GUEST OPINION

JACK JENNINGS AND YING ZHANG

Parents and other citizens are often frustrated by certain policies in public schools.

Arizona, for example, for several years has required students to pass Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards in order to receive a high school diploma.

An exception, called “augmentation,” allows students who fail the test to get a diploma, provided their grades are good and they take remedial courses in math, English or both.

The problem has been that students, parents and even teachers have not always known about this important exception or how students can take advantage of it. Confusion results.

The Center on Education Policy, an independent Washington, D.C., advocacy and research organization, studied policies for at-risk students and English- language learners in Arizona during the 2006-07 school year.

Researchers conducted 364 interviews with students, teachers, administrators and parents at five high schools in southern Arizona.

Three Arizona policies in particular were the focus: AIMS and augmentation, the Arizona English Language Learner Assessment and the written. individualized compensatory plan (a learning plan for English-language learners who have been classified as “fluent” in English but are not making progress).

Serious problems were found with understanding and implementing all three policies.

In addition to the confusion about the augmentation policy, many teachers believed English-language learners passing AZELLA were not necessarily ready for mainstream classrooms, let alone passing high school exit exams.

Once students pass AZELLA, in principle, they are not qualified to receive any language service; AZELLA becomes a legitimate excuse to deprive students of desperately needed services.

Under such circumstances, it is natural that some schools create their own rules of classification and manage to subsidize programs without funding from the state.

Legal arguments, such as Flores v. Arizona, should not be surprising, because the state’s identification, classification and funding system is simply not working for students, teachers and schools.

Another problem area is Arizona’s written individualized compensatory plan. Teachers are to specify learning goals for struggling students to help with their academic progress.

This is a really good idea when a couple of students in each class need such service. But when a school has to write individual plans for more than 700 students, as in some of the schools reported in the study, this well-intended policy turns out to be unrealistic.

This program was abandoned by some schools because they did not have sufficient staff, resources or knowledge to put it into practice.

Policy design is not just theory; this individualized plan program is an object lesson in how idealistic design can contribute to impractical implementation.

The lesson from our work in Arizona couldn’t be clearer: State policies may not only fail in achieving their goals, but also may bring unexpected consequences to students and schools.

CEP’s report captures this reality during 2006-07 and describes a wide range of reactions among teachers and school staff.

We hope, for the students, parents, teachers and other citizens of Arizona, the situation has improved.

But the broader lesson is that the state government and local school boards should make sure their policies make sense when implemented together and don’t conflict with one another.

They should also be sure that teachers and local administrators have the capacity to carry out those policies.

Otherwise, there will be confusion in the public and frustration in the schools.

Arizona is not alone in having school policies that do not fit well together and in requiring policies when there is little or no capability to carry them out.

But not being alone should not be an excuse. Policymakers must make sense out of what we ask our schools to do.

Jack Jennings is president and CEO of the Center on Education Policy.

Ying Zhang is a CEP research associate.

Citizen Staff Writer

RYN GARGULINSKI

rynski@tucsoncitizen.com

My friend is sitting around waiting for his lizard to die.

Well, he’s not really just sitting around waiting. He still goes to work, watches baseball on TV and plays video games while his lizard refuses to eat and becomes increasingly lethargic.

But he won’t take the lizard to the vet. He says it’s ridiculous to pay what he expects would be an astronomical bill for “a $30 pet.”

That reminds me of one of my rats who had a tumor. I later found out rats are highly susceptible to tumors, could live years with the things and the tumors were usually benign.

The vet wanted $2,000 for surgery. This was a $2 pet. A feeder rat. We didn’t get the surgery.

The rat did live for years and still ate, slept and ran in that rolly ball thing with his usual fervor (though the ball kind of turned lopsided after awhile).

So while I can relate to my friend to a certain extent, getting a pet should be kind of like a marriage: for better for worse, ’til death do us part.

And death should not be sped up by avoiding the vet.

My dog Sawyer tested this theory early on when he ate a small handful of river rocks in Oregon.

One of the smooth, slippery stones was only about an inch wide but a hefty 4 inches long. I know because I still have it.

While the rock slipped down Sawyer’s throat just fine, it then lodged sideways at the top of his intestine.

His head bloated like a parade float as toxins backed up in his system.

