Cheating on high stakes tests, or at least evidence of possible cheating, has reared its ugly head once again, this time at Wade Carpenter Middle School in the Nogales Unified School District. And once again, the validity of high stakes test scores as a measure of student achievement and school success has been thrown into question.

An analysis of eraser marks on AIMS tests at Wade Carpenter Middle School showed wrong answers had been corrected three or more times on 23 percent of seventh grade reading evaluations. Eighteen percent of math tests had four or more corrections. By comparison, just .006 percent of children statewide successfully change wrong answers this frequently.

If anyone cheated on the tests, it was teachers and/or administrators who were doing the erase-and-replace, not students. Patterns of wrong-to-right erasures on these tests usually mean someone other than the students went back and changed the answers. And it's possible this isn't a one shot deal at the school. It may have been going on since 2010.

Is this a problem at one Nogales school, or is it more widespread? No one knows at this point, and the only way to find out is to conduct a full scale, district-wide inquiry where multiple investigators interview teachers and administrators over and over again to see if they can uncover evidence of cheating. That's how the widespread Atlanta cheating scandal was uncovered. The staff repeatedly denied cheating until relentless inquiries led someone to admit the truth. The result has been high profile court trials of teachers and administrators. No other school district has been investigated as thoroughly, though based on an extensive study of erasure patterns at schools across the country, it's probable this kind of thing has happened elsewhere. No telling how hard the Nogales school district will look for more signs of cheating, though the superintendent has promised to have someone outside the district perform an investigation and is asking that people come forward with any information they might have.

Nogales Unified has defied the odds and received B and A grades from the state in spite of its high percentage of poor and ELL students. It has been cited as a model for what schools serving kids from poor families can accomplish, and the district has bragged that WCMS is the top Title 1 school in the country. It looks like we have a case of "cheating repeating itself." The Atlanta school district was named one of the finest in the country based on its test scores before the cheating scandal broke.

There have been several anti-Common Core bills that have been dropped this legislative session. House Bill 2190 is the sole survivor of that group, and, after passing the state House last week, it has now cleared a Senate committee. 

The bill passed with an amendment that would allow the state Board of Education to have a say in adopting new standards. A previous draft of the bill said that the board's only duty would be to administer the standards to public schools, while a new committee—the Arizona Education Standards Steering Committee—would have the responsibility to acquire them without any input from the board (unless the committee and Legislature were OK with it).

The legislation also asks the state to redevelop assessments.

During the hearing yesterday, supporters and opponents of the College and Career Ready Standards—from politicians to teachers and even a fifth grader—shared their insight.

Common Core haters have constantly argued that they are too federally driven, and the the feds have no business sticking their nose in educational methods used by states. Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas based her campaign on recalling the standards.

Proponents say it will help kids be better prepared for college, and that the standards foster critical thinking. Also, they said a lot of money has already been spent in rolling out the standards at schools.

If it passes the state Senate and becomes law, the state would time-travel back to 2010 to use the standards that were in place back then, until new ones are set up by 2017.

By Aug. 1 of that year, the board and the established committee would need to have adopted new standards for English language arts, American history, science and math. Through the process, the two would have to consult with the Arizona Board of Regents.

Two other anti-Common Core bills—SB 1305 and SB 1458—did not get lucky in the Senate, so whether this one will, who knows. 

Last year, efforts to kill the standards failed, including a bill that was vetoed by then-Gov. Jan Brewer.

More than 40 states have adopted Common Core. The Board of Education adopted them in 2010.

When the Walton Foundation—the ultra conservative WalMart fortune foundation which pours close to two hundred million a year into "education reform"—teams up with the Gates Foundation—Bill Gates' reasonably apolitical foundation which believes that every problem has a business model solution and also spends hundreds of millions on education initiatives—to put on a conference about education, it's worth taking notice. On March 10, the two groups hosted  "Bonds and Blackboards: Investing in Charter Schools" in New York. The purpose of the get-together was to let investors know they can make money lending to charter schools.

With the explicit intent of helping investors "Learn and understand the value of investing in charter schools and best practices for assessing their credit," the event featured experts on charter school investing from Standard & Poor's, Piper Jaffray, Bank of America, and Wells Capital Management, among others.

[snip]

Hedge funds and other private businesses are particularly interested in the growth and success of charter schools. The growth of charter networks around the US offer new revenue streams for investing, and the sector is quickly growing. Funding for charter schools is further incentivized by generous tax credits for investments to charter schools in underserved areas.

