Three out of 4 Arizona toddlers have received a recommended series of vaccinations against measles, polio and other diseases, according to estimates released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Arizona still was slightly below the national average and ranked 37th among all 50 states and the District of Columbia when it comes to the series covering measles, mumps and rubella, polio, Hepatitis B, chicken pox and diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.

The CDC’s survey, covering 2007, involved children born between January 2004 and July 2006. It found that 75.2 percent of toddlers in Arizona had received the vaccines, up from 70.6 percent in the 2006 survey.

Maryland had the highest rate at 91.3 percent; Nevada was lowest at 63.1 percent. The national average was 77.4 percent.

Kathy Fredrickson, office chief for the Arizona Department of Health Services’ Arizona Immunization Program, said she was pleased with the increase. She said officials are unsure why Arizona ranks behind other states.

But Fredrickson said Arizona’s growing population might have something to do with the way the statistics are gathered.

“We’re one of the fastest-growing states; it’s hard to keep track of all those kids,” Frederickson said.

Debbie McCune-Davis, program director of the nonprofit Arizona Partnership for Immunization, said Arizona faces a unique challenge because so many residents come and go. Their medical records don’t always follow them, she said.

“We’re not like a little town in the Northeast where children are going to the same doctors’ offices that their parents went,” McCune-Davis said.

McCune-Davis attributed Arizona’s increase to greater availability of health care and health insurance for children.

Frederickson expects Arizona’s percentage to continue climbing.

PHOENIX – A judge has sentenced Maricopa County’s embattled school’s superintendent to probation after tossing 25 felony counts related to the operation of a school for homeless children.

Sandra Dowling was sentenced Tuesday to four months and one week of probation for a minor misdemeanor.

It brings an end to a long-standing investigation launched by the sheriff’s office.

Dowling was indicted in November 2006 on 25 felony counts related to the operation of the Thomas J. Pappas Schools for homeless children.

Authorities accused the school’s chief of stealing $1.9 million in public money.

All of the charges were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be brought again.

Dowling’s attorney says the case is what they’ve been saying all along.

“Nothing of the sheriff’s investigation was ever proven. Nothing!,” said her attorney, Craig Mehrens.

Dowling pleaded guilty to a Class 2 misdemeanor for hiring a relative, a count not included in the original indictment, because she had given a $5-an-hour job to her daughter during the summer of 1999.

Dowling said after court Tuesday she feels vindicated.

“The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the sheriff’s office spent a lot of money, they spent a lot of time, they wasted a lot of taxpayers’ time and most importantly, they destroyed the lives of thousands and thousands of homeless children and for that they can never be forgiven, ever,” Dowling said.

The Board of Supervisors is suing Dowling to recover the money that they say she stole even though the $1.9 million theft charge was dismissed.

Supervisor Don Stapley said they’re not done with Dowling despite Tuesday’s decision.

“We are in the process of gearing up to prosecute,” he said.

As for the lesser charge Dowling pleaded to, Stapley said, “Guilty is still guilty. Ask yourself: When was the last time you were on probation? It’s a big deal.”

Reacting to the end of the Dowling criminal case, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said his office did a professional investigation of Dowling with a lot of time put into it.

Dowling leaves office in December after deciding to retire rather than run for another term.

Movement gains popularity; Az has 40K home-schoolers

Twenty-five years ago, home schooling was not a crime in Arizona, but there were hurdles: Parents had to take teacher competency tests and kids had to take state proficiency exams.

In the early 1980s, Mesa resident Shirley Gardner, a mother of 10, started a small network of home-school parents which in 1983 led to the first state convention of the Arizona Families for Home Education.

Now, 25 years later, the stereotype of home-schoolers – religious conservatives and spelling bee winner – remains, advocates said, but everything else has changed.

For Arizona’s estimated 40,000 home-educated youngsters, the movement has gone mainstream.

There are yearbooks, extracurricular activities and graduation ceremonies, kids learn at co-ops, participate in sports and receive scholarships to state universities.

Increasingly, home schooling is for people who want to schedule family time around more than dual careers and soccer practices.

“It’s grown from something you would only do if willing to be secretive about it, on the fringes, to now in the mainstream,” said Gilbert resident David Monk, director of the AFHE convention last weekend at the Phoenix Convention Center.

