Tucson High School

Audit Finds That Tucson's Ethnic Studies Program Is Legal

In the battle over Tucson’s ethnic studies program, which has been effectively outlawed when Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed HB 2281 into law last year, opponents of the program have been able to more or less hide their political agenda behind vague worries about the district’s Mexican American studies program. Not so now, say supporters of the ethnic studies program after an independent audit found that the programs are perfectly legal. Last week, Arizona state superintendent John Huppenthal ruled that the high school Mexican American Studies courses offered in the Tucson School District violated last year’s HB 2281, which prohibited school districts from offering courses 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.” The Tucson School District responded by calling for an administrative hearing to challenge Huppenthal’s ruling, the Arizona Daily Star reported. Huppenthal, who replaced Arizona’s new attorney general, Tom Horne, as state superintendent this year, ruled that Tucson violated the last three provisions of the law, and would therefore face reduced funding for flouting the state law. Under Huppenthal’s orders, Tucson has 60 days to shut down or revise the program, or face losing ten percent of its state education funds. However, the results of an independently run audit ordered by Huppenthal, and conducted by a company that Huppenthal selected, were released the very next day. The auditors found that the very same program is legal. The audit even concluded, “no observable evidence was present to suggest that any classroom within Tucson Unified School District is in direct violation of the law [Arizona Revised Statutes] 15-112(A)."" Huppenthal has already made up his mind, even if [audit firm] Cambium was the company that hired and he and his administration has chosen, in the audit do not come back his way, he still largely already decided what he was going to do, "said Deyanira Nevarez, the project director and spokesperson of Save Ethnic Studies, a Tucson-based group organized to fight the ban ethnic Arizona study.

Tucson charter school named third-best high school in country ...

WASHINGTON – A Tucson charter school was named the third-best high school in the nation this week in Newsweek magazine’s annual “Best High Schools in America” ranking.

Basis Charter School climbed three spots from its 2010 ranking. It’s the fifth-straight year the school – which teaches grades five through 12 – has been in the top 10.

Northland Preparatory Academy in Flagstaff finished 52nd, while four other Arizona schools made the top 500 in the magazine’s rankings .

“We’re very happy being in the top five. It’s a nice place to be,” said Michael Block, co-CEO of Basis Schools Inc. “It’s always thrilling to see a school in a relatively remote part of the country measured against major schools in the U.S.”

Arizona Department of Education spokesman Andrew LeFevre said the rankings show the educational diversity in the state.

“It’s encouraging to see that we’re getting noticed for having great schools,” LeFevre said. “It shows we have great schools all over Arizona.”

Newsweek has been ranking high schools for over a decade. It sent out more than 10,000 surveys seeking specific data for the last school year, then assessed 1,100 schools before making its 500-school ranking.

A different methodology was used for the first time this year, placing more weight on a number of different educational aspects. Data was then standardized to measure the relative performance of each school.

The study excludes charter and magnet schools with “such a high concentration of top students that its average SAT or ACT score significantly exceeds the highest average for any normal-enrollment school in the country,” the study said.

It is “designed to honor schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests,” wrote Jay Mathews, a contributing Newsweek editor, on the Q&A section of the rankings.

According to the rankings, Basis Tucson is the smallest school in the top 20.

Its student body is 47 percent minority, and 81 percent of students in 2009 scored at least a 3 on the Advanced Placement exam. It also was the only Arizona high school to have all of its students meet or exceed state standards on all subjects of the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS), the state’s mandated high school exit exams.

cholla high school. Tucson az

Hats off to BASIS , earning high school in the nation, ranked by Newsweek! See this clip from

WYMT Sports: Shepherd and Creech Named 2011 Louisville Slugger High School All-Americans: TUCSON, Ariz. — Right-...

Glad U gave BASIS a shout-out. I did a story abt that hre: & in the AZ Republic:

RT : Yet another best of list: BASIS Tucson is the only AZ school to make Newsweek's Top 50; 6 AZ schools make top 500.

Schools in Tucson, Arizon, Salpointe Catholic High School, Pueblo Magnet High School, Sabino High School, Tucson High Magnet School

So You Wanna Be a Legend. So Did I., The Reflections of a Teacher-coach. a Search for Significance.

As that seed and others grew, the legend tended to shrink. Another seed Coach Jason “Red” Greer My association with Tucson High School Coach Jason ...

Interethnic relationships in the community of Tucson

TABLE l7 PERCENTAGES OF ETHNIC ELEMENTS IN TUCSON SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL *Figures were not available for the school years l91*2-^3 and If the reader compares ...

Tucson Senior High School announcements for 1930-1931, course of study, views of Tucson High School, activities

Tucson, The Life and Times of an American City

Another good idea was conceived by the organizers of a British Relief Project, who staged a "Rummage for Relief" sale in the Tucson High School cafeteria on ...