He was a $60 dog, facing an $800 stomach surgery. Yet I still thought it ludicrous when one of my co-workers suggested I could put him to sleep, as euthanasia was cheaper than the surgery.

The horror.

Another horror is the path some other folks take when they find their pets too expensive.

They let pets loose in the desert.

Roadkill calls have jumped from 159 in October to 223 in March, according to the Pima Animal Care Center. This hefty increase is most likely brought about, at least in part, by abandonment.

Still others leave pets behind after they’ve been evicted or their homes have been foreclosed.

Such things are more sickening, even, than eating 4-inch river rocks.

Even those faced with seemingly insurmountable vet bills have found a way to pay them.

Lizzie Mead and her two greyhounds – Opal and Rider – were victims of a hit-and-run in October. This left her with a $14,300 bill and a dog whose eye popped out.

The amount has been paid as of May 1. Money was raised through generous donations, extra customers at Mead’s Silver Sea Jewelry & Gifts store on Fourth Avenue, and a beaded bracelet campaign.

The beaded bracelets were so gloriously successful, Mead kept up the campaign after the vet bill was paid to raise an additional $1,164 to save two retired racing hounds from Guam.

For better for worse. ‘Til death do us part. All for the love of pets.

The pets, yes, they love us back, save for one dog I had that constantly crapped on my pillow.

Even with lots of love, not all pet tales have happy endings.

My childhood gerbil was accidentally slain when he bit someone and the person hurled him back into the cage.

My adult miniature pinscher was murdered when some jerk decided to get back at me through my dog.

A friend’s baby alligator died when it was forgotten in a shoebox atop a kitchen cabinet for the entire summer.

My mom’s childhood parakeet got loose and landed in a sizzling frying pan.

Tragedies happen, but we are still obligated to do the best for our pets regardless of circumstance.

Never chuck them in the middle of the desert. Never shove them in a shoebox for the summer. And never fry pirogi while a bird is loose in the house.

Ryn Gargulinski is a poet, artist and Tucson Citizen reporter who still owes her folks $800 for Sawyer’s stomach surgery.

Listen to a preview of her column at 8:10 a.m. Thursdays on KLPX 96.1 FM. Listen to her webcast at 4 p.m. Fridays at www.party934.com.

E-mail: rynski@tucsoncitrizen.com

ON THE WEB

An update on Lizzie Mead and the greyhounds can be found at greyhoundinjuryfund.wordpress.com.

Citizen Staff Writer
Our Opinion

The next time you see several Sonora license plates in the parking lot of a Tucson store, you’re seeing your taxes being cut.

The Tucson area reaped $968.7 million in direct economic benefits from July 2007 through June 2008. That’s up from $280.2 million in 2001, according to a University of Arizona study released this week.

Dollars that Mexicans spend in Tucson boost our economy and are responsible for employing many Tucsonans.

Sales and other taxes paid by those shoppers are taxes that don’t have to be collected from the rest of us.

Many complain about the problems of living close to the international border. But there is a substantial upside.

Our Opinion

Citizen Staff Writer
KIMBLE COLUMN

It is certainly an unusual Tucson business – one that sells vacuum-packed dead cats: $44 for one or 10 for $415.

The company, which doesn’t kill the cats but buys them from shelters where the felines were euthanized, supplies the animals to be dissected by medical students.

And although the business tries to keep a low profile, a recent report by a national animal rights group criticized its operations and has led to death threats against the firm’s president.

The company is Delta Biological, which is based in Tucson and operates out of a couple of unsigned buildings in an industrial area on Tucson’s South Side.

Peter Reinthal, president of the company, said Delta does everything possible to ensure the dead cats it buys were treated and euthanized humanely.

But a new report “Dying to Learn” by the American Anti-Vivisection Society on the use of live and dead dogs and cats in classrooms, says that because Delta buys dead cats from Mexican pounds, it can’t be sure how they were treated or killed.

It wouldn’t be necessary to bring dead cats in from Mexico if the Pima Animal Care Center would sell the cats it euthanizes instead of burying them, says Reinthal.

He won’t say how many dead cats his company sells, but says the 6,000 stray and unwanted ones that Pima County euthanized last year would more than supply the company’s annual needs.

“They would rather have them go into the landfill than use them for educational purposes,” Reinthal said.

