Congressman Raul Grijalva (AZ03) has teamed up with the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity to sue the Trump administration over the proposed border wall.

The suit seeks to ensure that environmental laws—and all the red tape and studies that come with them—are enforced as Trump moves forward with his beautiful wall.

“American environmental laws are some of the oldest and strongest in the world, and they should apply to the borderlands just as they do everywhere else,” Grijalva said in a prepared statement. “These laws exist to protect the health and well-being of our people, our wildlife, and the places they live. Trump’s wall—and his fanatical approach to our southern border — will do little more than perpetuate human suffering while irrevocably damaging our public lands and the wildlife that depend on them.”

The filing in federal court comes one day after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions used a visit to Nogales to announce new Justice Department policies designed to increase criminal prosecutions of undocumented immigrants.

Center for Biological Diversity Executive Director Kieran Suckling said in a prepared statement that the proposed border wall "will divide and destroy the incredible communities and wild landscapes along the border. Endangered species like jaguars and ocelots don’t observe international boundaries and should not be sacrificed for unnecessary border militarization. Their survival and recovery depends on being able to move long distances across the landscape and repopulate places on both sides of the border where they’ve lived for thousands of years.”

Coming to a private school near you, and the home-school down the block: taxpayer-funded ESA money for children whose parents never considered sending their kids to a district or charter school.

Courtesy of a bill Ducey signed a few days ago, the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, aka Vouchers on Steroids, will soon be available to every child in Arizona. The restrictions on who can apply for an ESA are gone. Rich or poor, in districts and schools with "A" to "F" grades, with or without learning disabilities, every child qualifies. True, a last minute deal to lure in a few reluctant Republican legislators added limits to the number of ESAs which can be given out, topping out at 30,000 by the 2022-23 school year, but the Goldwater Institute had its fingers crossed when it made the deal. The limits will be gone as soon as G.I. and Ducey can figure out a way to get rid of them.

But even without the limits, there's a catch. To get an ESA, a child has to attend a district or charter school for at least 100 days the year before, which means students already in private schools or being home-schooled can't apply for the vouchers. But that catch has an escape clause. Children entering kindergarten can get the voucher money without ever setting foot in a district or charter school.

So why wouldn't parents who plan to have their kindergarteners attend a private school apply for an ESA, which, once they get it, will continue year after year until their children finish high school (or, if there's money left over, until it's all used up paying for college)?

And why wouldn't parents who home-school their children start the ESA ball rolling when their tykes hit four or five, and keep the money rolling in until their children finish high school (or, if there's money left over, until it's all used up paying for college)?

After all, those parents will get a $4,000-a-year voucher at the low end and as much as $20,000, or even more, for children with educational disabilities. Free money! It's all upside, no downside. They'd be fools not to take advantage.

Here's a statement I would be happy to read from the people who run BASIS schools:

"We take some of the most talented children in the country and turn them into the best educated students in the world."

I could quibble with a statement like that, questioning whether the BASIS curriculum and methodology are the best way to educate kids, but I wouldn't bother. Sure, there's more than a bit of hyperbole in a declaration like that, but its message accurately describes the BASIS system, which is: Talented kids in, well educated students out. It sure beats the myth BASIS has been promoting for years, that it takes everyday, average students off the streets and turns them into educational world beaters.

And I have to say, happily, the latest statement from BASIS is closer to acknowledging the truth that BASIS's students are a select group than I can remember hearing or reading from the organization, ever.

In a few recent posts, I've written about an op ed in the Washington Post which said that BASIS charter schools teach a select group of students, which accounts for much of the schools' academic success. To my surprise, BASIS broke its usual code of silence and responded to the op ed. And in the process, it agreed that, yes, the schools' student body is not a random collection of Arizona students.

The WaPo op ed said BASIS "cherry-picks" students. BASIS turned that on its head and says it's the parents who do the cherry-picking, not the school.

