Update from Curtis Acosta and the shut-down of TUSD's Mexican American Studies program

Editor's note: Late last week, Curtis Acosta wrote to me, asking if I'd share his open letter regarding his work. I'm glad to do it. If you are completely new to what happened in Tucson last year, one place to start is with the chronological set of posts I wrote during that time. See the menu bar across the top of the blog? See the "Mexican American Studies" tab? Click on it. Read through the history and then come back to read Curtis's letter. In his email, he titled the letter "Next Steps."

_________________________

May 30, 2013

Dear supporters, colleagues, and friends,

Last Thursday my career at Tucson High Magnet School came to an end. It was never supposed to be this way. I always believed that I would leave with a fully gray head of hair and thicker lens than those currently in my black frames. I imagined that there would be a legacy of former students who would take my place and would take our levels of success even further. Instead, I took down each poster and photo from my room with a deep sense of loss and the words of Langston Hughes’ “A Dream Deferred” in my mind. It was as if I was participating in self-ethnic cleansing. (A wonderful side note to this story is that Bob Diaz, a librarian at the University of Arizona has decided to create an archive of our classroom so that it can live on forever. Have I mentioned lately how much I love librarians?)

However, the reality is that the room and the power of the space were lost far before the pictures came off the walls. This moment was fated as soon as Tucson Unified School District eliminated our highly successful Mexican American Studies program, banning my colleagues and I from our own curriculum and pedagogy, as well as boxing up books. Yet, I would like to thank my students, compañer@s, parents, and the local and national voices that supported us through these difficult years in building up my resiliency and resolve to stand up and never to submit to acts of education malpractice.

Thus, I am happy to inform you all that a brighter day lies ahead. Yesterday, I held a local press conference announcing that through a partnership with Prescott College, Mexican American Studies lives on through Chican@ Literature, Art & Social Studies (CLASS) where high school youth will be receive free college credit. This is a class that was born from the injustices performed upon our students in Tucson and my indignation toward political opportunists using our students, literature, and history to create a wedge issue founded in hate for their own selfish means.

CLASS had a successful first year as a collection of 10 amazing youth sacrificed their Sunday afternoons throughout the entire year to rigorously study, analyze, and read the world together. It was a thirst of justice and knowledge that fueled them and they will soon be sharing their voice with the world at Free Minds, Free People in Chicago – a national education conference centered upon education for liberation and youth empowerment. However, our youth need financial help to attend, and although I am using the stipend from Prescott College to pay for part of the trip, it is still not enough. We would be humbled by any and all support and you can follow us now on Facebook and donate through the following link: Xican@ Institute for Teaching and Organizing. 

Along with CLASS expanding and continuing next fall, I am happy to announce that I have founded the Acosta Latino Learning Partnership, an educational consulting firm that will continue the work that we started in Tucson throughout the nation. It is my vision to help teachers, schools, and educational organizations empower youth to find their own voice and academic identity through culturally responsive and engaging academic experiences. You can find more information on the Acosta Latino Learning Partnership through my website (http://latinolearning.com) Facebook page.

I look forward to this next chapter of my career as I continue to be an advocate for public schools. After all, we know public education works. We’ve seen it successful time and again, and as teachers we are honored to be the guides and mentors of beautiful young people who will forge a better nation and world. By following the inspirational leadership of the powerful teachers, students, and parents in Seattle and Chicago, this devious trajectory to destroy public education will end. One day soon we will stop the obsession of measuring our children and teachers with corporate driven instruments aimed at eliminating all of the creative joy from public education. And this is why our work here in Tucson must continue, we must never comply to unjust laws and policies that dehumanize and degrade our children in any way.

Let all the reformers be warned that we are aware of why you want to discredit our profession and the heights that we reach with our students every year. We are more than budding market place or real estate to redevelop, and we will not rest until our children are treated with more love and respect than the banks and corporations of this country. Trust teachers to work with their students, parents, and communities as true partners, support us with resources that our children deserve, and then watch the magic of learning take root and grow.

I want to thank you all for your support through the years and truly believe that great victories lie ahead for communities of color, our students and public school throughout our nation.

