By FERNANDA SANTOS

The forecast for the year ahead is dire, so officials in the public school district here, the oldest in the state, summoned parents to an urgent meeting one evening to lay out the options: close schools and increase class sizes or impose across-the-board pay cuts, making it harder for the district to recruit quality teachers.Enlarge This Image Samantha Sais for The New York TimesMaria Figueroa, right, leads a program to cut the dropout rates and improve the performance of Hispanic students in Tucson.

In the auditorium at Cholla High Magnet School, Bryant Nodine, the planning program manager for the Tucson Unified School District, peered into the audience and pleaded for suggestions. “We need your help,” he said. The district needs to find at least $17 million in savings, about 7 percent of the money in its general fund, he said, to balance its budget for 2013-14 school year.

Meanwhile, at the district’s central offices, Maria Figueroa was busy sifting through résumés and rearranging her calendar to squeeze in one more interview. As the director of a new program intended to help the district’s perennially struggling Hispanic students, by far the majority of the enrollment, Ms. Figueroa enjoys a rare distinction: she has jobs to fill and money to hire.

via Tucson School District Tailors Program to Struggling Hispanic Students – NYTimes.com.

via: Librotraficantes: Caravan moving through San Antonio on way to protest Arizona’s dismantling of Mexican-American studies – Visual Art – San Antonio Current.

On May 11, 2011, Governor Brewer signed HB 2281, prohibiting schools from teaching subjects that “advocate ethnic solidarity.” The law threatens important ethnic studies programs and has already been used to dismantle Mexican American Studies (MAS) in the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) despite its positive impact on students’ academic achievement. In January 2012, TUSD school officials boxed up MAS textbooks and removed them from classrooms. This egregious censorship of relevant materials based on elected officials’ personal bias is a violation of TUSD students’ right to intellectual freedom and cannot be tolerated.

It’s more than a little ironic that the same Arizona Legislature that spearheaded a ruthless, racially charged campaign against illegal immigrants also banned K-12 ethnic studies classes on the grounds that they promote hatred and division. Who knew Arizona’s Republican majority, as expert as it is at hyperbole and invective, was so committed to fostering healthy race relations in the Grand Canyon State?

More: Arizona’s ban on ethnic studies classes – latimes.com.

From: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2012/01/11/20120111killing-ethnic-studies-valdez.html#ixzz1mHZATFT4

by Linda Valdez

TUCSON – The elephant stomped on the mouse. It pounded its big Republican foot and declared ethnic studies at Tucson Unified School District dead.

What a proud moment.