Cracking down on ethnic studies
Arizona’s sunstroke over immigration may soon exact a financial penalty from students in one of that state’s larger school districts.
Tom Horne, Arizona’s superintendent of public instruction, backed a new state law designed to ban ethnic studies in the state’s public schools. It was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer a few weeks after the state’s more widely publicized antiimmigration statute, and it stems from the same political phobia.
Now, Horne is threatening to withhold 10 percent of basic state aid from the Tucson Unified School District when the new law goes into effect Dec. 31, according to an article in Education Week.
The education law prohibits public schools from providing classes designed for a specific ethnic group, advocating ethnic solidarity or promoting resentment toward a race or group of people. Horne contends that the ban applies to ethnic studies courses offered at Tucson Unified, a claim denied by Tucson Unified, which intends to continue offering the classes.
Horne also asked the district to videotape all of its ethnic studies classes during the fall semester, a “Big Brother” intrusion that Sean Arce, the district’s director of Mexican American studies, also plans to ignore.
“The classroom is the domain of the teacher and student,” Arce said.
This controversy probably will simmer for a while, long enough to boost Horne’s conservative support for his campaign for the Republican nomination for Arizona attorney general.
His superintendent’s term expires at the end of the year. It is unfortunate, perhaps, for Arizonians that he is running for attorney general. Texans are fortunate, though, that he didn’t move here and run for our State Board of Education, where he probably would feel right at home.