"It's a very stable business, very recession resistant, it's a high demand product. There are 400,000 kids on waiting lists for charter schools ... the industry is growing about 12-14% a year," David Brain, former President and CEO at EPR Properties, told CNBC in 2012.

"It's a public payer, the state is the payer on this category," he added in support of the highly safe investing opportunities in charter schools.

As safe as an investment in charter schools may be, Ducey and the AZ Lege want to make it safer still by creating a $24 million pot of collateral, which Ducey calls the "Arizona Public School Achievement District plan," to guarantee the loans. Details about the plan have not yet been announced, but if I read it right, it's a win-win for charter schools and investors. The only ones at risk are Arizona taxpayers. The collateral brings down interest costs because the loans are secured. Great for charters. Investors know they'll get their money no matter what. Great for investors. But if a charter fails, the state is left paying off the loan and holding the bag. Not so great for the state budget and the taxpayers who fund it.

If you're one of those people who go all out for "states rights," you should make sure the states get it right.

In general, poor students come to school with greater educational deficits than children from more affluent families. They tend to come from homes where the adults have less education, the home has fewer books, education is less highly valued—and they often arrive at school under-fed, under-slept and over-stressed. It makes sense for the state to spend extra money on their educations to deal the multiple problems those children face. At the very least, as much money should be spent on their educations as on children who come to school with more advantages.

But, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, about half the states spend less on school districts in poor areas than districts in more affluent areas. However, once federal funds are added in, the disparity evens out. Which, using conservative logic, is a good reason to cut federal spending on education, or at least give the money to states as block grants so they can spend more of it on rich kids. That's what Republican leaders in Congress are trying to do with the revision of No Child Left Behind.

The Washington Post has an excellent graphic charting spending state by state. When you just look at state and local funding, 23 states spend less on their poorest districts than their most affluent districts. The worst offender by a wide margin is Pennsylvania, where 33.5 percent less goes to the poorest districts. The national average is 15.6 percent less, with Arizona coming in at 14.1 percent less.

When you add federal funding into the mix, the disparity shrinks to 1.7 percent, still favoring the rich districts, but only by a little. With the Fed's help, Arizona spends 5.5 percent more on its poorest districts.

Here's the thing. At the very least, state and local funds should equalize spending between all districts, and a more sensible funding formula should swing the balance toward districts with a large number of poor children by adding funds for compensatory education. Federal dollars like Title 1 funds weren't created to restore balance. Their purpose is to help states give an added educational resources to children who need it most.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote a column which appeared in the Star last week, Fraternity boys and the long shadow of racism. We've seen plenty of coverage of the vile song the Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat boys from University of Oklahoma sang on the bus—racial exclusion and lynching to the tune of "When you're happy and you know it, clap your hands." Robinson takes us into the possible future of these lads and others like them.

Now, I realize that these soft, pampered, privileged, ridiculous frat boys are not likely to attempt actual violence against black people. But they wouldn’t have to. The attitudes their words reveal can, and probably will, show themselves in other ways.

Let’s imagine the video never surfaced. With halfway decent grades, degrees from Oklahoma’s flagship university and the connections that Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s old-boy network could provide, the boys on that bus could be expected to end up in executive positions with the power to hire and fire. What chance would an African American job applicant have of getting fair consideration?

Or imagine that one of the boys ends up in the real estate business. Is he going to treat African American buyers fairly? Or is he going to find ways to perpetuate the unofficial redlining that sustains patterns of racial segregation in neighborhoods across the country?

Maybe one of those boys might have developed an altruistic streak — or failed to find a job in his chosen field — and opted to spend a couple of years in Teach For America. He would have gone into the inner city with the attitude that he was among inferior beings. The students, of course, would have picked up on his disdain and returned it in kind — thus reinforcing his prejudices.

The frat song and racist emails from members of the Ferguson police department are vile, but they don't do great harm in and of themselves. It's the attitude, and the acceptance of the attitude, that it's OK, and probably appropriate, to make fun of minority groups, and that attitude spilling out into people's daily and working lives that's dangerous. Racism is alive and well, and denying it, or focusing on a song or an email and moving on (Just some stupid kids, just a few cops with a warped sense of humor), helps keep the fires burning.

A hundred people, mainly students from Tucson High, PCC and UA, marched from Tucson High, held a rally at UA, then made a circle around the Festival of Books holding signs and chanting slogans, to a warm, receptive audience.

