Let me add to my Tuesday list of education bills proposed in the legislature. No saying what fate the bills will have—whether they'll be heard, and if so, whether they'll make it to the governor's desk, but here they are.

Daily Physical Activity
SB 1126. For years, Tucson's own Steve Gall has been pushing to get elementary students' bodies moving for their physical, mental and intellectual health by working with kids in TUSD schools, talking to legislators and getting bills introduced. This bill says children in grades one through five have to engage in some form of organized physical activity daily, inside or outside the classroom. No physical education teachers or funding are required. (Sponsored by four Democrats)

Common Core
HB 2190 forbids adopting the Common Core standards, either under their original name or their "It's not really the Common Core" name, Arizona College and Career Ready Standards. It's a very long bill, too long for me to care enough to take the time to read it thoroughly, so I don't know all its ins and outs. (Sponsored by four 4 Republicans)

HB 2392. This is a much shorter bill that gets straight to the point: The Board of Education "may not implement the Common Core Standards, this state's College and Career Ready standards or any other standards or assessments that are developed outside this state." There's a little more, but that's the gist. (Sponsored by one Republican)

Statewide Achievement Tests
HB 2180 says the Board of Education has to adopt multiple achievement assessment tests, and schools can pick one from the menu. If this were adopted, schools could go test shopping, and it would be nearly impossible for the state to compare student and school scores with any degree of confidence, so school comparisons and the state wide school grading system would mean even less than they do now. (Sponsored by three Republicans)

Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas says Arizona's education is poor and that too many children are not receiving the education they deserve.

Douglas gave her first speech to members of the state House Education Committee yesterday, following news that the recently released "Quality Counts" report—which rates all states on overall student achievement, students' chances for success and school finance policy—had given Arizona a D+, raking us 47th out of 50.

"As a former school board member, who has talked with countless parents and teachers and has visited innumerable classrooms, it isn't news to me," she says in a statement.

The former Peoria Unified School District board member highlighted the Common Core Standards, which were later renamed here as Arizona's College and Career Ready Standards, as one of the problems that could continue contributing to the state's crippling education system.

"The continual disruption of standards, accountability, assessment and educator evaluations has caused uncertainty and stress in the education community as well as among Arizona parents," Douglas says. "This is not the first time Arizona has changed its entire education system to reflect the latest fad, top-down approach, or cure-all sold as the solution for student achievement."

She also touches on the newly-established AzMERIT test, which is substituting the years-long standing AIMS test. She refers to both as unproven methods. Really, she feels the two were forced down the state's throat by the federal government, so she urges the state Legislature and Gov. Doug Ducey to "stop the madness."

Then there is the whole thing about teachers leaving the profession "at alarming rates."

"In fact, 24 percent of first year and 20 percent of second year teachers in  Arizona quit after the 2013-2014 school year," she says. 

I'm glad she recognized that teachers' shitty salaries contribute to that problem—Arizona's average teacher salary is ranked 42nd in the country.

Throughout, there isn't mention of Ducey's proposal to cut millions from public schools', community colleges' and universities' budgets. 

But there's this:

"I fully realize the strain that previous expenditures and tight budgets have placed on all involved. Our current fiscal environment does not make our job of putting education on the path to improvement any easier," she says.

These are her solutions:

Continuous Improvement of Arizona Standards for Arizona Students

First, Arizona’s children deserve high standards in education. I intend to establish an annual deliberative and ongoing process for standards review by a broad spectrum of Arizona classroom teachers, colleges, businesses and, yes, parents to ensure continuous improvement. It is long past time that we start asking parents what they expect for their children’s education rather than telling them what they must accept. Our continual improvement process will allow us the flexibility to make whatever changes are needed―without asking permission from Washington, D.C. or seeking agreement from more than 40 other states. We can make moderate changes in a transparent process each year. This will allow students and teachers to absorb changes without disruptions and without major costs to districts.

Support for Our Teachers

Standards and assessments cannot take the place of effective teachers connecting with
individual children. Make no mistake, standardized and high stakes testing measure
demographics, not student achievement or teacher performance. For many children, the personal confidence shown in them by a caring teacher is something they will remember as a key moment in their life. Our teachers’ content knowledge and skills must be built upon, rather than erased and replaced with new fads. I know first-hand just how hard our teachers work and how much they care about their students. We must commit to work just as hard to support them. We have an opportunity to build upon the teacher preparation programs that are training the next generation of Arizona educators. By enhancing the quality of these programs, we can positively impact teacher retention and work to stabilize the growing need for highly qualified teachers.
For many years teachers have been asking for additional support. I intend to listen and come to their aid.