It’s not a very pleasant debate and it’s based almost entirely on emotion. The cats already are dead, so why not use them to teach medical students?

The Anti-Vivisection Society says there are alternatives to using live and dead dogs and cats for teaching – alternatives used by almost half of the nation’s medical schools.

And Delta’s “practice of obtaining cats from Mexico for sale in the United States is questionable,” according to the Dying to Learn report.

American animal shelters hold stray cats longer before euthanizing them than shelters in Mexico, said Laura Ducceschi, director of Animalearn, the educational division of the Anti-Vivisection Society.

And Mexican euthanasia methods are often “a lot more inhumane,” she said.

Ducceschi said she has “significant concerns” about Delta’s operations, adding, “The average student doesn’t really know they are dissecting a cat that may have been treated inhumanely in Mexico.”

Not so, responds Reinthal. All of the dead cats sold by Delta “are obtained legally and euthanized under guidelines of the American Veterinary Council,” he said. “We make sure our sources are 100 percent legal and ethical.”

But the issue is far larger than how the cats were cared for and how they were euthanized.

“They have a definite biased slant,” Reinthal said of the Anti-Vivisection Society. “They are out to promote their political agenda.”

Ducceschi doesn’t disagree, saying her group is opposed to “trading animal cadavers for profit.”

In addition to cats, Delta sells dead pigeons, fish, grasshoppers, mink, rabbits, rats and fetal pigs as well as various invertebrates such as jellyfish and sponges.

Reinthal says he doesn’t want to get involved in the political discussion about whether dissecting such creatures is necessary to properly train students.

“I’m not pro-dissection or anti-dissection,” he said, adding that students should have the option of not taking part in dissections.

But because the issue is so politically charged, Delta doesn’t advertise its location. Its plain white building has only a small “Office” sign on the door. In a compound enclosed by a fence topped with barbed wire, there are scores of drums of chemicals. A keypad is required to enter.

After Delta was identified in the Dying to Learn report, Reinthal received a half-dozen e-mailed threats. One, filled with obscenities, threatened to “cut you open and see what you look like and peel your skin off. . . . I wish I could send people to kill you hurting animals is wrong.”

Reinthal turned the threats over to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, but it’s not clear if anything will be done.

When I first heard about Delta’s business, I was shocked. I hesitate to kill bugs and I carry spiders outside, so selling dead cats seemed disgusting.

But is it less disgusting to throw those dead cats in a landfill when a medical student may be able to learn something from it?

I wish there was an easy answer.

Mark Kimble appears at 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Roundtable segment of “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV, Channel 6.

He may be reached by e-mail at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or by calling 573-4662.

Guest Writer
Guest Opinion

In these hard times, there are some new and exciting ways to do good for a cause, for yourself and for the community.

Some call it the new face of philanthropy, and it expands the notion of giving from just writing a check to giving of your own talents and becoming part of something bigger than yourself.

Gifts from billionaires such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates may make the headlines, but those gifts remain less than 1 percent of all giving to nonprofits. In fact the biggest gifts are falling off sharply while people such as you and I are stepping up.

Along the way, our gifts can pay off for us in important ways, such as strengthening community bonds and letting us learn something new.

As someone who has given substantially for four decades, I can offer my own road map for helping in the “Help Wanted” era. Here goes:

First off, where might you give? Consider joining a “giving circle,” an idea that is the newest thing in national philanthropy.

Tucson offers many options, from the University of Arizona Galileo Circle in the sciences to the Rebounders at the athletics program. You might choose a circle that helps a cause you believe in, where you have personal contacts.

Giving circles promote smart, systematic giving and also let you be appreciated where it counts. In my case, I began to help out the UA in small ways as soon as I could afford to. I joined the President’s Club when I was just a $30,000-a-year employee. Now my spark is finding opportunities to promote research to keep the United States competitive.

With a target in mind, consider these three categories of philanthropy:

• Giving your talents.

• Giving your wealth.

• Giving your time and ideas.

By talents, I mean the areas in which you have real expertise. You may be an accountant, an attorney, a designer or in real estate. Imagine doing something “pro bono,” which means for the public good.

As a commercial real estate expert, I’ve helped UA by doing real estate studies, negotiating, collecting market data, setting the value of property or building.