Rod and Christine Anderson of Mesa have educated their eight children at home since 1992.

“We started out very structured, but then loosened up,” Rod said. “It becomes a lifestyle where everything is about education.”

Home schooling used to be a solitary endeavor. With no outside support, parents faced daunting practical questions: Where do I get a science textbook? Can I really teach higher math?

But home schooling has evolved into a remarkably communal activity, conducted via the Internet and via an elaborate system of community and commercial programs.

Anderson said the convention became his best resource, where curriculum vendors and others congregated once a year to share the latest materials and ideas.

The Anderson children now “co-op” with other families to study higher science or math.

The number of home-schooled students in Arizona has jumped from about 25,000 a decade ago to about 40,000, Monk said.

Nancy Manos of Chandler said she and her husband wanted to nurture her two daughters’ talents and guide them with Christian values.

“We’d seen other families home school and we liked the character development and close relationship,” said Manos, who spearheads an e-mail newsletter that reaches hundreds of home-schooled families a week.

Ian Slatter, a spokesman with the home-school Legal Defense Association, said Arizona has “a very favorable home school law.”

He said other states require parents to take competency tests and students to take proficiency exams, but not in Arizona.

Parents are required only to file an affidavit promising to teach reading, writing, math, science and social studies. No mountain of paperwork, no state bureaucrats monitoring.

Tom Lewis, past president of AFHE, helped pioneer the latest home school law through the Legislature in the early 1990s.

Today, he said Arizona families have in home schooling another palatable alternative to conventional public schools. In part, that’s because a new generation has redefined “mainstream.”

“We’ve always had home schooling in this country, but it wasn’t called that then,” Lewis said. “In our day, it was hard to even find the curriculum. . . . It just took awhile for the market to grow, and it has today.”

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HOME SCHOOLING IN ARIZONA

1912: Original home-school law requires children to attend school through grade 8 and be taught by a “competent” teacher.

1982: The first home-school law rewrite comes when jurisdiction shifts to county school superintendents. In October, the first meeting of Arizona Families for Home Education is held.

1992: HB 2075 proposed a revision to the home-school law based on 1991 Legislative study committee recommendations. When debate stops, more than 200 home-school advocates hold protests, widely covered by the media. Gov. Fife Symington vetoes the unfavorable home-school bill.

1993: First AFHE statewide sponsored high school and junior high graduation. House bill 2262 sponsored by Gary Richardson is signed into law, requiring home-school student testing every three years.

1995: Arizona proclaimed to have the “best” law in the nation, after a home-school law revision requires parents only to file an affidavit of intent with the state. No tests.

1997: Home-school students can join interscholastic sport competitions at public schools.

1999: The Bethany Lewis laws makes home-schoolers eligible for state university scholarships.

The rain that drenched the Valley last month during high school graduations is long gone, but what hasn’t dissipated is the irritation some families felt over how their high schools managed the ceremonies during the downpour.

Kirk Gossett, the father of a newly-graduated Gilbert High senior, has filed a claim with the Gilbert Public Schools district, asking for $400 in reimbursement for his daughter’s plane ticket from Utah to come to his son’s graduation. He says the money would also help to replace a jacket ruined by the weather.

The district hasn’t yet responded to the claim.

Gossett told the governing board Tuesday that he believes the schools should have been ready to make other arrangements since weather forecasters had been warning for several days that graduation week would be damp.

“What’s the old Boy Scout rule?” he said while talking to reporters. “Be prepared.”

As a policy, the board and district don’t respond to public concerns raised during the comment period of the board meetings.

Although Gilbert High School had an indoor plan just in case, officials there chose to stick with the outdoor ceremony.

The situation last month was a catch-22 for districts. Families were disappointed even when ceremonies were moved indoors, restricting the number of relatives who could sit in auditoriums. Other families were upset if the high school kept the ceremony indoors.

Weather experts have noted that rain in the Arizona desert at that time of year is unheard of, and leaders at various schools have emphasized it was an unfortunate coincidence.

TUSD, Sunnyside challenge state’s ELL mandate

Maria Valencia, a fourth-grader last year in a dual language class at Los Amigos Elementary School, records observations in English as part of a science project.

Two area school districts have devised their own plans to teach English to non-English speakers, contending a teaching mandate from the Legislature is unfair.

