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Tucson Schools Overhaul a Program to Help Struggling Hispanic Students
New York Times ^ | September 15, 2012 | FERNANDA SANTOS

Posted on 09/16/2012 4:04:08 PM PDT by reaganaut1

TUCSON — The forecast for the year ahead is dire, so officials in the public school district here, the oldest in the state, summoned parents to an urgent meeting one evening to lay out the options: close schools and increase class sizes or impose across-the-board pay cuts, making it harder for the district to recruit quality teachers.

In the auditorium at Cholla High Magnet School, Bryant Nodine, the planning program manager for the Tucson Unified School District, peered into the audience and pleaded for suggestions. “We need your help,” he said. The district needs to find at least $17 million in savings, about 7 percent of the money in its general fund, he said, to balance its budget for 2013-14 school year.

Meanwhile, at the district’s central offices, Maria Figueroa was busy sifting through résumés and rearranging her calendar to squeeze in one more interview. As the director of a new program intended to help the district’s perennially struggling Hispanic students, by far the majority of the enrollment, Ms. Figueroa enjoys a rare distinction: she has jobs to fill and money to hire.

She also has a big task — mending the fences broken by the dismantling of the Mexican-American studies department last school year after an acrimonious debate over the politics of its curriculum and the type of activism it had promoted. A 2010 law banning lessons that fostered racial resentment and solidarity among members of a single ethnic group, drafted as legislators worked to frame the state’s controversial immigration bill, eventually killed the program. Facing persistent financial problems, the school district buckled under the threat of millions of dollars in fines.

Instead of classes about historical realities and the everyday experiences of Mexican-Americans, once a hallmark of the department, Ms. Figueroa’s program will offer tutoring to Hispanic students

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Arizona
KEYWORDS: aliens; education; tuscon
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Somehow Chinese-American students manage without Chinese-American studies programs.
1 posted on 09/16/2012 4:04:11 PM PDT by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1

Boo-Hoo.


2 posted on 09/16/2012 4:06:20 PM PDT by elkfersupper ( Member of the Original Defiant Class)
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To: elkfersupper

I bet Rahm has some suggestions....


3 posted on 09/16/2012 4:13:59 PM PDT by O6ret
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To: reaganaut1

Also, 60 percent of the school population there is Hispanic. I would bet that more than half of those were brought into the country or produced by parents who entered illegally. Someone should be saying that they would have plenty of money to educate the children if they weren’t having to educate someone else’s.


4 posted on 09/16/2012 4:17:51 PM PDT by La Lydia
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To: reaganaut1

Maybe the students will disrupt a supervisors’ meeting by chaining themselves to the desk and setting off a smoke bomb like they did a few months ago.


5 posted on 09/16/2012 4:26:09 PM PDT by lulu16 (May the Good Lord take a liking to you!)
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To: La Lydia
We also have someone advocating that Hispanic kids have their grades normalized or something, I forgot, let them all pass, give them more points, something just because they are special and hide that they are under-performing.
Meanwhile the Catholic schools in the Tucsonian diocese are graduating senors that are for the most part accepted into college this fall and with scholarships.
6 posted on 09/16/2012 4:29:51 PM PDT by lulu16 (May the Good Lord take a liking to you!)
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To: reaganaut1

Why are Hispanic students struggling? Seriously.


7 posted on 09/16/2012 4:31:41 PM PDT by sanjuanbob
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To: reaganaut1
Somehow Chinese-American students manage without Chinese-American studies programs.

Hispanic organizations La Raza, & MEChA, they keep telling Mexicans they are entitled, this is Mexico not America plus some of their parents who have been here for a number of years, keep to other Spanish speaking people so they can't speak English - the children suffer the most. Our Asian immigrants learn quickly to speak their new country's language and assimilate. The teacher's union encourages this also keeping the non-English speaking youngsters from quickly moving-on-up.

8 posted on 09/16/2012 4:31:59 PM PDT by yoe
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To: yoe

Do you think that they’ll start complaining that the Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Filipino kids are taking up all the space in the library after school?