Giving your wealth has an extra benefit. It lets you do more as you offset each gift with a tax deduction, so a gift of $10,000 is actually an out-of-pocket cost of $7,200 or even less, depending on your tax bracket.

Again, check out those giving circles, such as the UA sport interest groups with delightful names such as the Dugout Club and the Lungbusters. They make it fun to contribute.

The third kind of gift – your time – sometimes is overlooked. You can volunteer to be on a committee and help improve an organization. In my case, I started volunteering to help UA athletics but became hooked on research after I met Joaquin Ruiz, the superdean of the Faculty of Science.

These days, I donate my skills in real estate to find facilities for biotech research and have learned to understand biochemistry and lunar and space sciences.

Not so long ago, a woman in Seattle named Patsy Bullitt Collins followed a multifaceted formula for philanthropy. At first, she gave of her time and ideas to civic causes, and then, living very plainly, she quietly gave away more than $100 million in a family fortune she had inherited.

She was asked if she was trying to give back to society. She replied, “I don’t give back. I give forward.”

That’s it exactly. Find something in Tucson that energizes you enough to give, either on your own or in concert with others, to its future.

Bob Davis is senior vice president of Grubb & Ellis Co.

Guest opinion: New ways of giving

The biggest gifts are falling off sharply while people such as you and I are stepping up.

MORE ONLINE

For information on University of Arizona sport interest groups, go to: www.arizonaathletics.com/ot/sport-interest-groups.html

Citizen Staff Writer
Our Opinion

Board members and administrators of Tucson Unified School District have made a valuable discovery: When you ask for ideas on how to save money, people can be very creative.

And there is another lesson: One size definitely does not fit all. What is best for one school is not right for another – and the only way to know that is to ask people closest to the students.

Faced with the likelihood of having to make massive budget cuts, TUSD Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen tried something very different. Instead of working with the TUSD board and her top aides to make the cuts, Fagen turned the responsibility over to individual schools.

Site councils – consisting of parents, teachers, principals and staff – were asked to propose ways of dealing with cuts of 10 percent and 18 percent. Because the Legislature is dawdling on adopting a state budget, it is not yet known how deep the education cuts will be.

There is no easy way to deal with the “smaller” cuts of “only” 10 percent. But the site councils came up with a range of ideas that show those working closest to the schools have a deep understanding of what can be eliminated if worst comes to worst.

Two schools that now share a principal with two other schools, decided they didn’t need a principal at all. The site councils at Holladay Intermediate Magnet and Richey Elementary schools decided the best way for them to cut costs was to let lower-paid assistant principals be in charge.

Other schools had other priorities. Alice Vail Middle School opted to make deep cuts to its supply budget. Counselors, librarians and monitors were endangered at all schools – yet some schools felt it was important to keep them and others did not.

Many high schools said they would do away with campus monitors and funding for fine arts.

Some cuts are troubling, such as the possible elimination of arts classes. But as long as site councils are representative of all parents and the cuts don’t eliminate programs required by the state, individual schools should be given as much latitude as possible to best meet the needs of their students.

This marks the first time that site councils have been able to make budget decisions for their own schools. And even though most of the decisions will be grim, those choices are better made by the people in the trenches, not by administrators at 1010 E. 10th St.

We hope legislators will come to their collective senses and find ways to mitigate the cuts to schools. Education must be in the top echelon of state spending responsibilities – and that can happen if lawmakers are willing to get as creative as the site councils did.

Fagen took a risk in turning such critical budget decisions over to site councils. But her confidence in those parents and teachers has been rewarded with laudable creativity.

Proposals by TUSD site councils show that those closest to students know best where spending can be cut.

Citizen Staff Writer

How could Obama smile at Sykes’ jokes?

Re the White House Correspondents Dinner:

What was Wanda Sykes thinking? Perhaps more to the point, what was President Obama thinking when he laughed and smiled as the comedienne wished Rush Limbaugh dead?

Although the left is reporting her speech as “taking shots” at Limbaugh and mocking everyone, that’s a gross misrepresentation of what turned into a hateful and disgusting diatribe.

But the speech took a very ugly turn when she laid into Limbaugh. This is what she said:

“Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails, so you’re saying, ‘I hope America fails.’ You’re, like, ‘I don’t care about people losing their homes, their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq.’ He just wants the country to fail. To me, that’s treason.