In Lak Ech (Tú eres mi otro yo / You are my other me),

Curtis Acosta

Chican@ Literature Teacher

Tucson, AZ

_______________________

Editor's follow-up: A video of Acosta's press conference is available on YouTube. And, Acosta will be participating in an Ethnic Studies National Assembly at Free Minds, Free People 2013 in Chicago on July 14th. 

Recent radio program on the shut-down of TUSD's Mexican American Studies Classes

On July 2nd, Education Radio featured a two-hour program in which they interviewed students and teachers from the now-shut-down Mexican American Studies program in Tucson Unified School District. Here's the link:

Arizona Goddam! Fight for Raza Studies

And here's info about the radio program (pasted from the Education Radio website):

In January 2012, Tucson Unified School District's (TUSD) renowned and highly successful Raza Studies Program, program was shut down. The program was finally eliminated after a prolonged, brutal campaign to demonize the students, the teachers and Tucson Arizona’s Mexican American community;  the latest of a long history of cultural genocide enacted against Mexican Americans and indigenous people in the United States. In this two hour program, we look at the history of the struggle for Raza studies, also known as Mexican American Studies, in the Tucson Unified School District and why the program was so meaningful and successful, and we explore why the program was viciously attacked and shut down - by examining the racist narrative and intent of the state and school administrators who are responsible for its destruction. We hear about the devastating impact the shutting down of this program has had on teachers, students and community members in Tucson. 

 

 

Crystal Terriquez and Pricila Rodriguez

There are so many incredibly dedicated people involved in the fight for Raza Studies in Tucson - from those who helped to found and build the program, the many teachers who taught in the program, the students who participated, and the community members and activists who are fighting to reinstate it. We were able to speak to just a few of these many voices, and want to recognize the hard work and varying perspectives of all those with whom we did not speak. 

 

 

 

 

Jose Gonzalez

We talk with four students who are alumni of the program, who share their experiences: Crystal Terriquez, Pricila Rodriguez, Alfred Chavez and Alfonzo Chavez. We also share testimony from a student, Teresa Mejia, who was present when TUSD adminstrators removed books and materials during classes (this testimony is available on activist Brenda Norrell’s blog: http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/). We spoke with Mexican American Studies history teacher Jose Gonzalez about the history and the shutting down of the program. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith

Human rights activist and University of Arizona professor Raquel Rubio Goldsmith helps us understand the link between what is happening in Tucson today and the Chicano movement of the 1960s. We also speak with University of Illinois Chicago Professor of African American History and Educational Policy Studies David Stovall, who conducted a program evaluation of Ethnic Studies programs in Tucson over the 2006-2007 school year, and hear about his findings from that evaluation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We talk to social theorist Joe Feagin, about the way that racism and white supremacy are playing out in this situation. Banned author and poet Martin Espada reflects on the dangers of censorship, how it feels to have his work banned, and shares a poem that speaks to the power that literature can have when used a tool for resistance and emancipation. Finally, we discover the growing local and national resistance movement that gives hope, not only for the future of this program in Tucson, but to the building of solidarity that will help fight this from happening elsewhere. Alfred and Alfonzo Chavez, members of U.N.I.D.O.S., talk with us about Tucson's Freedom Summer, we speak with Tara Mack, Director of the Education for Liberation Network and member of the Teacher Activist Groups, about the No History is Illegal Campaign, and we hear a clip of Tony Diaz talking about Librotraficante.

Specific examples of this resistance and opportunities to get involved in the fight are listed below:
 

Save Ethnic Studies   - a website produced by the teachers involved in the struggle. Visit this site to gain a deeper understanding of the issues.
 

Support the Raza Defense Fund to donate to help two MAS teachers in their lawsuit against incredibly well-funded and vicious opposition.
 

No History is Illegal - a website produced by Teacher Activist Groups where you can find curriculum based on the banned MAS curriculum to use in your own classroom. 
 

Librotraficante - a project devoted to fighting back against the censorship and banning of books in Arizona.  
 