There is “cherry picking” involved at BASIS Charter Schools, but it is not the type that the blogger alleges. BASIS Charter Schools do not pick their students (and cannot, by law). Rather, it is students and parents who pick us. Students and parents, in states with liberating charter laws, are able to choose between hundreds of different programs and curricula, “cherry picking” the best fit for their child.

It sounds like we all agree that for one reason or another, BASIS students are a select, cherry-picked group. A little later in the statement, BASIS doubles down on the selection process, saying it's a sign that school choice works.

To say that BASIS Charter Schools cannot or should not offer a specific type of programming (in our case, an academically accelerated, AP-infused, liberal arts academic program) that will be attractive to some families, but not attractive to all, is to attack and undermine the whole purpose of the school choice movement.

I find myself in complete agreement with BASIS when it says its program is "attractive to some families, but not attractive to all." Parents who want the "academically accelerated, AP-infused, liberal arts academic program" the schools provide and believe their children are up to the challenge are the most likely people to send their children to BASIS. Parental choice skews the schools' student bodies toward academically talented, motivated students. But that's not the whole story. In fact, both the parents and BASIS are involved in the selection process.

Aloma Barnes, author of Dunbar: The Neighborhood, The School, And The People 1940-1965, is a retired nurse. Her book Dunbar is a novel about the beginnings of Tucson and how early segregation took place. A second edition of the book is scheduled for release this month. This interview has been edited and condensed.

Can you talk a little more about the segregation and how it impacted Dunbar's community?
Well, Dunbar wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for the law that separated blacks and whites. The whole thing about having the school in Dunbar was so that blacks could attend. When people migrated there, they selected their homes based on the school—just like any parent would do now. Dunbar's neighborhood then grew up from that school.

What were some reactions you got from publishing Dunbar? Especially those who still live in the community.
If people weren't happy, I told them to pick up a pen and make it better. You throw a stone in a pond and it makes a ripple, is how I look at it. I write very simply and I've been told that people were happy about the book and that it was about time. People who still live there say it's as if "history came alive" and those comments are what make it worth it.

How has Dunbar changed since these segregated times?
It's a small neighborhood. Six blocks long, five blocks wide and used to be a mix of blacks, whites, Hispanics and Indians. But now, it's 98 percent white because of other places in town and because they can afford it. The Dunbar school is still standing but the original has been renovated on Second Street and 11th Avenue. The church is still there too. They're making a museum about Dunbar's history soon. They even have a dance studio and an active barbershop.

What inspired you to write Dunbar?
Well, I’m a retired nurse. I live in the Dunbar neighborhood so it kind of just fell in my lap and it seemed like it was time for a story like this to come. The school reunion happened in 2015 and I had begun my research for the book in 2013.

What did you find difficult about the research?
History of black people, there isn't much of it. I think of it like this, history of caucasian shells are all at the surface of the water but those black shells, you have to dig and dig and dig until you get seaweed-which isn't a shell. It was very difficult but I was talking to contacts from the reunion, finding clips from the library of Civil Rights movement news from back then and the book that Gloria Smith wrote about Dunbar. She's one heck of a researcher. But, I could only go back so far because the archives only started in 1965 so it was as if almost everything before that was lost. I couldn't even find many obituaries.

It almost never happens that BASIS responds to its critics. The charter chain isn't shy about promoting itself, but it rarely answers people who question its assertions. Back in 2014, I received a response when I posted about BASIS' high national high school ranking. Julia Toews, then the Head of BASIS Tucson North, thought my analysis was unfair, so I gave her space to respond in a guest post right here on The Range. And once when a national publication published an op ed using misleading BASIS enrollment figures to make its point, BASIS made sure to point out, correctly, that the figures were misleading. That's about it so far as I've seen, and I follow stories about BASIS pretty carefully.