“He’s not saying anything differently than what Osama bin Laden is saying. You know, you might want to look into this, sir, because I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker. But he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight.”

She then concluded, “Rush Limbaugh I hope the country fails: I hope his kidneys fail, how about that? He needs a good waterboarding, that’s what he needs.”

Obama seemed to think this bit was pretty hilarious, grinning and chuckling and turning to share the “joke” with the person sitting on his right.

There’s not much room for differing interpretations of what Sykes said. She called Limbaugh a terrorist and a traitor, suggested that he be tortured and wished him dead.

What was his crime? Hoping that Obama’s policies – which he views as socialist – will fail.

And Obama laughing when someone wishes Limbaugh dead?

Hard to take from the man who promised a new era of civility and elevated debate in Washington.

William Hurt

Green Valley

Single-most-feasible health care approach

Single-payer is the only way to fix this nation’s health care system, or at the very least, as a public option available to all citizens.

The insurance companies will not play fair until they are forced to. And even then, they’ll cheat and steal at every possible opportunity.

Get with it.

Richard Grossman

Vail

Needling for debate on accessible medicine

It is negligent to ignore the will of the majority of the people as far as single-pay health care is concerned.

The people of our country are in dire need of a health care plan that will ensure all our citizens receive the care our medical profession is capable of giving. A fair debate on this subject is a necessity.

Please see that this debate takes place.

N. Jean Rogers

Tubac

Spurring Giffords to rein in horse slaughter

I gave U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords my total support because I was under the impression she would help protect our wild horses.

I guess I was wrong. Since the election, she has given no support to the horse.

I do not believe in horse slaughter. I believe in euthanasia for unwanted or injured horses.

It may cost more for the owner, but it is the only way we can ensure they don’t suffer at a slaughterhouse, at home or in other countries like Mexico or Canada.

Horses deserve better than this. Are we a society that simply sends the unwanted to be tortured at the hands of humans so they can end up on plates in Europe and other countries? I hope not. I hope we can be better people than this.

I was hoping Gabrielle Giffords felt the same way.

René Iotti

Use fertilized eggs

for stem cell research

America is known for incessantly moving forward and unraveling mysteries attached to life.

When it comes to stem cell research, America seems stagnant. We watch millions of people die of diabetes, and millions more from cancer.

If people keep dying of these same diseases, then it is time we realize that current treatments that suppress symptoms are not enough. It is time to move on.

Now that America can further treatments for terminally ill people, there are still questions on the ethics of stem cell research, especially with embryonic, which kills the embryo after extraction.

But consider in vitro fertilization. Fertilized eggs are left frozen and eventually terminated; however, that doesn’t raise as much controversy as stem cells.

When leftover eggs are used to further stem cell research, they can only lead to finding cures. There is nothing to lose since the fertilized eggs are destroyed in the end.

With the health rate of Americans decreasing, and new diseases emerging constantly, citizens need to keep up.

As many as 24 million Americans now suffer from diabetes. We are all somehow affected, either through friends or family.

It is about time people stop discouraging efforts made with stem cell research.

Researchers do not want to tackle this the controversial way, but if that is the only way now, it is worth pursuing.

Akua Minta

Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST ONLINE COMMENTS

The story: In a guest opinion, Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham wrote that it’s time to move on and halt investigations into the Bush administration’s use of coercive interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists.

Your take: A split verdict, but generally disagreement with the “it’s over, move on” viewpoint.

leftfield was unambigious: “First we hang Cheney by his toes, then we waterboard him 83 times, then we send him to Swat Valley wrapped in an American flag. Then we move on.”

Priscilla replied: “If so, then we do the same to Pelosi and all her Democrat gang as well as Repubs who approved of waterboarding, who voted yes to the war in Iraq and who, for votes and power, sold this country out.”

ldonyo thought it was a curious position for one of the authors: “McCain advocating torture and holding people without charging them with anything. I guess he didn’t learn a thing in five years as a ‘guest’ of the Hanoi Hilton.”

demospolis is suspicious of everyone in power: “Politicians like John McCain/Obama rule with contempt for the rights/economic justice of common citizens.”

2865 was not bothered by the interrogation techniques: “To win a fight, any fight, you have to be willing to be at least a shade crazier and a shade less ethical than your opponent.”

