The Tucson Unified School District is well-known for historical failure to educate all of its students, and its reliance on statistics to sell its failures as successes on paper. In recent years the reliance on “data” in its decision making has ramped up in response to the demands for accountability.
It appears the Special Master’s social experiment has failed even before if ever got started according to numbers released from the District and the accounts of four independent inside sources. Last week, the District released numbers, which according to Abel Morado were the number of students enrolled in the Culturally Relevant classes in three of the District’s high schools.
According to Morado, the numbers provided by Auggie Romero show that the vast majority of students currently enrolled in the classes are Hispanic. In fact, at Pueblo High school the current enrollment in the classes, designed to eliminate one of the vestiges of segregation, were completely segregated along ethnic lines. 100% of the Pueblo High School students enrolled in the classes are Hispanic according to Romero.
Few educators would find Romero’s enrollment divisions to break along racial and ethnic lines as the Arizona Department of Education noted in their latest review; the only difference between the African American and Mexican American curriculum is the name. Other than the title of the classes, the African American curriculum is identical to the Mexican American curriculum; an obvious cut-and-paste with the words Mexican American replaced with the words African American. Leaving the only conclusion to be that that students would not take the classes for a review of different historical experiences and perspectives, but solely on the color of their skin or ethnicity.
What educators will find surprising is that Romero’s numbers are pure fiction, or speculation. Despite the numbers having been offered as students currently enrolled, the numbers represent little but a guess at which students counselors thought might take the classes.
Just like his presentation to the School Board at a recent meeting, Auggie’s claims are baseless. At that meeting Romero implied that the ADE had approved the Literature curriculum. Only after the ADE denied the claim, did Romero and his boss, Maria Menconi claim that the ADE was never supposed to approve the Literature curriculum. The Board voted for the unfinished, unapproved curriculum 3-2.
According to the numbers released by Morado:
• Of the approximately 644 junior and senior students enrolled in Pueblo High School, only 127 signed up for the classes, of those 100% are Hispanic.
• Of the 652 junior and senior students enrolled at Cholla High School, 123 students signed up for the classes, of those 83% are Hispanic.
• Of the 1273 junior and senior students enrolled in Tucson High School 150 have signed up for the classes.
• Tucson High has not yet released the data on the ethnic makeup of students enrolled in either the African American or Mexican American Culturally relevant Government and History classes offered to students this coming school year.
According to the Morado, Cholla administrators claim that Pueblo has a list of 12 students and Cholla has 58 students and who have stated interest in these courses. According to Menconi, the classes have a waiting list.
According to school staff, no such lists exist.
At least one of the plaintiff’s representatives has expressed concerns that due to the fact that students are not opting to be separated from their friends by taking segregated classes, the District will automatically enroll students into the classes, as they had been in the past, based on the origins of their surnames.
Romero also claimed that over 30 experts from across the country reviewed the curriculum, however according to district documents only 14 have been identified to date, and of those fewer provided input.
When representatives of the plaintiffs in the Tucson Unified School District first met with the court appointed Special Master, they asked what name he would prefer to be called, to which he replied that his first name would be fine.
As the meeting was breaking up, one of the representatives approached him to ask a question. “Dr. Hawley,” she began before proceeding. He interrupted and said, “You can call me Master.” At the time, the “Master” made it clear there and then that he was determined to embark on a social experiment using the District’s students, the children represented by people with whom he had just met, as human guinea pigs. After all, the District has cared so little about them for so long, why would anyone start now?
If the “Master’s” experiment is to work, that practice must be employed. Children, in this community, in this day and age, will not likely opt to leave their friends of many colors and ethnicities behind to take classes that offer nothing but an easy “A.”
Check back tomorrow: By the numbers: Experienced TUSD teachers get short end of the stick