Now, Sunnyside and Tucson unified school districts must persuade the Legislature to adopt their ideas, which are strikingly similar.

A legislative mandate in 2006, which has been in and out of the courts, says students not proficient in English must be segregated four hours a day to learn English beginning with the 2008-09 school year.

Critics contend four hours is too long and will prevent students from taking classes in other subjects. Critics fear it could keep students from graduating from high school in four years.

Both districts’ plans would cut the four hours of immersion to two hours. Students would spend the other two hours in integrated subjects other than English, where they would learn academic concepts in addition to receiving specialized English support.

The plan, dubbed “2 plus 2,” is the best way to go, said officials from TUSD, which has about 8,000 ELL students, and Sunnyside, which has about 4,000. However, they still haven’t heard whether their plans will be approved and don’t expect to until Friday.

That’s when the Arizona English Language Learners Task Force may decide on alternatives proposed by the Tucson districts and other school districts across the state. About 20 districts have submitted alternative plans, and more than 100 Arizona school district superintendents protested a lack of funding for the state plan earlier this year at the state Capitol.

Steve Holmes, TUSD’s assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, said the 2 plus 2 plan “just makes educational sense.” He said he has given the task force a report, and talked with some of the members May 19.

Sunnyside sent 37 parents and staff members to Phoenix for its presentation May 14.

The state has one exception for its four-hour mandate. If a school has 20 or fewer students who would be affected by the ruling, or 20 or fewer students across three consecutive grade levels affected, it can create Individual Learning Plans for those students and they can stay in mainstream classrooms, Holmes said.

“The way this (exception) affects TUSD is that half of our schools would have individual plans and half would have four hours of segregated classes. Even at some schools, you could have both,” Holmes said.

“Especially in a district with high mobility like TUSD, how do we justify it to parents, who have moved inside the district and come to us and say, ‘We were at one school where my student had an ILP, and now we’re at a school where my student is segregated,’ ” he said.

At Sunnyside, parents are concerned that four hours a day of English will keep their children, especially those in high school, from taking the classes they need to graduate in four years, said Jeannie Favela, assistant superintendent for student services.

“If they keep getting farther and farther behind in core classes because they’re only in English immersion, and as a result don’t pass AIMS, how are they going to graduate?” she asked.

Julia Lindberg, Sunnyside’s director of language acquisition and development, is concerned about the state plan because “there is very little time for math, science and social studies and no time for electives.”

Favela agreed. “It prevents English-language learners from having the same quality education day that our English-speaking students have,” she said. “We don’t want to go back to the days where students were segregated. We’ve gotten past that and we don’t want to go back.”

The Sunnyside alternative would provide two hours of segregated immersion in English but then a second two hours of an “applied block” for math and science where the English learners in high school and middle school “can use the English they have learned in classes with students who know more English than they do,” she said.

With math and science within the four-hour total, room would be made for other required classes and electives.

At the elementary level, it would mean pupils would be in homeroom classes most of the day, and pulled out only for two hours for English immersion.

“We don’t just want them to learn how to say, ‘I have a red hat.’ We want (them) to be learning skills they will need to pass the AIMS test,” Favela said.

She said the state is using the “time on task” concept: the longer you do something, the more you’ll learn it.

“But that doesn’t mean it will be quality education,” she said.

Sunnyside Superintendent Manuel Isquierdo also is concerned about the state model.

“We need to stand up and say, with respect to the state Education Department, ‘We do not agree with this model, and we think we have a better way,’ ” he said. “It’s not educationally sound. It’s not research-based and it’s not good for our children. We cannot stand by and let this model go through.

“This model, by design, says we have to segregate our English and non-English speaking students,” he said. “We all know non-English speaking students learn when they can integrate with English speakers. That’s a main way they learn.”

The soundness of the plan is not the only concern. School districts across the state initially said they needed between $275 million and $300 million to implement the state model.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne estimated the cost at $20 million; the Legislature authorized $40 million.

But $40 million is what TUSD officials initially estimated that district, alone, would need to pay for teachers, the extra classrooms needed, training, supplies and testing materials, among other things.

And TUSD and Sunnyside, it appears, would get no additional funding from the state, at least to begin with.

Still, Horne is telling schools this week they shouldn’t avoid enrolling students in immersion classes while the funding issue is debated.