Tucson Freedom Summer  - join the fight to save MAS  - in Tucson - July 2012


Additional Resources

 

The list of books banned in Tucson  

 

Tucson’s Maiz-Based Curriculum: MAS-TUSD Profundo by Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodríguez 

 

Empowering Young People to be Critical Thinkers: The Mexican American Studies Program in Tucson by Curtis Acosta and Asiya Mir

 

The Cambium Audit Report and other related materials

And yet there is more...

 

Due to time constrants there were several pieces we were unable able to fully explore in our radio show. We have tried to include some of those pieces below in hopes that you will be able to deepen your understanding of the struggle in Tuscon. The following quotes are by several of the authors whose books were boxed up and taken out of classrooms as a part of the ban on ethnic studies:

"I don't take it personally, but what I do see is an ongoing plan, a very deliberate plan and antagonism in the US and Southwest. What is obvious is that it's about more than books. ... When they take out Shakespeare, Paulo Freire or Pulitzer Prize winners, that I can't imagine that they read everything and somehow determined this is a threat to democracy. ... This reminded me of McCarthyism and the red-baiting of writers, except now we are targeting a specific people. I feel we have to start paying attention to this trend. Now we are seeing similar laws (to SB 1070) in Georgia and Alabama. I don't think most of the public east of the Mississippi or the East Coast is aware. We have to make them aware" - Ana Castillo, author of the banned books Loverboys and So Far From God

"The last time a book of mine was outlawed was during the state of emergency in apartheid South Africa in 1986, when the regime there banned the curriculum I’d written, Strangers in Their Own Country, likely because it included excerpts from a speech by then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela. Confronting massive opposition at home and abroad, the white minority government feared for its life in 1986. It’s worth asking what the school authorities in Arizona fear today."- Bill Bigelow, editor of Rethinking Schools and author of the banned book Rethinking Columbus

“Let's get one thing out of the way: Mexican immigration is an oxymoron. Mexicans are indigenous. So, in a strange way, I'm pleased that the racist folks of Arizona have officially declared, in banning me alongside Urrea, Baca, and Castillo, that their anti-immigration laws are also anti-Indian. I'm also strangely pleased that the folks of Arizona have officially announced their fear of an educated underclass. You give those brown kids some books about brown folks and what happens? Those brown kids change the world. In the effort to vanish our books, Arizona has actually given them enormous power. Arizona has made our books sacred documents now.” - Sherman Alexie, author of the banned books Ten Little Indians and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven

"Ethnic Studies Under Fire: The Role of Publishers, Librarians, Teachers, and Activists"

On Monday, June 25, 2012, from 1:30 to 3:30 at the American Library Association conference in Anaheim, Adriana McCleer, Carmen Tafolla, Oralia Garza de Cortes, and Tony Diaz will present "Ethnic Studies Under Fire: The Role of Publishers, Librarians, Teachers, and Activists." Sponsors include REFORMA and ALA's Intellectual Freedom Committee.

The description for their panel:

The removal of educational materials in connection with the elimination of Mexican American Studies classes in the Tucson (AZ) Unified School District sparked a national outcry and resolutions in opposition from the American Library Association, REFORMA, the American Indian Library Association, and others. At this panel, hear from represntatives from the publishing, library, teaching, and activist communities as they discuss the genesis and implications of this controversial decision. This program is sponsored by IFC/AAP/REFORMA.

Location: Anaheim Convention Center, 201D

Carmen Tafolla's books are amongst those that could no longer be taught by teachers who used to teach in the Mexican American Studies department that was shut down in the Tucson Unified School District (for background, see the list of chronological links under the "Mexican American Studies" button on the tool bar above). In March, San Antonio, TX named her as the cities first poet laureate, and the publisher of Curandera reissued the book in a 30th anniversary edition.







Oralia Garza de Cortes was amongst the librarians who worked on developing the ALA resolution condemning the actions taken by administrators in TUSD. This photo was taken at ALA Midwinter, where the resolution was drafted and passed:

Tony Diaz launched Librotraficante, a project through which book lovers collected copies of the banned books and delivered them to students in Tucson Unified School District. Here's a video of Diaz on Democracy Now:

I can't be at ALA, but look forward to the hashtag tweets from audience members who attend the panel. The hashtag to follow on Twitter is #alaif.