9 posted on 09/16/2012 4:35:33 PM PDT by lulu16 (May the Good Lord take a liking to you!)
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To: reaganaut1
"As the director of a new program intended to help the district’s perennially struggling Hispanic students, by far the majority of the enrollment, Ms. Figueroa...has jobs to fill and money to hire. She also has a big task...after (a) 2010 law banning lessons that fostered racial resentment and solidarity among members of a single ethnic group killed Her program (and the type of activism it had promoted.)
snip
Instead of classes about historical realities and the everyday experiences of Mexican-Americans, once a hallmark of the department, Ms. Figueroa’s program will offer tutoring to Hispanic students who are teetering on the edge of failure.
In place of discussions about race and identity, it will recruit mentors from among Hispanic business leaders and college graduates to talk to students.
"

So...
Instead of preaching victim-hood, instead of preaching "racial" superiority, and instead of hiring upcoming community organizers, they will be mentoring students in such trivia as "success" and "socialization";
No wonder Senora Figueroa is ticked off.

10 posted on 09/16/2012 4:36:54 PM PDT by norton
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To: reaganaut1

The parents could help by going back to Mexico and taking their kids with them


11 posted on 09/16/2012 4:39:46 PM PDT by RightGeek (FUBO and the donkey you rode in on)
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To: reaganaut1
re: The district needs to find at least $17 million in savings, about 7 percent of the money in its general fund, he said, to balance its budget for 2013-14 school year.

Discussions of political philosophy aside, the big issue is diminishing budgets. Why are the budgets diminishing? They are diminishing because of the sucky Obama economy which kills jobs and penalizes success. What is the solution? Obama’s solution and the solution of most Democrats is to raise taxes on the “wealthy” and practically speaking, the middle class as well as pump more money into government and unions. None of this works, of course. The real solution is to build the economy by reducing taxes and encouraging business growth in the private sector. So, while this school district and districts across the country as well as government entities everywhere are bewailing their reduced budgets, they really ought to be demanding steps to be taken that will in actuality build their community and state tax bases through increased growth in the private sector.

12 posted on 09/16/2012 4:58:16 PM PDT by rusty schucklefurd
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To: rusty schucklefurd
Our govenor, in an unguarded liberal moment, asked us to impose a temporary tax raise, and I believe it was to take care of the shortfall in the school budget. Our treasury is in the black now, but these area seems always to be a black hole.
Although, I agree, liberals can't look at the backstory.
13 posted on 09/16/2012 5:17:47 PM PDT by lulu16 (May the Good Lord take a liking to you!)
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To: reaganaut1
"Instead of classes about historical realities and the everyday experiences of Mexican-Americans, once a hallmark of the department..."

Yeah, no bias at all there, NYT. Thanks, or should I say gracias?


14 posted on 09/16/2012 5:24:42 PM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: reaganaut1

If they’re having such a rough time here, they’d probably learn better in the Mexico City public school system.


15 posted on 09/16/2012 5:24:59 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: lulu16
Do you think that they’ll start complaining that the Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Filipino kids are taking up all the space in the library after school?

Who knows....if we could get away from people who make money from "victim hood" and our courts away from "Social Justice" maybe Self reliance could take hold again...the adults have got some growing up to do also.

16 posted on 09/16/2012 5:26:13 PM PDT by yoe
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To: yoe
Invoking the ten commandments here Rev. Jackson and Rev. Sharpton... Thou shall not covet thy neighbors goods. Thou shall not steal.
Whenever I get in discussion about funding some ridiculous idea or raising taxes to justify “the children”, I remind people, that money came off someones kitchen table, that they would have used to take care of their own family.
17 posted on 09/16/2012 5:40:13 PM PDT by lulu16 (May the Good Lord take a liking to you!)
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To: lulu16
Do you think that they’ll start complaining that the Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Filipino kids are taking up all the space in the library after school?

How would they know this if they never go in the library?

18 posted on 09/16/2012 5:46:55 PM PDT by 17th Miss Regt
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To: 17th Miss Regt

I used to hide out there from the gangs. Glad they didn’t know.


19 posted on 09/16/2012 5:55:13 PM PDT by lulu16 (May the Good Lord take a liking to you!)
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To: reaganaut1

I suggest using “Alpha-Phonics” to teach them to read English successfully. If they would then like to use their English skills to read about the history of Mexico, I don’t see why they shouldn’t, as long as they were able to write correct essays, in English, based on their research.

I wrote research papers, in English, for Spanish class in high school, and then I wrote research papers, in Spanish, for Spanish class in college. Ah, those were the days, when I could correctly conjugate Spanish verbs.


20 posted on 09/16/2012 6:25:27 PM PDT by Tax-chick (Use the nukes, Bibi!)
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