Sunnyside is getting no money from the state, Isquierdo said.

“That’s because the state expects (Sunnyside and TUSD) to ‘offset’ the cost by using federal funds for low-income students first,” Favela said.

Isquierdo said, “The state is making us reassign those federal funds first and then when they see we have used all those, they’ll consider giving us some money. But that’s a significant challenge. We need those funds where they’re being used now.”

Sunnyside board member Magdalena Barajas is perplexed. “It’s unlawful to spend federal funds for state mandates, so the state is asking us to break the law,” she said.

That’s the argument Sahuarita Unified School District officials cited to avoid complying with the mandate.

Favela said implementing four hours of immersion at Sunnyside schools would cost $2 million “just for teachers. Our initial budget was $8 million for more classrooms and more teachers.”

TUSD’s minimal cost would be $7.5 million, Holmes said, “but that would just cover the number of teachers needed.”

Sunnyside needs 20 more teachers “and where would we put those teachers? There aren’t enough classrooms, and how do we pay for the new teachers?” Favela asked.

The mandate is “contradictory to research on how children learn English. They need specialized time to learn English, but we believe four hours is excessive, and we want them to be in classes where math and science is taught to English and non-English speakers,” she said.

Favela said more than 30 percent of Sunnyside students come from homes where a language other than English is spoken. “But that doesn’t mean those students are broken.”

Sunnyside school board president Eva Dong said the district plan was put together “with our experts in the field of language acquisition. It’s not that the district didn’t want students to learn English in an efficient manner,” she said. “We’re not doing this model because we don’t want them to learn English. It’s a moral issue to segregate them from their peers. It takes us back to what we fought hard to eliminate.”

Isquierdo isn’t optimistic that Sunnyside’s alternative model will be approved: “The state seems pretty determined that any alternative must go along with the four-hour model,” he said.

TUSD’s Holmes also told the district school board this spring that approval was not assured.

But he said TUSD’s move to the two-hour block will advance students in learning English. “Now they have only a half an hour,” he said.

He said he agreed with what the state was asking for in grammar, reading, vocabulary and writing: “They are areas students need. But I don’t believe it should be a four-hour block.”

Holmes said TUSD “needs to comply with the law, but we have to have some serious negotiations for the timeline of implementation. In reality, without additional funds, we will not be prepared to implement the plan as the state wants us to for the start of the coming school year. We have already prepared for the 2 plus 2 plan.”

TUSD and Sunnyside officials said they don’t plan to sue over the issue at this point.

“We have received some guidance from OCR (federal Office of Civil Rights), but we have not spoken to any attorneys about this,” Holmes said.

But at Sunnyside, it could be a matter of time. Lindberg said the district will seek legal advice if its plan is not accepted by the state.

Los Amigos Elementary fifth-grade dual language students show off their science project last school year. They are (counterclockwise from top left) Yarlene Lara, Ricardo Morales, Saul Parra, Lupita Moreno and Briana Pandula. The state plan would replace dual language classes with English immersion.

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ELL instruction timeline
1992: A Nogales family sues the state for not properly teaching English to non-English speaking students.

2000: The state is ordered to create a plan to adequately teach English-language learners.

2006: The plan, House Bill 2064, becomes law.

2000-’08: The plan is in and out of the courts. Critics say it is not properly funded and disagree with how it would be implemented.

2008: The state mandates that schools with sufficient numbers of English-language learners segregate them into English immersion classes for four hours a day starting in the 2008-09 school year.

January 2008: More than 100 state school district superintendents go to the state Capitol to contest the mandate and how it would be funded.

April 2008: The Legislature approves $40.6 million for ELL instruction for the 2008-09 school year. School districts said it would cost nearly $275 million. It becomes law without the approval of Gov. Janet Napolitano, who refuses to sign the bill.

May 2008: An attorney for parents in the initial lawsuit asks a federal judge to rule the $40.6 million is insufficient.

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2 plus 2
The basics of TUSD’s and Sunnyside’s “2 plus 2″ plans:

• Students are removed from regular classes for two hours a school day for English immersion.

• Students spend two more hours a school day in integrated classes where they get specialized English support, but are learning other subjects at the same time.

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ON THE WEB
TUSD

Sunnyside

Arizona Dept. of Education

PHOENIX – State officials on Thursday asked a federal judge to postpone or deny a request to prohibit initiating state orders on the instruction of students learning English.