Safe and Meaningful Education Data

Next as Superintendent, I will build on the information technology progress the Department of Education made during the previous administration. 
Our first step is to complete accurate data systems. But data is not useful, unless it can be distributed to teachers as information they can actually use to improve classroom instruction. In addition, I am committed to strengthening our data security. Every child should have their data collected only if necessary, and it should be protected with the care that parents expect and deserve.

She mentions her support for the inclusion of Chicanos', Latino-American', Native-Americans' and African-Americans' heritage and contributions to state and country in history classes.

But she's been playing devil's advocate with this whole thing since the Tucson Unified School District mess and saying teachers are teaching the content wrong.

"All ethnicities will be properly represented in history, language arts, music, civics and all other appropriate areas of study," she says. "Teaching children by ethnicity is academic segregation, reinforcing in young minds that somehow we are different and separate from each other. These standards changes will allow children statewide to look at each other not by color or ethnicity, but as fellow Arizonans, respected for their own unique history and culture, which has contributed to this state."

An article in today's Star talks about a proposition to create an International English Spelling Congress to make the way we spell words more logical and consistent. The article mentions the letter string "ough," which can be pronounced at least seven ways—as in the words "though," "through," "cough," "rough," "plough," "ought" and "borough." As an old English teacher, I know more time is spent—"wasted" would be a better word—teaching and correcting spelling than would be necessary if words were spelled something like the way they sounded.

This isn't a new idea. In the 1870s, someone came up with the word "ghoti" as an example of our ridiculous spelling system. The "gh" is pronounced as in "tough," the "o" as in "women," and the "ti" as in "nation." Put it all together and it spells "fish." (I always thought "ghoti" was a George Bernard Shaw creation. Apparently not—according to Wikipedia, anyway.)

If they were talking about this 150 years ago, I doubt if anything is going to (gonna?) change any time soon.

Word Nerd Note: In James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, he made reference to "ghoti" in typical Joycean fashion:

"Gee each owe tea eye smells fish."

Now you know.

Yesterday I wrote a post condemning Ducey's decision to take money donated to help living post-9/11 veterans and use it to keep cemeteries for veterans running. My headline was, Vets Join Arizona's "Budget Balanced on the Backs of" List. A line from the post:

Let this be a wake-up call to people who think these sons of bitches hold anything—other than cutting taxes for corporations—sacred.

I sent it to Chelo Grubb, the Weekly's web editor, for her to put on The Range. A little while later, she sent me an email saying Ducey had backed down, so my post was on hold. Consider this a replacement for that post and a retraction of the above unpublished quote.

Contrary to my assertion, Ducey & Co. do consider something sacred other than corporate tax cuts: their heads, which were nearly bit off by veterans groups and Republican legislators. Parents and educators can yell all they want about Republicans withholding funding from schools. No problem. Courts can even tell the legislature its cuts are illegal to the tune of $330 million. Republicans appeal the decision, and Ducey talks tough but does nothing. College students and their parents can raise a fuss over regular increases in college tuition because state funding for universities keeps getting cut. Ducey says students need to pay their fair share of the cost of college. The governor can brush off those complaints with a quick swipe of his hand. But he learned an important lesson from his latest attempt at a funding sweep. Don't mess with vets.

Ducey's change of heart shouldn't be the end of this story about the donated money. It says on the Arizona Department of Veterans' Services web page, the money "directly impacts the lives of Arizona's heroes," and that's what it should do. But it's not happening. Ted Vogt, Ducey's chief of operations, said the original plan to sweep the fund wasn't such a big deal (a word of advice to Ted: Never use a phrase like "not a big deal" when referring to veterans) because the fund has $5 million in its coffers. He failed to mention the reason for the unused balance. The advisory committee hasn't decided how to spend the money—because, I guess, they figure Arizona's veterans are doing just fine. The $5 million unused balance is a scandal which was brought to light by the hubbub over Ducey's proposed sweep. The governor's next move should be to make sure the committee does its job and spends the donated funds to offer veterans much needed, and much deserved, help.

Many bills are written in the Arizona legislature, but few are chosen. And when Democrats write the bills, even fewer make the cut. With that in mind, here's an incomplete list of bills relating to education which I hope will get a serious hearing, even though some of them are less than perfect. (If I've missed any important ones, commenters, let me know.) I'm not going to list the sponsors of each bill, but I'll show how many are Democrats and Republicans. You can click on the links to learn more.

There's plenty to say about the bills, but it doesn't make sense to say much until we see which get serious consideration.

