Unitary Status Plan (USP) “provides that the Committee be racially and ethnically diverse. Gandara is Latina, Irvine is African American, and Goldring is white.”
The Special Master ignored the desires of the desegregation plaintiff, so while he proposed a racially and ethnically diverse panel, he ignored the fact that they share a common ideology, one which is not shared with the one of the plaintiffs, or all of the plaintiff representatives, but one which is shared with and promoted by Bill Ayers through the AERA.
“I propose that the Court approve to serve on this panel: Patricia Gandara, Professor of Education and Information Sciences at UCLA and Co-Director of the Civil Rights Project; Ellen Goldring, Rodes and Patricia Hart Professor of Education and Chair of the Department of Leadership Policy and Organizations, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University; and Jacqueline Jordon Irvin, Howard Candler Professor of Urban Education Emerita, Emory University,” wrote Hawley.
Patricia Gandara, is a commissioner on President Obama’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics and is a fellow of the American Educational Research Association and recipient of its Presidential Citation at the 2011 AERA annual conference. Gandara is a professor of Education and Information Sciences at UCLA and Co-Director of the Civil Rights Project.
Gandara is a contributor to AERA Handbook on Educational Policy Research; co-writing the section entitled Language Policy in Education. Gandar has co-authored works with her husband, fellow scholar Gary Orfield, who was the first to be offered as a choice to the African American plaintiffs in the case. They rejected Orfield because they believed he had demonstrated a bias toward Mexican American students. While they praised his work exposing the limits of standardized testing, they believed that he had little interest in policies known to close the achievement gap.
Ellen Goldring received her Ph.D from the University of Chicago. According to Vanderbilt’s website, Goldring is a “fellow of the American Educational Research Association, and is Vice-President elect of AERA’s Division L (Policy and Politics).” At the 2011 AERA conference, Goldring presented, Much Ado About Nothing? Innovation in Charter Schools.
In 2005 Professor Jacqueline Jordan Irvine was presented with the AERA’s Social Justice in Education Award for her efforts to advance social justice through education research. Her research focuses on multicultural education and urban teacher education. She received her Ph.D., from Georgia State University.
Hawley and Jordan Irvin wrote an article in 2011 for Education Week, in which they “explain why students’ cultural identities are integral to “measuring” teacher effectiveness.”
In an article in The Art of Teaching Science; Progressive Science Education, the author notes that “Hawley and Irvine believe that the practices that teachers use should be part of any teacher assessment system. In particular, the authors suggest that there are teaching practices that are called “culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP), and that these need to be included in any “high-stakes teaching evaluation.”
Hawley and Irvine opine that teaching practices become part of the evaluation of process, and assessments are based on “what teachers are really doing in their classrooms, rather than simply depending on an average test score that students score during a one-two hour period in the spring,” according to the article.
In other words, it doesn’t matter so much whether a teacher is successfully imparting knowledge to a student as much as the fact that they are “instructing” in a culturally relevant manner.
Hawley’s reliance on the AERA throughout the arduous and what some desegregation plaintiff representatives called a “rigged” public planning process was well known. At least two of the African American plaintiff representatives expressed concerns about Hawley’s close association, but they were ignored by their attorney, and dismissed by Hawley as irrelevant.
One of the plaintiffs had expressed concern after learning that the young people who had participated in the school board takeover in the Spring of 2011, had first practiced their revolutionary exercise in New Orleans, at the AERA’s annual conference.
Their leader, Augie Romero, who at the time was the director of the Mexican American Studies/Social Justice Education project in TUSD presented his submission “Students and Communities Organizing for Social Justice in Arizona” to a rapt crowd. Bill Ayers was the keynote speaker for the 2011 AERA Annual Meeting & Exhibition, entitled, “Inciting the Social Imagination: Education Research for the Public Good.”
In his letter to the court, Hawley “proposed a compensation rate of $1600 a day with a total of no more than 30 days for all three advisers.” According to Hawley, “DOJ noted that the proposed payment of the experts exceed that paid by DOJ. I proposed the amount of $1600 a day because of their stature the nominees; this amount is less than that paid to the Special Master or the two Court-approved consultants who have worked on the USP (Gary Orfield and Leonard Stevens).”
Hawley advised the court that he “was able to discuss these appointments with representatives of the Department of Justice. The DOJ expressed concern that it was unsure of what specifically these experts would do and whether they had the expertise to cover all aspects of the USP.”
“The DOJ used discipline as an example of the need for expertise on the Implementation Committee. The USP does, however, require the District to employ such an expert on disciplinary policy and practice—as it does for some other areas– independent of the Implementation Committee.” In keeping with Hawley’s plan, layers of administrators will be hired to study and implement the plan.
To their credit, Hawley acknowledges that the DOJ is particularly concerned about the monitoring of specific provisions of the USP and the management of that monitoring. That concern was the primary concern of the longest serving African American plaintiff representatives.
Rich Kronberg, a long time teacher and education expert said of Hawley’s proposal, “Hawley’s focus on experts is just exactly what is wrong with the desegregation order itself. TUSD’s struggling students do not need more experts, nor do they need more administrators drinking coffee or tea in the Administration’s offices. These students need to be taught by the best teachers TUSD has to offer. Instead of spending so much time and money on experts, new superfluous administrators and unproven so-called “culturally relevant courses,” TUSD should be focused on the one proven strategy that would benefit all their struggling students.
Kronberg supported the African American plaintiff’s argument, “The one thing they could do to make a difference is to make sure all TUSD students…and especially the ones who are struggling…have access to the high quality teachers. Since money does not appear to be an object, and well over a billion dollars has been spent on failed efforts to integrate TUSD schools, TUSD might actually try to offer serious financial incentives to its best teachers to work with its most challenging students. The only bad thing about that is because it is a proven strategy that just might raise student achievement levels, the need to get and spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars a year for “desegregation” would end. That would be a devastating blow to those who have enriched themselves through TUSD…even if it would be a wonderful thing for TUSD students.”
For over thirty years, and after spending over $1 billion dollars, those representatives have fought the District which has squandered the desegregation tax dollars on everything but highly skilled teachers in predominately minority schools.
Education experts believe that highly skilled, motivated teachers are the key to closing the achievement gap. TUSD has one such school that proves that theory. Rose Elementary School, on Tucson’s southside, with 98% minority students, is an excelling school by state standards. It employs a no frills educational experience, and Principal Trujillo has high expectations for all of his staff.
However, Hawley tells the court that “Such detailed monitoring is not what I believe the role of experts to be. We would not, I think, want three nationally prominent experts monitoring the specific actions needed to implement the USP.”
If the court agrees, once again the plaintiffs in the case will be marginalized and equity unavailable. Indoctrination will serve as education and the critical race pedagogy proponents will prevail.