Those suing in a class action challenging the adequacy of Arizona’s English language learning programs asked the judge earlier this month to order the state to provide adequate funding for newly required instruction models and to prohibit requiring school districts to use the models in the meantime.

The state is providing school districts and charter schools with $40.6 million of additional funding to begin the orders, which include a requirement for four-hour daily periods of English instruction for the 138,000 students in the state.

Schools districts said they need about $275 million.

A response filed Thursday on behalf of the state acknowledged that the plaintiffs have raised legal issues covered by previous court orders in the case.

But U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins in Tucson should not block implementation of the models without first considering the issues and what should be done about them, said the state’s response.

PHOENIX – An amendment to a bill making its way through the Arizona Legislature would allow school districts to ask their voters for approval to issue bonds for computer purchases.

Sen. Barbara Leff, R-Paradise Valley, is the sponsor of the amendment to the House bill (HB2475) which received preliminary Senate approval on a voice vote Thursday.

Leff said computer-based learning is becoming the norm and can provide a variety of viewpoints, instead of those in just one textbook.

Currently, schools can pay for computers through capital-outlay overrides but money from those elections flows in equal annual amounts for the length of the override.

General-obligation bonds provide all the money up front, to be paid back over the length of the bond.

It requires that any bond used to purchase computers last only as long as the lifespan of the computer. That is designed to avoid long-term borrowing for a product that might last only a few years.

If a school launches a digital curriculum and provides a computer for every child, textbooks for that subject would be removed in favor of the digital version.

The proposal, added to a bill that deals with disciplinary procedures for school bullies, drew a skeptical reaction from some.

Sen. Ken Cheuvront, D-Phoenix, said it could lead to inequities between school districts, as wealthy school districts have a much better chance than those in poorer parts of the state to get their voters to approve a specific bond issue for computers.

The amendment allows for more borrowing by school districts, which could lead to bigger bills for taxpayers in those districts, according to Cheuvront.

But Minority Leader Marsha Arzberger, D-Willcox, said the Legislature is not imposing an automatic tax increase on anyone.

Cheuvront said he is not opposed to equipping schools with more computers, but expanded technology should not hinge on whether a district’s taxpayers are wealthy enough to support bond elections.

Leff said she got no push-back from school officials on her proposal to eliminate textbooks if digital-learning programs for a given subject are available. For those subject areas where such e-learning is not available, textbooks would still be allowed.

Lawmakers says test needs tune-up, perhaps overhaul

PHOENIX – Gov. Janet Napolitano has signed into law a bill passed by the Legislature to again let thousands of Arizona high school students use good grades to augment their AIMS test scores.

AIMS, the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards, measures students’ knowledge of math, reading and writing standards, and students have to pass the test to get a diploma.

Napolitano’s action comes a day after the House passed the measure without enough votes to allow it to take effect at once.

The sponsor, Democratic Rep. David Schapira, says that means districts will not be able to give diplomas to affected students until 90 days after the legislative session ends in a month or so.

State schools Superintendent Tom Horne said he is advising schools to allow seniors who meet the requirements of the new legislation to walk with their graduating class. When the bill officially becomes law, students can get their diplomas through the mail.

The delay shouldn’t affect a senior’s ability to enroll in college.

The AIMS test itself could be up for examination, as lawmakers express growing disdain for the high-stakes test.

“We are completely ready for a change in what we do” with AIMS, said Rep. Rich Crandall, R-Mesa.

Schapira, D-Tempe, suggested the state might want to use the ACT or SAT college-entrance exams as a prerequisite for high-school graduation instead of AIMS.

Supporters and opponents of Schapira’s bill that would allow exceptions to the AIMS graduation rule said the test needs a tune-up, if not a complete overhaul.

Rep. Sam Crump, R-Anthem, said lawmakers are starting to question why the test has to be tied to high-school graduation. Perhaps there are other ways of indicating a student’s proficiency, or lack thereof, upon completing high school, he said. For example, a student’s diploma could note his or her class rank.

The bill outlines alternative requirements that allow students who fail the AIMS test to graduate. If a student takes the test every time it is offered, takes remedial courses in the subject areas in which he or she failed and has good grades in their regular coursework, seniors this year and next can boost their AIMS score by 25 percent.