The Department of Justice's Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department has a few passages about the way the police department deals with juveniles, which I'm copying here. The first passage is about an incident on the street that, honestly, makes me shudder (Imagine if they were your kids), and second is about the way the resource officers assigned to two schools performed their duties. These are examples of the "school to prison pipeline" process that turns minor problems into criminal offenses, with immediate negative consequences for the students which can follow them for a lifetime.

The first passage:

In February 2014, officers responded to a group of African-American teenage girls “play fighting” (in the words of the officer) in an intersection after school. When one of the schoolgirls gave the middle finger to a white witness who had called the police, an officer ordered her over to him. One of the girl’s friends accompanied her. Though the friend had the right to be present and observe the situation—indeed, the offense reports include no facts suggesting a safety concern posed by her presence—the officers ordered her to leave and then attempted to arrest her when she refused. Officers used force to arrest the friend as she pulled away. When the first girl grabbed an officer’s shoulder, they used force to arrest her, as well.

Officers charged the two teenagers with a variety of offenses, including: Disorderly Conduct for giving the middle finger and using obscenities; Manner of Walking for being in the street; Failure to Comply for staying to observe; Interference with Officer; Assault on a Law Enforcement Officer; and Endangering the Welfare of a Child (themselves and their schoolmates) by resisting arrest and being involved in disorderly conduct. This incident underscores how officers’ unlawful response to activity protected by the First Amendment can quickly escalate to physical resistance, resulting in additional force, additional charges, and increasing the risk of injury to officers and members of the public alike.

A few hundred students packed the Tucson High Magnet School auditorium earlier this afternoon for a forum to discuss the effects the state's $30 million budget cut to joint technical education districts will have at the school and the entire Tucson Unified School District.

Leroy Aaron Fisher, a junior at Tucson High, says the cuts jeopardize his plans of becoming a paramedic, and he has a question for Gov. Doug Ducey: "Why would you do that?"

"I don't want to sit down and take this," the 17-year-old said while he waited for the forum to begin. "How can I, as a student, how can we, as a school, combat this?"

For lack of any state funding, tuition for in-state students at Pima Community College is increasing by 7 percent for the 2015-16 school year. The board made their decision at Wednesday's afternoon meeting.

Starting July 1, residents will pay $5 more per credit hour (from $70.50 to $75.50) and non-residents $23 more (from $329 to $352 per credit hour). PCC also raised its tuition last year by nearly 8 percent. Up until now, the in-state price for full-time students has been $2,115. 

"The college is very sensitive to the impact of tuition increases on our students. When we discussed tuition with student government leaders, they recognized the balance PCC must maintain between keeping tuition low and having the resources necessary to provide quality education and services to our students," a statement from PCC said.

The board also increased the college's semester processing fee from $10 to $15, but got rid of the $15 graduation fee and the $2 fee for student ID cards.

This school year, PCC got $7.7 million from the state. A budget deal approved Saturday eliminated all state money for Pima, as well as Maricopa Community Colleges as of next year. Pinal Community College District got $2 million.

The magazine The Nation was founded 150 years ago "by anti-slavery abolitionists four months after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln." Its birthday celebration is touching down in Tucson for the Festival of Books this weekend. More information about The Nation's writers' events here. 

Sunday at 7 p.m., the Loft will be screening the regional premier of the documentary Hot Type: 150 Years of The Nation, with the filmmaker Barbara Kopple and The Nation's John Nichols in attendance. Before the showing, at 6pm, there will be a reception honoring Kopple with " the Lofty Lifetime Achievement Award in honor of her important and influential contributions to the world of documentary filmmaking." Anyone who buys a ticket to the film can attend, on a first-come, first-admitted basis.

Kopple won two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature, one for her 1990 film, American Dream, and the other for her 1991 film, Harlan County USA. Here's more about her filmography.

Barbara Kopple produced and directed Harlan County USA and American Dream, both winners of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In 1991, Harlan County USA was named to the National Film Registry by the Librarian of Congress and designated an American Film Classic. Harlan County USA was recently restored and preserved by the Women’s Preservation Fund and the Academy Film Archive, and was featured as part of the Sundance Collection at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005. The Criterion Collection released a DVD of Harlan County USA in 2006. Other works include Running from Crazy, Fight to Live, A Force of Nature, Gun Fight, The House of Steinbenner, Woodstock: Now and Then, Shut Up and Sing, Wild Man Blues, and Havoc.