The Star had a worthwhile idea for an education story. Two writers decided to look at how districts in the Tucson area handle teacher evaluations. The interactive map on the website and the chart in the newsprint version show that some districts are more generous than others in awarding high ratings to their teachers. Interesting. Definitely worth analyzing and discussing. Unfortunately, the article loses credibility with its opening which implies that you can correlate teachers' effectiveness with their students' achievement scores. Later in the story, a more nuanced picture is presented, but the damage done in the opening paragraphs can't be undone.

And the article quotes one out-of-state "expert" to corroborate its basic thesis, Sandi Jacobs of the National Council for Teacher Quality. In the article, she's portrayed as an objective observer who is commenting from on high. And a group whose title says it's all about Teacher Quality — who can argue with that? Apparently not the authors of the article who, I'm guessing, didn't look very far into the history and conservative biases of Jacobs or the NCTQ.

Look at the opening paragraph of the article:

Nine in 10 Pima County teachers are rated good or great — but that is not always evident in their students’ achievement scores.

That's a real grabber. It pulls you right into the story. But it also perpetuates a dangerous misconception: that teachers can't be effective if their students have low scores on state tests. I guess that means the ability of teachers at schools with students from low income households, sometimes households where English isn't the primary language, should be suspect since their students don't do well on state tests. How can they possibly be as good as teachers up in the Foothills and Marana and Oro Valley where the students do so well on the same tests? Unfortunately, that's an attitude that our anti-public education Republican legislators and their compatriots in the "education reform"/privatization movement would like to perpetuate, and the Star article helps them in their mission.

In the next paragraph, the point is hammered home.

Some districts reported nearly unanimous high ratings for teachers even though their schools received low grades for student achievement and other standards.

I guess that means, logically, that a district with with an A grade from the state would have more reason to rate its teachers highly than a district with a low grade.

Didn't get the point? Then read the next paragraph.

Tucson’s two largest school districts — Tucson Unified School District and Sunnyside — rated almost all their teachers good or great despite being among Pima County’s lowest-scoring districts on the state’s math, reading and writing assessments.

It's time once again to join the Southern Arizona Arts and Culture Alliance for a full day of handmade salsas and inventive tequila cocktails. On Saturday, Aug. 22, more than 50 participants will provide food and drink to crowds at the La Encantada Shopping Center (2905 E. Skyline Dr.), competing for several different titles in the annual competition.

More than 30 restaurants and purveyors, such as Boca Tacos, Reforma, Calle Tepa and Chilttepica, will compete for salsa honors including best hot salsa, best alternative salsa and best overall salsa. Bartenders from nearly 20 restaurants will also be battling it out with tequila-based cocktails. Last year, Armitage Wine Lounge took the top spot for salsa, while Pasco Kitchen's Father Kino won first for cocktails.

It isn't all about the salsa and tequila though. Small bites from [Popped], Sonoran Sno Cones, and more can be paired with non-alcoholic drinks from Dish for Dosha and Tohono Chul Garden Bistro. The event, which runs from 7 until 10 p.m., will also feature other heritage Mexican spirits like bacanora and sotol, as well as a limited selection of beer. Tucson's Santa Pachita and the Folklorico Ballet of Nogales will be performing.

Tickets for the Salsa & Tequila Challenge are available online in advance on the SAACA website for $50, along with a full list of participants and more information. Limited day of ticketing will be available for $60 as well. Proceeds from the festival will benefit the Food Bank of Southern Arizona and SAACA’s arts therapy and education programs. It is a 21 and over event.

GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has finally revealed how he will make Mexico build the border wall for us. Slate's Jordan Weissmann looks at The Donald's plan:

Number one on Trump's to-do list? Build a border wall, and make Mexico pay for it. This is a scheme he has floated before—and Mexico's President has said that, obviously, his country wouldn't cooperate—but now he's detailing more precisely how he'd bludgeon our southerly neighbor into forking over the cash. To wit:

Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options]. We will not be taken advantage of anymore.

So, this is what it is. Parts are puzzling. I'm not exactly sure, for instance, how Trump plans to distinguish remittance payments "derived from illegal wages" from regular old remittance payments. But, it's probably best to pay attention to the broad strokes: If necessary, Trump is happy to start a trade war and diplomatic struggle with Mexico until it funds a fence.