For the 2010 and 2011 graduation years, the score can be increased by 15 percent, and for 2012 and beyond, raised by 5 percent.

“If we don’t like the AIMS test, let’s be intellectually honest and do away with it,” said Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, R-Gilbert. House Democrats, who do not like the mandatory test, applauded heartily.

Horne said he will oppose any move to alter the AIMS test.

“If you keep reinventing the wheel, you end with something rectangular and you can’t move the wagon forward,” he said.

The Arizona Republic contributed to this article.

Hundreds of Tucson students may not be able to graduate from high school this month because a bill allowing “augmentation” of AIMS scores lacked the votes to make it effective immediately.

Without sufficient votes, a law cannot take effect immediately. Instead, it takes effect 90 days after the state legislative session ends.

In Tucson Unified School District, 570 students may be affected by the bill. The district board voted Tuesday to issue students certificates of completion if they completed district requirements.

The bill allowing students to graduate even if they did not pass Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards is retroactive to Jan. 1.

That means when the bill does become law – Gov. Janet Napolitano has indicated she will sign it – the affected students will graduate retroactively.

At that time they will become May 2008 graduates. However, they may not be high school graduates when college and university terms begin in August.

The House’s 35-21 vote Wednesday approving the bill fell five votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to allow the measure to take effect immediately once signed.

The legislative session will likely end within the next month or so, meaning those diplomas would not be distributed before September.

The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Rep. David Schapira of Tempe, said it was unclear how the delay would affect higher education opportunities or other plans for the estimated 5,000 to 6,000 students who have not passed AIMS.

AIMS tests students’ knowledge of state curriculum on math, reading and writing.

The bill renews a program that was used during the first two years of the graduation requirement. It allows a student to boost his or her AIMS test scores by adding points based on good grades in required courses.

The bill gradually lowers the extent to which augmentation can supplement test scores.

To qualify for augmentation, a student must complete all required courses, must have taken the test each time he or she was eligible and must have participated in any available tutoring or other remediation programs.

Napolitano, in telling reporters she planned to sign the bill, said timing was a concern.

“It’s so late in the school year and so close to the graduation (that) it would be really unfair to seniors this year not to sign it,” she said.

Added Napolitano: “They’ve otherwise passed their courses. They’re otherwise making plans. The issue is whether they get to walk across the stage next week or two weeks from now and get their diploma. In my view they ought to get their diploma.”

The Senate had approved the bill Tuesday with enough votes to make it take effect immediately.

The House vote fell short of the two-thirds vote needed for emergency measures because of opposition from members concerned it weakened the test’s value as an accountability measure.

Supporters defended it as a way to help students whose futures would be limited because they narrowly missing passing one or more parts of the test despite strong efforts in school.

PHOENIX — Gov. Janet Napolitano has signed into law a bill passed by the Legislature to again let thousands of Arizona high school students use good grades to augment their “AIMS” test scores.

AIMS measures students’ knowledge of math, reading and writing standards, and students have to pass the test to get a diploma.

Napolitano’s action was announced by the bill’s sponsor and it comes a day after the House passed the measure without enough votes to allow it to take effect immediately.

The sponsor, Democratic Rep. David Schapira (shuh-PIE’-ruh), says that means districts will not be able to give diplomas to affected students until 90 days after the legislative session ends in a month or so.

But Schapira says he expects most schools will permit affected students to participate in the graduation ceremonies this month.

PHOENIX — State lawmakers are moving to reinstate a program that would let thousands of students use good grades on required courses to augment their “AIMS” test scores so they can get a diploma even if they didn’t pass parts of the test outright.

The Senate on Tuesday approved, 22-5, a House-passed bill to reinstate the expired augmentation program, but only after adding a provision that will gradually scale back how much help it provides.

The legislative action came as high schools across the state gear up for graduation ceremonies in the next several weeks.

With the Senate’s 22-5 vote, the bill now returns to the House to consider the Senate’s change.

If given final approval by the House and signed into law by Gov. Janet Napolitano, the bill (HB2008) would take effective immediately and apply retroactive to Jan. 1.

The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Rep. David Schapira of Tempe, said resumption of the augmentation program would help keep students pursue higher education even if they fall a little short in some subject areas.

“We’re not making a drastic change in policy,” he said.

