The attack by Tucson Unified School District Superintendent H.T. Sanchez on Special Master Willis Hawley and his magnet school proposal has outraged members of the community across the political spectrum. Sanchez enlisted magnet school teachers in the orchestrated the “public oral assault” at Tuesday’s Governing Board meeting.
At issue is Hawley’s suggestion that five failing magnet school programs lose their magnet status, and the desegregation funding that comes with it. The schools have offered magnet programs that are not attractive to enough students to create the racial balance called for the in court ordered Unitary Status Plan.
Magnet studies have shown the lack of magnetism and the various curricula’s failure to improve student performance. The failing magnet schools offer everything from the gimmicky Reggio Emilia curriculum to the expensive International Baccalaureate program.
A letter written by a self-described progressive group of TUSD educators perfectly sums up Tuesday’s melodrama. They wrote:
“The unconscionable behavior of HT Sanchez during the 9/8 board meeting has placed TUSD in a position which is shameful and disruptive to our community. The District’s biggest fear-filled bully- HT Sanchez- convinced and directed several principals and teacher peers to model his hostile, accusatory and insulting attacking behavior, while addressing two issues: demagnetizing magnet schools and the teacher performance evaluation. Sanchez strategically maneuvered a public oral assault on the Arizona District Federal Court Appointed Special Master, who reports directly to the court. The attack on the Special Master took on a personal and emotional tone and is a continued attack on the desegregation court order- the Unitary Status Plan (USP). Regardless of the geographical location of our schools, each of us have come to learn the importance of the desegregation order. We are spread across the span of the District- west to east and north to south.”
Teacher Nour Jandali urged the Board to spare her International Baccalaureate Arabic classes at Cholla High School. Jandali, who works closely with the Qatar Foundation, told the Board that she has created the only Arabic program of its kind in the state of Arizona. “I have been growing my program by more than 120 percent every year,” Jandali told the Board. She said she currently has approximately 150 students.
Learn more about Qatar’s involvement here:
While the extravagant IB program has failed to award more than a handful of IB diplomas since it began in 2008, Jindali told the Board that students have received scholarships from the University of Arizona and the Qatar Foundation.
The Qatar Foundation International (QFI), which is closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, has offered financial support to the Arabic program at TUSD since at least 2011.
The District is at the center of the fifth poorest metropolitan area in the country, so the funding and other opportunities provided by the Qatar Foundation are welcome to kids who might never have a chance to visit Arizona’s Capitol, much less bask in Qatari luxury.
The Unitary Status Plan is intended to guarantee equal access to a quality education to all students. So while Cholla students stayed at the Grand Heritage Hotel in Qatar in 2014, students in other schools in the District don’t even have math workbooks, and kindergarten classrooms are past over-crowded.
Yet, Board president Adelita Grijlva, daughter of Congressman Raul Grijalva is determined to keep the costly IB, and other unmagnetic programs. So determined in fact, that Sanchez and Grijalva are willing to go to court to challenge the Special Master’s plan to demagnetize the six schools cannot achieve integration now and into the future.
In order to win the public relations battle before the court battle, Sanchez had a camera situated in the Boardroom to catch his impassioned rant. According to the teachers’ letter, Sanchez also stirred “up the communities at each of the schools in order to incite anger against the Special Master and the court.” The next day, according to the teachers, the following “infomercial” appeared on the TUSD website:
Because Latino parents were encouraged to identify their children as “White,” Davis, Carrillo and Drachman schools avoided the Special Master’s racial imbalance determination.
The issue will certainly come before Judge David Bury. Should he rule against Sanchez the funding will cease, but he always has the Qatar Foundation.