Say what you will about the merits of this idea, as a marketing strategy it's kind of brilliant. At this point, barking about how we need to build a wall to keep immigrants out is old hat in Republican politics. But demanding that Mexico cover the bill adds a nice, jingoistic edge that freshens the concept up. It's familiar with a twist.

Which, honestly, kind of describes the overall vibe of Trump's immigration plan. For instance, he wants to end birthright citizenship. Extreme? Sure. But that's already a popular idea among certain Republicans in Congress.1 He wants to cut off money to "sanctuary cities" that don't enforce federal immigration law—and, well, the GOP-led house just passed a bill to do exactly that. He also advocates a bunch of basically standard, hardline positions like increasing deportations and upping the number of ICE officers, and doesn't mention anything about a path citizenship (though, as Josh Barro recently noted, Trump has made comments suggesting some "flexibility" on that subject). Borrowing from immigration skeptics on the left, he would take steps to curb guest worker visas.

The Democratic National Committee's Director of Hispanic Media, Pablo Manriquez, responds:

Zona Politics Eps.37 from Zona Politics with Jim Nintzel on Vimeo.

This week on Zona Politics with Jim Nintzel: We go into outer space with author Chris Impey and deep beneath ancient African lakes with Dr. Andrew Cohen. Impey, the deputy head of the UA Astronomy Department, stops by talk about his new book Beyond: Our Future in Space, as well as dark matter, the possibility of life on other planets and much more. Then Cohen, a UA professor of geology and ecology and evolutionary biology, discusses his work in ancient African lake beds. You can learn more about Cohen's work, including how the samples he's retrieving are helping scientists understand the world our ancient ancestors lived in, here and you can watch A Human Climate below.

Watch Zona Politics at 8 a.m. Sunday on the CW Tucson, Channel 8 on Cox and Comcast and Channel 58 on broadcast, DirecTV and Dish networks.


Here's a transcript of the show:

Hello, everyone. I’m Tucson Weekly senior writer Jim Nintzel and this is Zona Politics. Today, we’re taking a break from public affairs to learn a litle bit about life in outer space. Joining me is author and astronomy, Dr. Chris Impey. Dr. Impey is the deputy head of the U of a Astronomy Department and the author of several books. The most recent is “Beyond: Our Future in Space.” Dr. Impey, welcome to Zona Politics.

(Impey) Nice to be with you, Jim.

(Nintzel) Talk a little bit about what “Beyond” is all about.

(Impey) Well, I sort of felt that most people saw the space program was in the doldrums. You know, Americans can’t put an astronaut in orbit and it’s 40 years plus since we’ve been to the moon. You know the average person thinks it isn’t really happening. But, meanwhile, the private sector is gearing up and there are some pretty exciting things happening, so I felt it was time to sort of look at the space program and our future in space.

(Nintzel) How much longer before we see more people going up in space?

Fine the legislature! That's what the Washington State Supreme Court is doing, issuing a $100,000 fine for every day the legislature ignores a court order on school funding. The decision was unanimous.

Thursday's order, signed by all nine justices of the high court, ordered that the fine start immediately, and be put into a dedicated education account.

The situation sounds very similar to what's going on in Arizona.

The ruling was the latest development in a long-running impasse between lawmakers and justices, who in 2012 ruled that the state is failing to meet its constitutional duty to pay for the cost of basic education for its 1 million schoolchildren.

Thomas Ahearne, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said that the court's action "is long overdue."

"The state has known for many, many years that it's violating the constitutional rights of our public school kids," Ahearne said. "And the state has been told by the court in rulings in this case to fix it, and the state has just been dillydallying along."

The details are different. The biggest issue in the Washington case is that school districts are overly dependent on local taxes to fund the schools, which leads to big disparities in funding levels, district to district. Arizona's per student funding may be ridiculously low, but the pain is spread out reasonably evenly. Some of our districts figure out ways to get more money in their coffers than others, but it's nowhere near the disparity you find in some other states. 