Jim Blasingame: "Ethnic Studies Ban Hits Tucson Hard: YA and Canon Alike Take a Hit"

[Editor's Note: A chronological list of AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies classes at Tucson Unified School District is here.]

___________________________________________

With permission of Jim Blasingame, I'm republishing his article from the Assembly on Literature for Adolescent's April 2012 online newsletter.  Jim and Simon Ortiz have done some excellent work together with high school students in Arizona. 

 

I wrote about their work two years ago in "I come to school for this class. I deal with the other ones." Here's Jim's article from the ALAN newsletter:

 

Things in Tucson continue to go south (pun intended). Just when it seems nothing worse could happen, someone gets fired or the truth is once again held hostage, or some representative of the Arizona Department of Education or the Tucson Unified School Board makes an even more outrageous and racist claim. The recent announcement that the contract of Sean Arce, Director of the now defunct Mexican American Studies program for the Tucson Unified School District, was not renewed comes on the heels of another announcement: Arce was named winner of the 2012 Myles Horton Education Award for Teaching People's History.

The Horton award is given by the Zinn Education Project, an organization that believes "through taking a more engaging and more honest look at the past, we can help equip students with the analytical tools to make sense of - and improve - the world today" (Zinn). The award is named for Myles Horton, who founded the Highlander Folk School in 1932. According to the Civil Rights Digital Library: Between 1932 and 1962, the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, provided a valuable training ground for two generations of southern labor organizers and Civil Rights activists. During the 1930s and 1940s, the school was instrumental in unionizing textile, timber, and mine workers throughout the region, often working in concert with national organizations such as the Congress of Industrial Organizations. In the 1950s, Highlander became a seedbed of Civil Rights activism, holding regular educational workshops to promote nonviolent protest and encourage black voter registration.

Myles Horton's students at Highlander included Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, and Rosa Parks, all of whom would become emblematic of the Civil Rights Movement. "We Shall Overcome," often recognized as the anthem of the Movement, was adapted from a gospel song by Horton's wife, Zilphia.

After southern newspaper ran frequent attacks on the school for allegedly generating racial unrest and promoting communism, the state of Tennessee revoked the Highlander Folk School's charter in 1961. Which are almost exactly the charges against the Mexican American Studies Program filed by the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) against the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD).

For those who have not been following this series of events, a quick recap in chronological order may be helpful.

1998: TUSD initiated the La Raza Studies Department in an effort to improve the retention and graduation rates among Latino students. The program yielded some pretty impressive results. More than 97% of students in the program graduated from high school, compared to 44% nationally, and 70% entered college compared to 24% nationally. Students scored higher on the AIMS test compared to other Hispanic students who did not take the classes.

2006: Dolores Huerta, cofounder of the United Farm Workers, speaks to students at Tucson Magnet High School that "Republicans hate Latinos" (Sagara), after which ADE Superintendent of Schools Tom Horne sends Assistant Superintendent and fellow Republican Margaret Garcia Dugan to Tucson to give a speech on recognizing stereotyping of the nature allegedly committed by Huerta. Dugan's own ethnic loyalty was challenged by students attending her presentation. (Page) Horne attacks the Mexican American Studies program in the media, asking for TUSD to examine and eliminate it. A new school board votes 4-1 to retain the program despite Horne's diatribes.

2008, 2009: Superintendent Horne enlists AZ Representative Steve Montenegro to draft legislation to ban "Ethnic Studies," which Montenegro introduces in the House Education committee, failing to cite any statistics on the educational impact of the bill but, rather, descrying it as "anti-American, racist . . . [and] otherwise unfit for teaching in public schools" (Lundholm, 1047). AS Senator Russell Pearce, author of Arizona's SB 1070 sponsors a bill to ban any sort of campus activities or classes that promote ethnic solidarity in Arizona's public schools. This legislation fails to get traction two years in a row in the Arizona Legislature.