Compiled by MARK KIMBLE

mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com

MOST-VIEWED

LOCAL NEWS STORIES

For Wednesday, May 13

1Mexican shoppers add $1B to Tucson economy.

2Obama considering Napolitano for Supreme Court.

3City OKs deal for $167 million convention center hotel.

The big debate:

Torture: Time to move on?

Citizen Staff Writer
Our Opinion

When budgets are cut, it’s easy to focus on the dollars and cents and forget that real people are affected.

That may explain why the state Legislature is moving ahead with cuts to the state Department of Economic Security – cuts that will deeply affect the lives of developmentally and mentally disabled people.

Even if legislators brush aside the human toll and look only at the finances, these are cuts that should be reversed. In the long run, Arizona taxpayers will end up spending far more if the DES budget is cut than if spending levels are maintained.

Legislators are in an unenviable position, with state spending needing to be cut by at least $3 billion for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Some of the cuts could be avoided if lawmakers embraced a proposal by Gov. Jan Brewer to ask voters for a temporary tax increase.

Brewer seems to have backed away from the idea, but it makes sense. The alternative is eviscerating cuts that would return crucial state services to levels not seem in decades.

That’s what DES is facing.

The current budget proposal would cut about $41 million from state-funded disability programs and an additional $50 million to $60 million for long-term care for the most severely disabled.

And those cuts would come on top of a 10 percent cut to DES to balance the current year’s budget.

In a story published Tuesday in the Tucson Citizen, Jim Walsh of The Arizona Republic wrote about how the cuts would hurt 2-year-old Gabriel Saucedo, who was born without hands. With the help of a therapist from a state-funded program, the boy has learned how to feed himself, fasten his shoes and hold a pencil in his mouth to draw.

Without the program, Gabriel and 2,000 other children would require full-time care for the rest of their lives. That’s not only unconscionable, it would be a far larger financial burden for taxpayers than eliminating the proposed cuts.

One Arizonan who works with disabled residents says the cuts were proposed because his clients are an easy target.

“I believe it was a convenient decision . . . to make because it’s a vulnerable population and they can’t speak for themselves,” said Randy Gray, president and CEO of Marc Center in Mesa.

Gray said the proposed cuts would revert “our entire system of quality care back to the early 1970s.”

That must not be allowed to happen. The state must stand up for the most needy among us – even in the toughest of times. The cuts to DES must be re-evaluated.

If we can’t look out for the most vulnerable, who is safe?

The proposed cuts may save a little money now, but

long-term costs for

lifetime care would be far higher.

Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST ONLINE COMMENTS

The story: Business owners say a Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 19 north of Tubac is killing tourism and costing millions of dollars in home sales.

Your take: Too bad.

The checkpoint is needed “to slow down the invasion,” 2161 said, adding, “Either get used to the idea or move somewhere else.”

A more-sympathetic noah 1 said, “That checkpoint should be before Rio Rico, and the Border Patrol should concentrate more on these alternate routes most of which are not even on a map.”

Added leftfield, “Let’s just blame the drug mules instead of looking at ourselves and wondering why we as a nation consume monumental quantities of drugs.”

Spirit of Zenger didn’t buy the claims that real estate sales are hurt by the checkpoint: “Lazy Realtors cannot sell houses like they did in the hot inflated market, and second, the market still stinks and will for some time.”

As to claims that the checkpoint is hurting Tubac businesses, some members of the Tucson Citizen’s online community had different thoughts.

“Maybe it’s the overpriced artwork that keeps some of us from actually stopping,” postulated RocketSmoke.

And JazzCruise wrote, “People are buying food for their families instead of the wind chimes and coyote statues offered in Tubac shops.”

Compiled by MARK KIMBLE

mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com

The big debate:

Checkpoint divides Tubac

MOST-VIEWED

LOCAL NEWS STORIES

For Tuesday, May 12

1 Cats turn to Cowboys to boost Gronkowski’s yield.

2 Tucson home prices fall 20 percent.

3 2 TUSD schools opt to go without principals to meet state budget cuts.

Citizen Staff Writer
Our Opinion

Nine students from southern Arizona high schools are headed to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair – and most of them share a single teacher.