Our Supreme Court should follow the example set in Washington. Start fining the legislature $100,000 a day. That would mean by the time the next legislative session starts, we'd have about $15 million socked away. It's a paltry sum that doesn't begin to cover the $300 million-plus the state owes the schools this school year alone, but it would rankle the "Rule of law" Republicans no end to see the steady drip-drip-drip of money leaving their hands by court order. To paraphrase Barry Goldwater, A hundred thousand here, a hundred thousand there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

I've been hanging out with the Sun Tran strikers at the Ronstadt Transit Center, listening to the reasons they're so passionate about this protest. I met Kirk, who's been a bus driver for six years, and he told me about the time he was stabbed twice in the chest while on the job. Across the street, there was Julie, a Tucsonan who relies on the bus to get to work. Her route is among the more than 30 not in circulation at the moment, which caused her to lose her job. She will not be able to pay rent and fears being evicted.

We'll have a story on what we've been hearing from many of you out there on next week's issue. But here are some photographs I took this morning.

Tucson Electric Power announced Thursday it had ended the use of coal at its largest local power plant. The utility company will now primarily rely on natural gas, a press release says.

Per requests from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, TEP had until December 2017 to make the move, so they're proud to be two years ahead of schedule. They hope the transition will help Pima County comply with stricter ozone standards, which are taking effect later this year. In 2013, the EPA found the plant to be out of compliance with the Clean Air Act, and recommended TEP install industry-standard pollution controls, according to the Sierra Club. In early 2014, TEP and the EPA "agreed on a plan to switch the plant’s fuel source from coal to gas by the end of 2017, a move that would result in lower costs for TEP and less air pollution than the EPA’s recommended plan," the Sierra Club says in a press release.

Also, reduction of carbon dioxide emissions at the power plant comply with the new Clean Power Plan rules, set to begin early into 2022. (The Clean Power Plan proposes cutting carbon emissions nationally by one-third. Arizona has to cut emissions by about one-half through 2030.)

"Eliminating the local use of coal is an important part of our plan to build a cleaner, more diverse energy portfolio," said a statement by David G. Hutchens, TEP's president and CEO. 

Here's some backgrounds provided by TEP:

The Sundt power plant has been a focus of changing federal energy and environmental policy. In July 1982, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) ordered that all four units at the natural gas-fired plant be converted to burn coal pursuant to the Power Plant and Industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978, which sought to preserve domestic supplies of natural gas during the energy crisis. That law was repealed in 1987, though, and the DOE later rescinded its order after TEP had completed the conversion of Unit 4.

When natural gas prices were higher, TEP chose coal to reduce the cost passed down to customers. "While Unit 4 will lose that flexibility, it can produce 30 percent more power when fueled by natural gas," the company says. 

From TEP:

TEP's Integrated Resource Plan calls for cutting the company's coal-fired generating capacity by more than 30 percent and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent over five years. TEP is increasing its use of natural gas and relying more heavily on its expanding renewable energy portfolio, which now includes more than 400 megawatts of solar, wind and other resources — enough to meet the annual electric needs of more than 84,000 homes.

Dan Millis of the Sierra Club's Grand Canyon Arizona Chapter says this is a win for public health.

"...It will lessen our community’s impact on climate change,” he says in a statement. “It also will help the air quality at our national parks and wilderness areas. However, Tucsonans want clean, renewable, locally-generated power from solar and wind, not a utility that is 91 percent fossil fuels. We would like to see TEP take the next step to becoming a clean energy utility.” 

Sundt is one of five coal power plants under TEP. Several groups, including the Sierra Club, have demanded TEP to divert from one in New Mexico, the San Juan Generating Station. The company's involvement with San Juan fueled a protest recently, where the chant was "Sol Not Coal." 

Whether it's chef team-ups, kitchen takeovers or maker mash-ups, there's nothing better than when two local joints collaborate on a special meal to offer tastes of what both do best, and Union Public House (4340 N. Campbell Ave.) and Pueblo Vida Brewing aim to do just that on Monday, August 17.

While Union will take on four courses and the hosting duties, Pueblo Vida will contribute four different local microbrews for the event, which begins at 6:30 p.m. You can expect pairing such as a Bavarian hefeweizen with an array of cheese or a breakfast stout with Yellow Brick coffee ice cream. The meal is $55 including tax and gratuity. Reservations are required and you can save your spot by calling 329-8575 or e-mailing your party information to [email protected].

