Huppenthal calls for professionalism, community calls for inclusion

School-Bus_largeArizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, John Huppenthal, called for professionalism by the Tucson Unified School District in its adoption of its Multicultural curricula, on Monday. Earlier in the day, Latinos urged the Superintendent of the District, Dr. H.T. Sanchez, to reevaluate the multicultural curriculum offered for the board’s approval by Dr. Augustine Romero.

Huppenthal appeared on a Tucson radio show to discuss concerns Arizona Department of Education had after reviewing Romero’s proposed curricula and the hurried adoption by the Governing Board of the Literature portion at a meeting earlier this month.

Immediately before Huppenthal’s appearance, Pat Sexton, president of the Arizona Latino Republican Association, expressed concern with the development process and the failure of the District to include members of the community in the process. Sexton, a former educator, said her group, Arizona’s largest Latino Republican organization, shares the concerns expressed by TUSD board member Mark Stegeman that the curriculum is political in nature and one-sided.

Superintendent Huppenthal presented the timeline of the review process. He said that the ADE curriculum experts went through the African American and Mexican American History and Government curricula and returned their analysis to the District in early June. The District was supposed to revise curriculum and return it the ADE.

In late June, the District returned the curricula to the ADE with few of the recommended changes. In the initial review, the ADE echoed concerns of one of the District’s very own experts who found that the materials lacked any coherence to the state or Common Core standards.

Huppenthal said that in his “view the situation demands complete transparency. The community should know what’s being taught in schools and those people that are concerned enough to show up at a school board meeting should be aware of the issues involved in the process. “If I heard correctly, the Board was told that ADE reviewed the curriculum.”

However, contrary Romero’s implication that the ADE had reviewed the curricula, the ADE was never given an opportunity to review the Literature curriculum.

“It was implied that we had approved it as a part of our review. I just feel that the new superintendent, Dr. Sanchez, has been put in a very uncomfortable position right off the bat. We intend to have an excellent relationship with him and we are dealing with this with the highest level of professionalism. Bringing in our very best experts to have it aligned with state standards and A.R.S. 112. I regret that we are not getting a professional response.”

Huppenthal said, “I very much want to chill out this arena and bring it to a professional level. We’re going to keep working with the District in a professional manner to bring this into compliance with state standards and very professional means that we can send our comments and analysis to the District and we expect a detailed response to both our comments and analysis.”

Huppenthal pointed out that he “grew up on Tucson’s southside and my social circle was Luis Rodriguez, Marcelino Lucero, Manny Gonzales and Jimmy Ortega. When I go home to Tucson, the Southside is my home. I know that there is a lot of injustice in our history, and that needs to be brought out, but it needs to be brought out in a healthy way. That makes all of us determined that we are going to make a better future for the United States, a better future for Arizona, a better future for our communities. And that is the key; can we discuss through in terms of scholarship talk about injustice with the view of bringing the community together not dividing it and creating something that is not positive, that is not good.

Sexton and her group believe Huppenthal’s hope is possible, and to that end they have offered their expertise to the District. In a statement issued Monday, the group reiterated their commitment to educational excellence for all children and shared the concerns expressed by the ADE that “the current curriculum lacks rigor and denies equal access to a legitimate educational experience for all students.

“Since taking office, the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction (John Huppenthal) has demonstrated a commitment to integrating legitimate studies of Latino culture and history into the general educational experience of Arizona’s Latino students,” ALRA stated. “Furthermore, we feel confident that the Arizona Department of education has thoroughly reviewed the curriculum in question and given it an accurate evaluation.

Sexton said that ALRA is “a group dedicated to values shared by the vast majority of Latinos,” and urged Sanchez to “begin the process anew by publicly soliciting and integrating input from Latinos from across the community of Tucson. This will ensure a more legitimate representation of the Latino community as well as the historical accuracy of the curriculum.”

ALRA offered their cultural experience and expertise in matter of the study of history of Mexico as well as that of Arizona to Dr. Sanchez. They advised District officials that they “fully support his efforts to create an excellent educational opportunity for all children as we believe that through those efforts, all students will be put on the path to achieving the American dream.”

Proponents of Romero’s curricula have claimed that the federal court ordered the classes to be offered immediately however, the Court did not impose a timeline, but did order that the classes must be in compliance with state law. State law, written by ALRA member and Arizona legislator, Steve Montenegro prohibits the resegregation of students by ethnicity or the color of their skin, and prohibits classes designed to create resentment in students against others for their ethnicity or the color of their skin