At the end of our Access Tucson TV show, Education: The Rest of the Story, Ann-Eve Pedersen and I have a short discussion of the ups and downs, pros and cons of TUSD's newly created Internal Auditor position.

Employing his unique 60-Minutes-Meets-Monty-Python style, John Oliver explains pretty much everything you need to know about standardized testing.

The Arizona Board of Regents will not make a decision on possible lower college tuition rates for DREAMers until their next meeting in June. 

If approved, the proposal would allow young immigrants brought here as children, and who get a work permit and legal presence in the country under Obama's 2012 DACA program, to attend a state university and pay 150 percent of what the in-state undergraduate rate is. At the UA that'd be about $17,000—instead of more than $30,000,  which is what the out-of-state rate DREAMers have been dealing with for three years, leaving many in limbo after attending a community college. 

To qualify, the student must have attended high school in the state for at least three years. 

Some people argue that too many people go to college these days. High school grads sign up for community college without the necessary academic skills, and others go to a state university and drop out before they graduate. It's a waste of their time and money, these people argue, and it's a waste of taxpayer money as well.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that this is a big argument in right wing circles that advocate for spending less money on education. It's one of the Goldwater Institute's favorite higher education topics. But that shouldn't matter. The question is, do too many people go to college? Are they wasting their money, and ours?

According to a column in the Sunday NY Times, the answer is no. A college education makes a difference, especially for students who graduate but even for those who don't. Obviously, there are plenty of anecdotal examples of people who were lousy high school students, then excelled in college—the column has a good one—but the column cites a few studies indicating that marginal students attending a four year college earn more than similar students who don't.

The Arizona Board of Regents is supposed to decide today on new tuition for the three state universities, as well as a proposed decrease in rates for DREAMers. 

This new policy asks for tuition for young immigrants under Obama's 2012 DACA program be 150 percent what residents pay a year. As of now, DREAMers—who despite having lived here for years are considered non-residents—pay $33,630 in tuition and fees, which is 300 percent to cost of resident tuition. If the proposal is approved, that would go down to about $17,000.

While it's a huge step forward, DREAMers want tuition equity. And, last week, many of them gathered at the UA to keep fighting for that right. 

Since fall 2013, DREAMers get to pay in-state tuition at Pima Community College, as long as they have their DACA work permit and another document that proves they have lived in the state for longer than one year. 

Prop 300, a referendum passed by voters in 2006, says university students who are not U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents do not qualify for in-state tuition or financial aid funded or subsidized by state money. 

The vibe among DREAMers and allies has been, while 150 percent is nice, 100 percent tuition equality is fair. 

Dario Andrade Mendoza graduated from high school and Pima Community College with honors. His interests lie in engineering, so, naturally, the next step was obvious: enrolling in the University of Arizona's College of Engineering and getting a degree—or several of them. 

In May 2014, right after he got an associate's from PCC, the 20-year-old applied to the UA. He was accepted as an honors student in the engineering college because of his outstanding grades.

There was a problem, though. Andrade Mendoza is a DACA recipient, or DREAMer, so he has to pay out-of-state tuition at the UA, which is, as of now, about $29,000 plus fees per year, and bound to probably get more expensive with this year's tuition proposals. 

"I ended up not enrolling in any class because I cannot afford that," he says. Andrade Mendoza was among a group of DREAMers and allies who participated in a rally at the UA demanding they get in-state tuition. (The gathering was organized by Scholarships AZ.) "Throughout the four years of high school, my counselor promised me, 'Hey, you are going to get financial aid, the AIMS scholarship, you are going to get all of these scholarships.' So I thought, 'Oh, maybe I am going to go to college.'"

I'm a little late for the party. The Star covered WaPo's Most Challenging High Schools list a week ago. But I was out of town, so now I'm making up for lost time.

The reason this is a big story locally is that three Tucson schools cracked the top ten, including two BASIS charters. BASIS Oro Valley is number one and BASIS Tucson North is number six. So what does the list mean? Here's a hint. The two BASIS campuses are both fairly new, as is BASIS Chandler, which came in number two. The more established BASIS campuses scored lower.

