Tom Horne Targets TUSD Minority Studies

Back in June, I responded to the Goldwater Institute's recommendations to the Republican Party on how they should cater to latin@ voters. Towards the end, I mentioned comments by Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne as an example of the far-right nativist contigent that currently holds power in the GOP.

These are not the voices of moderation. These are not voices who are even making an attempt to understand where the Latino community is coming from on the various issues of the day. It is a group who has chosen to define us in the most negative way possible. Take the Superintendent for Public Instruction, for example, in a Letter to the Editor to the AZRepublic in February:

In a column dated Jan. 29, 2007 "Let's ditch '50s mentality," Republic editorial writer Linda Valdez criticizes me for one of my lawyer's arguments in the Flores case.

This argument was that Tucson Unified should not be heard claiming that their English-language program suffers from lack of state funds. In fact, they waste huge amounts of the money they do receive on programs like "ethnic studies," including "Raza" studies. ("La Raza" means "the race.")

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Well, in what is probably Example #85204 of Why. Elections. Matter. Tom Horne has decided that he is going to do everything he can to dismantle programs that are succeeding at graduating minority students and showing them that they can go to college if they summon the will.

TUSD's ethnic studies program has come under the lens of Arizona's education czar.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne has asked the Tucson Unified School District to provide information on funding for its ethnic studies programs.

The request also calls for all training materials used in Mexican-American and African-American studies, syllabuses, videos, films, teachers' guides, reading materials, audio recordings and other instructional materials.

Horne said his inquiry is not based on a question of academics or education, but "values."

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Those values - those of Tom Horne and by the growing nativist, WHITE contingency - are made clear by the horse's ass mouth.

Horne was elected in 2002 on a platform that included an anti-bilingual-education stance.

"I have a long history of opposing ethnic studies and gender studies," he said, explaining that he halted a proposed women's studies program in a Paradise Valley high school.

Paging Leonard Clark! Do you think we can add another name to that recall petition?