2010 (May ): Three weeks after the enactment of Arizona's SB 1070, legislation requiring people stopped by police on suspicion of having committed a crime to present documents proving their citizenship, the bill banning Ethnic Studies HB 2281 also passes. As reported in the Los Angeles Times on May 12, 2010: A bill that aims to ban ethnic studies in Arizona schools was signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Jan Brewer, cheering critics who called such classes divisive and alarming others who said it's yet another law targeting Latinos in the state. (Santa Cruz)

According to the bill: Section 15-112. "Prohibited courses and classes; enforcement" states

A. A school district or charter school in this state shall not include in its program of instruction any courses or classes that include any of the following:

1) Promote the overthrow of the United States government.

2) Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

3) Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.

4) Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as

individuals.

(HB 2281)

2010 (October 18): Anticipating the law's passage, [Curtis Acosta] and 10 other Tucson high school teachers filed a lawsuit Oct. 18, 2010, against the superintendent of public instruction (Horne has since moved up to attorney general of Arizona) and the Board of Education, maintaining House Bill 2281 violates the First and 14th Amendments (Fleming).

2010 (December 30): The Tucson Unified School District Governing Board, in agreement with TUSD Superintendent of Schools, John Pedicone, unanimously passes the "Resolution to Implement Ethnic Studies in Tucson Unified School District in Accordance with All Applicable Laws."

2010 (December 30): Just days before leaving office, Tom Horne declares the TUSD Mexican Studies program to be in violation of the law. He does not observe any of the classes but, rather, bases his judgment on his own perusal of the textbooks and his conversation with five former teachers of the class (Lundholm, 1043). Horne says the only way TUSD can be in compliance with state statute is to completely discontinue the program (1043).

2011: Newly elected ADE Superintendent, John Hupenthal, hires an educational consulting firm to complete a study of the program at the cost of $110,000. Consultants evaluate the textbooks, observe classes, conduct interviews and focus groups with people connected with the program and conclude that it in no way violates the state law. Hupenthal vacates the firm's findings and issues his own findings in June that conclude the program violates three of the four tests in 15-112 based on his "independent research" (1044). It is interesting to note that Hupenthal was a member of the Arizona Senate who had added amendments to the bill while in office.

2011 (December 27): Administrative Law Judge Lewis Kowal rules that Mexican American Studies as taught in TUSD violates H.B. 2281 (now A.R.S. 15-111 and 112), as written, validating ADE's power to withhold 10 percent of Tucson Unified School District's funding.

2012 (January 10): The TUSD votes 4-1 to discontinue the Mexican American Studies program.

2012 (January 17): The following books are boxed and relocated to the TUSD storage facility: Critical Race Theory, by Richard Delgado; 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, edited by Elizabeth Martinez; Message to AZTLAN, by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales; Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement, by Arturo Rosales; Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, by Rodolfo Acuña; Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire; and Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, by Bill Bigelow. District spokesperson Cara Rene says the books are not banned from school libraries but will not be used in classes (Gersema). For a complete list of additional books from courses in the now defunct Mexican American Studies Program, see Debbie Reese's excellent blog, American Indians in Children's Literature. According to Tucson officials, these books remain available in school libraries.

2012 (April): School Board member Michael Hicks and TUSD teacher Curtis Acosta are interviewed on The Daily Show.

2012 (April): Constitutionality of the law, as challenged by 10 TUSD teachers will be examined at the federal level by Judge Wallace Tashima of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The elimination of the courses which used these books amounts to 10 giant steps backwards to all the teachers, librarians, parents, authors, and scholars who have tried to provide quality, engaging literature that represents as many ways to be a human being as we know of after so many years of the elitist (and boring) DOWM curriculum, as Ted Hipple referred to it (dead, old, white men).

Among these books are many we have been promoting heavily for their power to help young people make sense of the world and understand the valuable part they have to play in it. The loss of these classes means the quieting of the voices of Sherman Alexie, James Baldwin, Jane Yolen, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Sandra Cisneros, Isabella Allende, Matt de la Peña, bell hooks, Malcom X, Francisco Jimenez, Luis Rodriguez, Rudolfo Anaya, Martin Luther King, and even our own local treasures, Ofelia Zepeda and Stella Pope Duarte. Lori Carlson's collections of Latino/a and Native American pieces are boxed and stored, too. The voice of Cesar Chavez, for whom the center square in

downtown Phoenix is named, has been removed, as well as the voice of our own United

States President, Barack Obama.