Schapira said up to 6,000 students would be affected this year, but state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne put the number at 3,000 to 6,000, out of a total of 50,000 12th-graders.

Arizona high school students are required to pass the AIMS test to get a diploma. Short for Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards, AIMS tests students’ knowledge of math, reading and writing curriculum.

Maria Cami, an 18-year-old senior at Saguaro High School in Scottsdale, said she welcomed the prospect of augmenting her AIMS test scores because it would let her get a diploma and attend Arizona State University. Otherwise, “community college maybe, but I don’t want to do that.”

Cami said she’s received Bs and Cs in math courses but failed the AIMS test’s math section each of the five times she’s taken it.

“It was the math I fell a couple of points short on,” she said. “I’m not really good at math, so I feel like I’m being penalized for something I’m not good at.”

The original augmentation program expired Jan. 1 after being in place for the first two years of the AIMS graduation requirement for high school.

The program permitted students to boost their AIMS score by up to 25 percent based on grades. With the phasedown added by the Senate, that amount would be reduced to 10 percent next year and 5 percent thereafter.

Most of the affected students would be covered by the reduced threshold, Schapira said. “Some of them are just a few points away.”

Sen. John Huppenthal, a Chandler Republican who proposed the phasedown, said he opposed watering down the AIMS test but regarded passage of the bill as inevitable. Adding the phasedown provides a transition to a point where AIMS test scores will have usefulness as an academic accountability tool, he said.

Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, opposed the reinstatement, saying students have had plenty of time to adjust to the state’s standards. “If they’re not doing it now, it is their fault,” he said.

You can sleep soundly. State Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, is keeping Arizona’s public schools safe for democracy.

The House Appropriations Committee he chairs amended a bill with a measure to empower the state superintendent for public instruction to hold “appropriate hearings” on courses or school activities that “denigrate, disparage or overtly encourage dissent from the values of American democracy and Western civilization, including capitalism, pluralism and religious toleration.”

If the superintendent found the class or activity sufficiently anti-democratic or anti-West, he could withhold funding from the offending school.

This absurd measure would make the superintendent chief of what amounts to an academic Spanish Inquisition. Actually, the inquisition, not exactly a high point of Western civilization, might find itself before the superintendent’s tribunal.

What other historical events might be fodder for a withering critique of Western civilization, therefore activating the ideological litmus test? Here’s a short list:

• Slavery

• Colonialism

• The Holocaust

• The Jim Crow era

• The internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II

• Mistreatment of Native Americans during the westward expansion

Teaching would get a lot dicier under the amendment. Apparently, Pearce doesn’t hold the view that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

There is more to Pearce’s amendment, however. Another provision would ban the on-campus operation of organizations that are “based in whole or in part on race-based criteria.”

State schools superintendent Tom Horne, who would get the call to enforce Pearce’s polemic, long has suspected that the Tucson Unified School District’s Ethnic Studies program teaches what he calls “ethnic chauvinism” and “creates a hostile atmosphere” where it is taught.

He’s wrong on both counts. In fact, La Raza Studies celebrates the very pluralism specified in Pearce’s amendment as worthy of protection.

It’s because of this type of illogic that we’re confident the full House will see Pearce’s amendment for what it is – ridiculous – and let it die.

It is at odds with a cornerstone of sound educational policy, local control.

And because it appears to violate Arizona laws that place responsibility for curriculum in the hands of the governing board of a district.

But it’s unlikely that Pearce will be deterred by issues of legality, proper governance or common sense.

He’s on a crusade, like the zealot knights who in the 13th century set out to retake Jerusalem for Christianity and ended up destroying Constantinople, Christianity’s premier city.

Pearce is racing forward, consequences be damned.

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A University of Arizona professor will use her Fulbright scholarship to study methods teachers in Sonora, Mexico, use to successfully teach their students.

Toni Griego-Jones works in the College of Education and specializes in teacher education.

In a UA news release, she said her interest is the impact of immigration on classroom teachers and teacher education.

She will use her research to develop methods for teachers in the United States to use when they teach immigrants and migrant children.

She will conduct her research for a year in Ciudad Obregón and in rural parts of Sonora, Tucson’s neighbor 60 miles to the south.

The Arizona House of Representatives is on the verge of opting out of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush’s premier educational accomplishment.