So this came as a surprise. A few days ago the Washington Post published an op ed which took a look at BASIS' student population and found that it enrolls significantly more White and Asian students than the general Arizona population, its schools tend to be placed in high income areas and it has high attrition rates, all of which means that its students tend to be higher academic achievers than the average Arizona student population. I posted about the op ed, but more important, it was summarized in the Yellow Sheet, a publication of the Arizona Capitol Times which is mainly read by a Who's-Who of Arizona because of its high subscription cost. The next day, the Yellow Sheet ran a response from BASIS. I'm guessing the reason for this special occasion was, BASIS wasn't about to let anyone say bad things about it to Arizona's most powerful citizens without a rebuttal.

I'm going to discuss BASIS' response in another post. This post is already running long and my discussion of what BASIS wrote will be even longer. What I want to do here is describe what my criticism of BASIS is, and what it isn't.

Here's the Republicans' ESA pitch: "We just want to give poor children the same opportunity to attend private schools as rich kids have." Here's their real goal: "We want to give rich kids as much taxpayer money to pay for private school tuition as we can." According to a well researched article in the AZ Republic, they're doing a great job of meeting their real goal.

Empowerment Scholarship Accounts—aka Education Savings Accounts, aka Vouchers on Steroids—are a transfer of state funds into accounts for individual students which parents can spend on pretty much any educational expense, so long as the child isn't enrolled in a district or charter school. The way the law is written right now, only some students qualify for ESAs. A bill in front of the legislature would make all 1.1 million of Arizona's public school children eligible.

The AZ Republic article reveals that money from Empowerment Scholarship Accounts goes disproportionately to students from high achieving school districts.

This year, more than 75 percent of the money pulled out of public schools for the Empowerment Scholarship Account program came from districts with an "A" or "B" rating, the analysis showed. By contrast, only 4 percent of the money came from school districts rated "D" or lower.

The top rated districts, those with the highest scores on the state standardized tests, tend to serve students from higher income families, while the lowest rated districts are almost always in low income areas. When 75 percent of the money goes to students from those top rated districts and only 4 percent goes to the lowest rated, it's pretty clear who's taking advantage of the funds.

Here's another jaw-dropping bit of information the article pulls from the data. For students from those "A" and "B" districts, the average amount of the ESA for each student is $15,3000. For the "D" and "F" districts, the average amount is $6,700. Individual kids from the top rated districts are pulling in more than twice as much as kids from the lowest rated districts.

Multiple sources have told the Weekly that Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller was taken out of her office on the top floor of the county's downtown headquarters on a stretcher by an emergency crew earlier today. No word yet on what happened to cause Miller's medical emergency or her current condition.

Miller has provided an update via her Facebook page. It appears a vase fell on her head:

A vase fell off the top of a shelf and hit me on the top of the head yesterday. As you might imagine a head wound does bleed alot. CT scan is all good and they stapled the wound together at St. Mary's. I will be back to work on Monday. Thanks for your concern and good wishes everyone.

It's been awhile since I've written about BASIS schools. Most of what needs to be said has been said already, by me and others. And besides, the "BASIS education miracle"—which isn't miraculous in any way, shape or form—has become background noise in the "education reform"/privatization propaganda machine. The charter schools no longer need the intense scrutiny they did back when privatization enthusiasts used BASIS as the poster child for all that's wonderful about charters. My most recent post on the subject was on the arcane subject of the BASIS business pyramid, a nest of separate but interlocking business entities which encompass nonprofit charter schools, for-profit U.S. private schools and one international private school in Shenzhen, China.

So I was pleased to see the topic revived in a lengthy, informative overview of the BASIS enterprise in the Washington Post written by Carol Burris, the executive director of Network for Public Education. She does an excellent job of summarizing the way the schools operate. The new news for me is the possibility that the charter schools may be in financial trouble. More about that at the end of this post.

Burris' whole piece is worth a read, but if you don't want to take the time, here are the Cliff Notes.