Which brings us to now, April 16, 2012, a few days after the TUSD school board voted 3-2 not to renew the contract of Mexican American Studies Director Sean Arce in a heavily protested school board meeting. This is also a few days after Arce won the Horton Award for his efforts to teach the truth about history and politics in the Southwest. Perhaps no one said it better than Myle's Horton himself when the state of Tennessee attempted to bring an end to the efforts of the Highlander Folk School: "A school is an idea, and you can't padlock an idea" (Zinn).

And you can't keep books in boxes forever.

James Blasingame
Past president of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE
Past co-editor of The ALAN Review.

Resident of Chandler, Arizona

Works Cited

Fleming, Susan Domagalski. "A Teacher Put to the Test." Willamette University The Scene. Winter 2012. Web. 16 4 2012. http://www.willamette.edu/scene/editions/2012/winter/feature/26/index.html

 

Gersema, Emily. "Tucson District Denies Ban of Mexican-American Books." Arizona Republic. 17 1 2012. Web. 16 4 2012. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/01/17/20120117tucson district-denies-ban-mexican-american-books.html

"Highlander Folk School 25th Anniversary." Civil Rights Digital Library. 11 7 2012. Web. 16 4 2012. http://crdl.usg.edu/events/highlander_25th/?Welcome

Huicochea, Alexis. "TUSD Board Shuts Down Mexican American Studies." Arizona Daily Star. 11 1 2012. Web. 16 4 2012. http://azstarnet.com/news/local/education/precollegiate/tusd-board-shuts-down-mex-american-studies/article_89674600-5584-58a8-9a0f-4020113900f9.html#ixzz1sFaPHtFI

Lundholm, Nicholas B. "Cutting Class: Why Arizona's Ethnic Studies Ban Won't Ban Ethnic Studies." Arizona Law Review 53.1041: 1041-1088.

Menkart, Deborah. April 2, 2012. "Zinn Education Project Honors Sean Arce." Teaching a People's History: Zinn Education Project. 2 4 2012. Retrieved 16 4 2012 from http://zinnedproject.org/news/news-articles

Page, Clarence. "Ethnic Studies Can Unite Us." Chicago Tribune. 16 5 2010. Web. 16 4 2012. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-clarence-page-100316- column,0,6783724.column

Reese, Debbie. "Mexican American Studies Reading List." American Indians in Children's Literature. 15 1 2012. Web. 16 4 2012. http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2012/01/mexican-american-studies-department.html

Sagara, Eric. "'Hate-Speak' at School Draws Scrutiny." Tucson Citizen. 13 4 2006. Web. 16 4 2012. http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/2006/04/13/9256-hate-speak-at-school-draws-scrutiny/

Santa Cruz, Nicole. "Arizona Bill Targeting Ethnic Studies Signed into Law." Los Angeles Times. 12 5 2010. Web. 16 4 2012. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/12/nation/la-na-ethnic-studies-20100512

Tucson Citizen Shuts Down Three Sonorans

Photo from Tucson Citizen

Since January, my key source of on-the-ground information about the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies classes was David Abie Morales and his blog, Three Sonorans.

Morales is in Tucson. He's an advocate for the Mexican American community, the Mexican American Studies courses, and the Mexican American Studies teachers.

He covered many other stories in Tucson, but my primary interest was Mexican American Studies.

His blog was hosted by Tucson Citizen.

Earlier today, Tucson Citizen deleted Three Sonorans. This is what I saw when I went to the site:

Right away, I wrote to Mark Evans, the manager of Tucson Citizen, asking if this was an accidental or deliberate deletion. He replied with a one word answer. "Deliberate."

Tucson Sentinel posted a story about it: "Citizen pulls plug on Three Sonorans blog." In it, Dylan Smith says that Evans found Morales to have a "reckless disregard for the truth." He also said that he received complaints from:

Lori Hunnicutt (who also briefly had a Citizen blog), TUSD Board President Mark Stegeman, TUSD Assistant Superintendent Lupita Garcia, and the Senate campaign of Rodney Glassman, among others, Evans said.