On a voice vote Wednesday, the House approved a bill sponsored by state Rep. David Schapira, D-Tempe, that would make Arizona the first state in the nation to leave behind the act and its education mandates. It would take effect on July 1, 2010.

But it would leave the state with a $600 million hole in its schools budget, as it would lose federal education dollars by opting out of the program.

That’s a cost that some lawmakers, as well as state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, say isn’t worth it, no matter how big the principle at stake.

“The problem is, we would lose over a half-billion dollars a year,” he said. “And it would go to the schools that need it the most: the low-income schools.”

House Education Chairman Mark Anderson said opt-out bills are nothing new to the Legislature, where most members have bristled at the level of federal control in No Child Left Behind. But this year, the idea seems to be gathering steam. House Bill 2392 could come up for a formal vote as early as next week. If it passed, it still would need Senate approval.

“I’m baffled this has gotten as far as it has when it has a price tag of $600 million,” said Anderson, R-Mesa.

Some of the support stems from a change Schapira added to the bill Wednesday. If the state would not reimburse local school districts for the amount of lost federal dollars, Arizona would stick with No Child Left Behind.

Rep. Jackie Thrasher, D-Phoenix, who voted against an earlier version of the bill, said Wednesday’s amendment won her support. Thrasher is a high-school teacher and said she didn’t want to see the schools take a financial hit.

Anderson said the potential cost of the state making up the money that would be lost from the federal dollars is staggering, especially at a time when the state is trying to climb out of a $1.2 billion budget deficit.

“If you want to send a message, OK,” Anderson said. “But don’t opt out.”

The Arizona Education Association has essentially the same message. Although the federal act has its problems, the money that’s attached to it is too lucrative to give up.

“It’s not a position we can support over the long term,” association President John Wright said. “The federal money is too important, especially for the at-risk kids in our public schools.”

Anderson said a more prudent approach is his own “message bill,” which passed the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday on a 5-2 vote. It urges Congress to support the federal A-PLUS Act, which would allow states to opt into a federal education program with more local control.

PHOENIX – A class-action lawsuit demanding that Arizona increase funding for the instruction of students learning English is all about money.

But the time to resolve the issue is another constant subject of debate in the case, particularly with a judge threatening to impose sanctions against the state if the Legislature didn’t act by a deadline Tuesday.

The judge on Monday scheduled a hearing for next week in Tucson on legislators’ request for an extension, attorneys said.

The case centers on approximately 130,000 students enrolled in English Language Learning programs in Arizona public schools.

The original lawsuit was filed in 1992, meaning the case now “has been in the courts longer than it takes a student to go from kindergarten to college,” a federal appeals court noted in a Feb. 22 ruling.

A federal judge who has since retired issued the pre-eminent order in the case, ruling in 2000 that the state needs to do more because its programs fall short of federal mandates for equal opportunities in English.

In the years since, the case has been marked by political false starts and legal dead ends as school districts and state officials argued over what must and should be done.

Prodded by the judge now on the case, lawmakers enacted a 2006 law to revamp the programs and their funding according to a new system of paying for districts’ implementation of new state-approved instructional models.

The models were supposed to have been approved by the fall of 2006 but that timetable immediately fell apart, with approval finally occurring a year later in the fall of 2007.

“The task force took an extra year because they wanted very thorough research to support what they did,” said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, a supporter and architect of the new approach.

After the models were eventually approved last fall, Horne’s department provided training sessions to explain the new system to district officials and set a Feb. 8 deadline for applications for state funding.

Districts submitted their requests, but Horne said many did so at the last minute, with many submitting “pie in the sky” requests that delayed processing with requests for money to cover expenses not allowed under the law.

That made it impossible for the Legislature to consider the funding requests by Tuesday’s deadline, Republican legislative leaders argued in a motion asking for more time.

The leaders blamed the plaintiffs’ lawyer for part of the time crunch, accusing attorney Tim Hogan of providing “incorrect and inappropriate advice” to districts.

Hogan, executive director of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, scoffed at the criticism.

“I told districts to apply for their incremental ELL costs. The problem with the department’s budget request is that they want to allow only for budget requests for over and above what you’re spending currently. That’s what this whole case is about.”

Paul Davenport is a Phoenix-based reporter for The Associated Press.

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ON THE NET:

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