BASIS, Burris acknowledges,"provides a challenging education" for its students. But who are the students? Burris has a chart comparing the ethnic mix of Arizona's BASIS charters to the rest of the state.
Ten times as many Asian students, a fifth as many Latino students, significantly more white students. Clearly, BASIS has a selective, non-representative ethnic population. It also has a tenth of the students with learning disabilities as Arizona schools in general and no English Language Learners. And since the schools don't have a lunch program which would provide free and reduced lunches, they don't have many low income students who would depend on that service. Add the placement of the schools in higher income areas and the lack of transportation services to bring students from other, less affluent areas, and you have a student population that sits firmly atop the socioeconomic and academic ladders.

AZ Schools Now is hosting a town hall on public school funding Thursday, March 30, 6 p.m., at the Pima Community College West Campus Center for the Arts, 2202 W. Anklam Road.

The governor's education budget proposals and the Democrats' proposals will be presented, then people in attendance will be asked to give their thoughts and ideas about education funding.

AZ Schools Now includes ten organizations which advocate for public education funding in Arizona.

Healthy Skepticism Note: Governor Ducey loves to portray himself as a  "friend of education." Ducey's no fool. He knows supporters of public education are marching forward with the wind at their backs, with a majority of Arizonans supporting increases in education funding and teacher salaries, so he wants to look like he's leading the parade. A favorite ploy is to talk about how he's working together with the education community to look for solutions. But lately when he said he's working with education groups on renewing Prop 301, the six-tenths of a cent sales tax for education which expires in 2020, AZ Schools Now was very clear, Ducey hadn't reached out to any of its groups.

Democratic legislators are also wary of Ducey's faux-Kumbaya moments with people who say we need a significant increase in education funding.

“My caveat with this governor is always the devil is in the details,” [Senate Minority Leader Katie] Hobbs said. “Yes, I’m happy that he supports the extension and possibly expansion [of Prop 301]. However, I would like to see specifically what the proposal will look like. . . . I will buy it when I see it. He’s made a lot of promises on education that he hasn’t really delivered on."

Like Hobbs said, Ducey is long on promises, short on delivery. Buyer beware.

We've already heard the Trump people's plans to cut $9.2 billion from next year's federal education budget. Now comes news they want to cut about $3 billion from the budget for rest of this fiscal year, which has five months left. From Politico's Morning Education report:

After proposing a $9.2 billion cut to the Education Department’s budget for next year, the President Donald Trump is now calling on Congress to slash nearly $3 billion in education funding for the remaining five months of this fiscal year, according to a document obtained by POLITICO. The White House on Friday sent House and Senate appropriators detailed instructions on how they should craft spending legislation to fund the federal government beyond April 28, when the current stopgap spending bill expires.

The proposed cuts include: Pell Grant money ($1.3 billion); Title II funding to provide professional development for teachers and principals and to reduce class sizes; Grants for physical education programs ($47 million); Grants for school counseling ($49 million); Money to increase math and science instruction ($152 million) [Fun fact: Ed Sec Betsy DeVos and First Daughter Ivanka Trump will be attending an event promoting STEM education today.]; and the Striving Readers program to improve literacy instruction ($189 million).

Meanwhile, the conservative Heritage Foundation has put out its budget proposal for 2018. Here's are some of its education cuts, which include phasing out Head Start entirely over the next decade and cutting the budget for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in half.

— Among Heritage’s proposals: Eliminate the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act’s job-training programs, which involves many community colleges; eliminate the Corporation for National and Community Service, which supports AmeriCorps; and reduce funding for Head Start with the intention of eliminating it completely over the next decade. The think tank also proposes to halve the budget for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights and eliminate competitive and project grant programs under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Other formula grant programs for K-12 education would be slashed by 10 percent under the plan.

— The budget proposal also proposes getting rid of the Obama administration’s “gainful employment” regulation, which judges career college programs based on the ratio of graduates’ student loan debt relative to their earnings; switching to fair-value accounting for how the government tallies the cost of federal student loans; and making “major reforms to accreditation, including decoupling federal financing from the ossified accreditation system.”