Opt Out of Statewide Assessments
HB 2246. This bill would allow parents to choose to have their children opt out of statewide assessments for whatever reason they choose. (Sponsored by 3 Republicans)

Public School Tax Credits
HB 2198 allows tax credit money given to public schools to be used for classroom curriculum as well as extracurricular activities. Currently, the money can only be used for extracurricular activities. (Sponsored by 2 Democrats) 
HB 2232 increases the maximum public school tax credit from $200 for an individual ($400 for a couple) to $500 for an individual ($1,000 for a couple). (Sponsored by 9 Democrats, 1 Republican)

Private School Tax Credits/School Tuition Organizations
HB 2231 says 95% of the tax credit money collected by STOs must be used for scholarships, meaning the STOs can only keep 5% for overhead. Currently, STOs can keep 10%. (Sponsored by 11 Democrats) 
HB 2233 forbids tax credit donors from recommending beneficiaries for scholarships. Currently, donors can recommend anyone but their own dependents (STOs aren't bound by the recommendations, but they tend to follow them). (Sponsored by 10 Democrats, 1 Republican) 
HB 2235 means tests scholarships. At least 66 percent of the scholarships have to go to children whose family income doesn't exceed 185 percent of the income qualifying a child for free or reduced lunch. (Sponsored by 11 Democrats)
HB 2251 says the Department of Revenue has to send information on tax credits donated by corporations to the Governor, President of the Senate, Speaker of the House, Chairs of the Finance and Ways and Means Committee, and the Secretary of State. (Sponsored by 10 Republicans, 6 Democrats)
HB 2234 Restricts the amount of extra tax credit money parents can give when their children move from public to private schools. (Sponsored by 12 Democrats)

It's OK that I don't agree with the Washington Post editorial in Friday's Star, which says we should keep testing students in reading and math every year. I'll even hold my nose and not complain when it says the testing regimen beginning with the No Child Left Behind law is "a civil rights achievement that must not be undone." But when the editorial misuses statistics to make the case that achievement of poor and minority students has gone up because of the annual NCLB testing—nope, I won't let them get away with that.

The editorial says the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) test results indicate that poor and minority students have increased their achievement since 2001. I kinda like the NAEP test, because it's low stakes—a sample group of students are given the test, so no one can teach to the test, and no one loses their job over the results—and it has been given consistently since the 1970s. To the extent that you can put faith in any standardized test as a measure of student achievement, this is the one to put faith in.

What if they gave a high stakes test and nobody came? That's the question being asked by United Opt Out National as well a growing number of parents and educators around the country. The organization's three day Standing Up For Action Conference begins today in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Standing Up For Action is a working session for local and national activists, concerned parents, educators, students and all who have a general interest in equitable and quality public education. Attendees will leave equipped with plans of action to refuse, resist, and disrupt corporate and for-profit education reforms that have destroyed the democratic voice in public education decision making and have forced the implementation of policies damaging to students, educators, and communities.

If enough students opt out of the high stakes tests, test results become meaningless as a way of praising and punishing teachers, administrators and schools for their overall test scores. And that's the main point for people who believe that the yearly tests are a destructive force for American education in general and students in particular.

Opting out of Arizona's high stakes tests is tough, as it is in most states. I've been gathering information about the successes and failures of opt-outers in a number of states and plan to write about them in future posts.

I should have caught this myself. When Governor Ducey said 96 percent of Arizona students can't pass the civics test given to new citizens to justify a mandatory civics test for high school students, I should have remembered the discredited Goldwater Institute survey he got his figure from. But it took today's AP article to remind me.

The survey Ducey relied upon was done for the Goldwater Institute and is widely cited by groups promoting civics education.

But Goldwater spokeswoman Starlee Coleman told The Associated Press on Wednesday the institute withdrew the survey results in 2009 after a company that conducted the survey for Goldwater failed to show its basic research met Goldwater's standards. Another survey done for an Oklahoma group showing similar dismal testing results also has been discredited.

The reason I should have remembered is, I wrote a slew of posts about the bogus survey back in 2009 when I was writing on Blog for Arizona. A quick search brought up a dozen of my old posts, including this one, which looked at research into the Strategic Vision LLC, the company Goldwater Institute hired to do the survey: Fooled Gold? Another look at the G.I. Civics Test. 

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight believes Strategic Vision LLC concocts fraudulent surveys on a regular basis. In case you haven't heard of Silver, . . . If you're looking for the smartest guy in the room — more specifically, in any room where statistics are the topic — Ladner and I would be hanging around in dark corners looking confused and Silver would be standing in the spotlight with other stat heads gathered around listening to what he had to say.

At the end of the post is a long list of articles about the bad data from Nate Silver, Politico and Pollster.com.