Hunnicutt is a member of Tucsonons United 4 Sound Districts, an organization that was determined to get rid of the Mexican American Studies classes. Stegeman presided over the board on the night the program was shut down. Garcia said students should go to Mexico if they want to learn about Mexican American culture and history. Their complaints were a factor in Evans' decision to delete Three Sonorans. There, you could read about and see the things Stegeman and Garcia said and did. It is no surprise that they complained to Evans.

What is surprising, however, is that Evans decided to delete Three Sonorans.

Tucson.... Your public image is going from bad to worse.

Mr. Evans, I suggest you revisit your banner:

With your decision to delete Three Sonorans, I don't think you can claim to be the Voice of Tucson.

Dear Board Members of the Tucson Unified School District:

[Editor's Note: A chronological list of AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies classes at Tucson Unified School District is here.]

Dear Board Members of the Tucson Unified School District:

What happened to last night's board meeting? In the last few days, reports from people in Tucson indicated you planned to vote on an initiative to set up a multicultural program to replace the Mexican American Studies classes that you shut down based on a racist and politically driven anti-Indigenous agenda.

This morning, I read that you had a very short meeting. One of those 60 second kind of meetings that allow you to conform to your own bylaws about holding regularly scheduled meetings. Why did you do that?

Was it because of Michael Hicks' appearance on The Daily Show? Are you in some intense behind-the-scenes damage control?

This morning I ran a search on Twitter using "Tucson" as the search term, and guess what? The top twitter story on Tucson is about the Daily Show episode. I grabbed this image around 6:30 AM, Central Time, on April 4th, 2012:

For the sake of the citizens of Tucson, I hope you're figuring out how to get rid of Hicks, and, I hope you're also trying to figure out how you're going to withdraw your letter to Sean Arce telling him his contract is not being renewed. Sean Arce, the man who directed the Mexican American Studies Department for the last several years...  You know Arce just received a national award from a highly regarded organization, right?

Come on, TUSD board members! All of this attention can not be good for anyone in Tucson. How many people are choosing not to move to Tucson based on what they're learning about TUSD?

And I've got a question for Mark Stegeman, too. Are you defending Hicks? I've been following your defense of him on Facebook, on Curtis Dutiel's wall (note: the thread below started on Monday, April 2nd, after the Daily Show episode aired):

It looks to me like you (Stegeman) are trying to defend Hicks. In the Facebook comments, Hicks tell us he went to Rusk's class. When he was on the Daily Show, did Hicks forget he'd been to Rusk's class? Why are you talking about THAT?! Is it because you---like the rest of America---are shocked at the rest of what Hicks said and prefer not to address Hicks' ignorance?

When will you just admit that Hicks is not qualified to be on the board and ask him to step down? Is that what is going on right now, behind the scenes? I hope so.

For information about Sean Arce's award, see Zinn Education Project Honors Sean Arce at the Zinn Education Project website.

CNN: "Security checks anger Arizona Latinos"

[Editor's Note: A chronological list of AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies classes at Tucson Unified School District is here.]

 

The Daily Show's segment on the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies program gave some cause to laugh and exclaim over the ignorance and racism of Michael Hicks, one of Tucson Unified School District's school board members, but it is imperative we remember what is happening in Tucson. This CNN story captures some of it:

 

In related news, Education Week has a story out about the Common Core Standards, and how students ought to be reading more demanding texts. In the now-shut-down Mexican American Studies classes at TUSD, students were reading texts that some felt were too complex for high school students. Moreover, they felt that the classes and study of those texts promoted resentment of a race or class of people (with race and class referring to affluent white people). So, they voted to shut down the classes. In the middle of the week. In the middle of the academic year.

Ironically, TUSD announced recently they were adopting the Common Core Standards!

Seems to me they ought to reinstate the entire MAS program and its teachers!

School districts across the country ought to call Sean Arce and invite him to help them revamp their classes in light of the Common Core Standards. He just received national recognition for his work, but it looks like TUSD's governing board is not going to renew his contract.

How much shame will TUSD endure before it stops its attacks on the Mexican American Studies teachers and students???