Before I get into the rather simple math (the list is created using a ridiculously simplistic equation), let me say I like the fact that this list calls the schools the most challenging, not the best. That's actually a reasonable description. BASIS and, I imagine, the other schools in the top 100 (University High is Number 37) make students work their asses off. They take lots of academically rigorous classes, and excellence is expected. Are they the best schools in the country? That's an impossible question to answer. What does "best" mean, and how do you measure it? But challenging? You bet they are, and students entering those schools should understand the academic challenges they'll face.
So, how are the rankings created? It's a very simple—too simple—formula: Take the total number of Advanced Placement tests (or International Baccalaureate or Advanced International Certificate of Education) given at the school and divide it by the number of graduating seniors. Here's how that looks as a mathematical equation:


To get the highest score, you need to maximize the number of students who take the tests (they don't have to pass them, just take them)—meaning you require lots of those nationally tested classes—and minimize the number of seniors.

Let's look at the BASIS Oro Valley, the top scorer on the national list with 20.44. It had a total of 206 high school students, and only 25 of them were seniors. Seniors made up one-eighth of the student body. Why so few? Oro Valley is almost brand new. This is only its second senior class. To get its 20.44 challenge score, its high school students would have taken a total of 511 AP exams, or 2.5 per student. That shouldn't be tough, since taking lots of AP classes is a requirement. Students even take one in the eighth grade.

If the school had just five more seniors, the Challenge Score would have been dropped from 20 to 17.

The Arizona Board of Education has created a committee that'll be in charge of reviewing the Common Core standards for math and English language arts.

The 17-member committee—made up of Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas (who based her entire campaign on her opposition to Common Core), business owners, college deans, teachers and parents —will host a series of public hearings for input, and collaborate with "English and math experts" who will draft the new standards.

The change is expected before the end of this school year.

Last month, at the same time a bill that sought to kill the so-called College and Career Ready Standards remained alive in the state Legislature, Gov. Doug Ducey asked the board to review the standards, use the basics for foundation, dump what is perceived as unnecessary, and create language that is more in tune with Arizona. 

"We can learn from others, but at the end of the day the standards need to come from Arizona and they need to help us achieve our objectives," Ducey told the board at the time. "And in any instance during your review, you find situations where Arizona standards can outperform the ones already adopted, I ask you to replace them."

Several anti-Common Core bills died this past legislative session, as did the year before. 

So what's been happening the past few weeks I should know about, and maybe write about? I've been traveling in southern Spain, and the reason you go there isn't to follow current events, though thanks to the miracle of wireless-in-every-hotel, I kept up a bit. The main lure of the area is getting a glimpse of the area pre- and post-inquisition. When it comes to Spain, I learned in school that in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. It wasn't until later I learned the date was also a marker of the worst kind of intolerance: 1492 was a very bad time to be a Jew, and a bad time to be a Muslim too. It was also later that I learned, when the Muslims were in control of the area, it was a hotbed of learning, culture and art. The Alhambra, above, is a wonder. The time is known as the Golden Age of Jewish Culture, when Jewish learning blossomed alongside Muslim learning. Walking through the Muslim palaces and mosques, seeing a small pre-Inquisition synagogue — one of three still standing in Spain — was educational and awe inspiring. And rubbing the feet of a statue of The Rambam (the name given to the scholar/philosopher/physician Maimonides [If you didn't before, next time you watch The Big Lebowski, you'll get John Goodman's reference]) is supposed to grant you luck and impart wisdom. I usually don't go in for the rubbing-for-luck thing, but in Córdoba, I rubbed his feet every time I passed.

So . . . if you think I missed something important in the news, give me a heads up in the comments, preferably with a link,

The Arizona Board of Regents will soon vote on possibly adding a new policy that would create another non-resident undergraduate tuition rate specifically for students who graduate from an Arizona high school but don't otherwise qualify as residents.

The proposal would directly affect so-called DREAMers, young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. They have been fighting for in-state tuition for years, as they have lived in Arizona for most of their lives. Because of their immigration status—despite getting relief from President Obama's DACA program—the state doesn't grant them that benefit. 

This new non-resident rate would be 150 percent of the resident tuition rate established by ABOR. It would also only apply to undergraduate students. 

DREAMers want a rate that is equal to resident tuition. (If ABOR approves the tuition hike proposal by the UA, new undergrads will pay $11,403 a year, while non-residents, among them DREAMers, will pay $33,630 per year.)

To qualify, the student would have had to attend high school in the state for three or more years. Those three years of attendance don't have to be consecutive.