Ladner, who I referred to in the post, is Matthew Ladner. He used to be G.I.'s education guy before he was snatched up by Jeb Bush to work at his conservative "education reform" group, Foundation for Excellence in Education. (Ladner surfaced recently as a member of Ducey's education transition team.) Ladner was a frequent commenter on my posts back then, and he defended the survey data but said he would look into possible problems. I guess he did, because on the Goldwater Institute's website, instead of the article about the study, Freedom From Responsibility: A Survey of Civic Knowledge Among Arizona High School Students, there's this:

Questions have been raised about results of a polling survey cited in the material that had been posted on this web page. The material has been removed while the Goldwater Institute reviews the information underlying those results to determine if it complies with the Institute’s research guarantee.

There's a court case pending which could throw out HB 2281 (now A.R.S § 15-112), the law designed to make TUSD's ethnic studies curricula—first Mexican American Studies (MAS), now the Culturally Relevant Curriculum (CRC)—illegal. Without the law, Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas loses the hold she has over the CRC or the way its carried out in the classroom. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals very well may rule against the law, meaning TUSD shouldn't make any changes to CRC simply because Douglas demands them. The district should wait until the court decision, and request an extension if the court takes longer to decide than the district's March 4 deadline.

To understand the position TUSD is in, it's important to know the history of the Department of Education's attack on the district's ethnic studies programs.

When Tom Horne was Ed Supe, he loved to hate the Mexican American Studies program. He wore out the left lane of I-10 traveling to Tucson so he could stand in front of TUSD's admin building and hold press conferences criticizing MAS. It made great press for Tom, stirring up his base's fear of Hispanics, a move he hoped would help take him all the way to the governor's office. But at the time, there was nothing he could do about MAS, really, except hold news conferences and criticize the program. He couldn't issue an order demanding changes in the program any more than he could, say, tell the Marana School District how to teach science. The MAS program was perfectly legal, and it was up to the TUSD board to decide its fate.

Then came HB 2281,which was signed into law by Governor Brewer in May, 2010. The law did two things. First, it made it illegal for a school to teach classes that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government," "promote resentment toward a race or class of people," "are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group" or "Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." Second, it said if a district is told it's in violation of the law and "is substantially and deliberately not in compliance" within sixty days, the state can withhold ten percent of the money it's supposed to pay the district.
For the first time, the Ed Supe had a sword to dangle over TUSD's head: comply with our decisions about your ethnic studies program or lose over $14 million a year.

See if this sounds familiar. Hours before Horne left the Ed Supe office on January, 2011, to be replaced by John Huppenthal, Horne declared that MAS was illegal.

[Horne] said his findings show the program he has long sought to eliminate runs afoul of the law's requirement that classes cannot be "designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group."

"It is inherently designed for students of a particular ethnicity, and it's got to stop," Horne said Friday.

The very existence of the Mexican-American studies program violates the law, he said, and the only way the district can comply is to scrap it.

If school officials refuse, Horne said they should lose 10 percent of their state funding, as allowed under the law. That amounts to nearly $15 million for TUSD.

Right. Horne made the same eleventh hour move against the MAS program that Huppenthal made this year against the CRC, passing the enforcement of his findings to the incoming superintendent.

Members of the Tucson High Magnet School's M.E.Ch.A., Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán— a student organization that promotes higher education, culture, historical and political involvement of Chicanos—are trying to raise some money to head to Chicago in April for the 22nd annual national M.E.Ch.A. conference at DePaul University.

The conference's core is education and social justice; it's about reinforcing students that they should not be dormant to what happens in their surroundings. "Together we empower each other as we strive for success."

So, the Tucson High so-called mechistas have launched a gofundme.com account, and hope to get $2,200, which would cover for flights and housing for seven M.E.Ch.A. members. What they hope to get out of all of this is see how other mechistas around the country are making their communities better. DON'T BE AFRAID, they are not trying to overthrow the United States government, they just believe all people, including Chican@s, should have equal rights in accessing things like quality education, you know the usual.

M.E.Ch.A is an organization that was established in the late 1960s to fight for equality and promote higher education in the Mexican American community. Since then, it's now grown into a national group with chapters in high schools, colleges and universities. Many of these chapters gather at M.E.Ch.A. nationals to discuss issues affecting Mexican American people, and think of ways they can address these.

From a letter sent to me by members of M.E.Ch.A. de Tucson High:

Recently, we have made efforts to revive the M.E.Ch.A. chapter at Tucson High by doing recruiting drives to encourage students to attend our meetings. At our meetings, we discuss social justice issues and look for ways to get involved in our community and educate our fellow students about their culture and heritage. 

We currently have 20 members who attend regularly, but are making efforts to continue to grow. 

Many of our members come from very impoverished communities in Tucson, and paying for these expenses will be next to impossible for their parents and families.