Now, without further ado, here's the Union and Pueblo Vida collab menu:

Ed Supe Diane Douglas is making headlines again in her continuing power struggle with the Arizona Board of Education. The Board represents the Ducey education agenda, and Douglas wants—it's hard to know exactly what Douglas wants. Based on her tenure on the Peoria school board and her pronouncements during the campaign, it seems like she wants Arizona education to take a hard right turn. But I don't know exactly what that means, especially since she's said some laudable things about education since taking office in January. When it comes to her long term plans, Douglas is holding her cards pretty close to her vest. What I do know is, she wants to have more power over education priorities at the state level, and she wants the State Board to have less.

They've been in court, Douglas and the Board, over the question of who controls what. The Board won the last round, so naturally, Douglas is appealing the ruling. Meanwhile, the latest is, she's threatening not to get the state's Move On When Reading web portal up and running, which is a problem, since there's $40 million in funding waiting to be spent on reading programs for elementary school kids, and it can't be allocated unless the website is working. It looks like Douglas has decided to open the Move On When Reading portal, but she says the Board has to kick in $50,000 to help it do its work, or something like that.

Yes, it would be awful if that $40 million isn't used to help kids read, but for the life of me, I can't get overly concerned about this whole Douglas/Board kerfuffle. (That $40 million will get spent on reading, by the way, very little doubt about that. Both sides want it to happen. They're just waiting to see who blinks first.) Truth be told, I find it all amusing. "Pass the popcorn, honey, this is getting good!" The "Douglas vs. the Republican Establishment" battle is the national Republican Party  writ small. We're seeing similar battles playing out in the GOP's cast-of-thousands presidential primary. For years, the Republican establishment catered to and fawned over its far right wingers to bring them into the fold as a voting force. The party power structure was playing the role of political Frankenstein, creating an ideological monster out of bits and pieces of the Republican platform. [Literary note: Frankenstein isn't the monster. Mary Shelley created the fictional character Dr. Frankenstein, who then created the monster. When referencing the story, always say, "Frankenstein's monster" or simply "The monster." Never say, "They created a Frankenstein."] But the Republican Frankenstein wanted its far right wing monster to be all mouth and fingers. It was just supposed to make noise and vote Republican. Instead, the monster escaped, ran amok and took control. The people who are supposed to be in control don't know how to put the monster in chains and get him back into the laboratory where they can tell him what to do, instead of the other way round.

About 30 people gathered outside the Tucson Electric Power headquarters this morning to protest U.S. Sen. John McCain's role in the Oak Flat giveaway to foreign mining company Resolution Copper. Some of the protesters also wanted to raise awareness on a bill McCain sponsors—SB 750—which would waive laws on all federal public land within 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Simultaneously, the Republican senator was inside in a private meeting with TEP representatives. 

"He's having three private meetings this week, private town halls, while he refuses to meet with his constituents," says Cyndi Tuell, an attorney, conservation advocate and a volunteer with the Sierra Club's Borderlands campaign. "We are ashamed of him for that and ashamed of him for giving away the sacred Apache land of Oak Flat in a midnight deal in Congress."

The so-called Arizona Borderland Protection and Preservation Act—which was first introduced earlier this year (Tuell anticipates Congress will re-explore it in September)—would "cut unnecessary red tape and enable Border Patrol agents to have access to all federally managed land in Southwest Arizona, so they can perform their jobs effectively, keep our communities safe, and secure the border once and for all."

Tuell says what the legislation proposes "flies in the face of what democracy is all about." 

"Waiving all laws...based on erroneous information, and part of the reason he is so wrong is he won't talk to the people who know he facts. (McCain) is saying the Border Patrol wants this bill and that is not true," she says.

On Thursday, Aug. 20, there will be a community forum on SB 750 at the Alliance for Global Justice, 225 E. 26th St., at 7:30 p.m., where panelists that include U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, Dan Millis of the Sierra Club and Tuell, will discuss what advocacy groups call the "latest assault on undocumented workers, climate refugees and the Sonoran Desert."

Tuell says she and several others have been trying to meet, or at the very least speak, with McCain about their concerns on Oak Flat and the border security bill, but that they have been told by his office he has been unavailable. 

"He meets with the people who make him millions of dollars, he doesn't meet with the average citizen," she says. "He refuses to meet with his constituents. Basically, if you disagree with the position of your senator, he is going to refuse to meet with you, and then tell the world he is representing the will of the people of Southern Arizona, and that is not true."