Margaret Wilch, a science teacher at Tucson High Magnet School, will have six of her students at the fair: Angela Schlegel, Mahwish Khalid, Negin Nematollahi, Michael Wallace, Emily Derks and Alice Glasser.

Also attending this week’s fair in Reno, Nev., are Ebaa Al-Obeidi from Canyon del Oro High School, and Martin Lopez and Mario Valdez, both from Rio Rico High School.

The nine students are the most to ever represent southern Arizona in the world’s largest precollege science contest.

Congratulations to all of them. They are among those who will lead us into the next generation of scientific exploration.

Our Opinion

Guest Writer
Guest Opinion

You remember – or maybe you don’t – when Fort Lowell Road took a strange jog and pretty much became a dirt strip.

When high school kids held bonfire parties at the end of Sunset Road because it was in the middle of nowhere.

When Rosita’s was open and you had to bring your own beer just to sit among buckets catching the monsoon water that trickled into the swamp-cooled, adobe restaurant.

When artist Ted De Grazia was still alive.

When driving up Mount Lemmon or over Gates Pass meant you were taking your life into your hands.

This is the Tucson I discovered when I moved here in 1980.

Full disclosure (don’t hate): I’m a fifth-generation Californian. Yep, there are covered wagons checkering my past.

Being a descendant of old-timers, I grew up not so much California Girl as Desert Rat. But Tucson? Tucson is special. There were hidden gems everywhere back then in this natural amphitheater of ours.

One of the worst “you’re not a kid anymore” moments for me was coming home from university to find a gas station on top of Rosita’s.

Losing that restaurant with its charmingly goofy margarine-lid frames around the (spectacular) Rosita in various costumes – all with crocheted lace edging – well, that just did me in.

For a long time, I expected Tucson would go the way of every other ‘burb and become a haven for concrete and asphalt, with no room for the Charming, the Odd or the Other.

In 2006, I moved back to Tucson permanently with my family. We’d been living in Brooklyn until some crazy people tried to drop a building (or two) on the school where I was teaching.

We moved out of the city and lasted a few more years, then decided to head west, near the grandparents and let’s face it – more security than we felt living 10 miles from a nuclear power plant.

While the kids were thrilled to be close to their grandparents, and my husband loved the desert (he tans beautifully; I only burn), I was lonely.

Oh sure, I had my family, who I get along with ridiculously well, but I had grown to adore the quirky little village (minuscule, actually) where we’d lived after escaping Brooklyn. And worse, I thought those rough edges of Tucson were all gone.

I was wrong.

One of the things I enjoyed most in New York was public transit. You can get anywhere easily, cheaply and (nowadays) safely at any time of the day or night.

One of the byproducts of that system is that you meet people you never (ever!) would have talked to otherwise.

I’m a writer and teacher – I loved that. I missed that. In fact, since I work at home, I missed speaking to adults of any kind.

And then slowly, as I found my way around again – got used to Fort Lowell being an actual road, made sense of the River/Dodge/Alvernon Master Plan and dealt with the shock of actual storm drains (rather than roads to canoe down during a monsoon), I learned two things.

First, there are still some amazingly, wonderfully quirky places here in the Old Pueblo. And second, they are populated by spectacularly interesting people who have stories to tell – and are happy to tell them to you.

Heather Anne Ordover contributes to Cast-On with Brenda Dayne, to Weavezine.com and to Spin-Off magazine, and she is the host of the long-running podcast Craftlit: A Podcast for Crafters Who Love Books. She lives, teaches, crafts, blogs and writes in her corner of the Sonoran Desert with her extremely tolerant and supportive husband, two goofball sons, their two playful dogs, and a single, mournful, blue-tongued skink.

E-mail: HOrdover@mac.com

Guest Writer
Guest Opinion

JOHN McCAIN and LINDSEY GRAHAM

When President Obama declassified and released legal memoranda from the Department of Justice, he opened the door to a drawn-out battle over the Bush administration’s use of coercive interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists.

We believe that any subsequent attempts to subject those who provided such legal advice to prosecutions are a mistake. They will have a chilling effect on the candor with which future government officials provide their best counsel.

The country must move on from debates about the past, because pressing questions about U.S. detention policy in the war on terror requires us to make difficult choices – and to make them soon.

In January, the president announced via executive order that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay will close within a year. The announcement was easy – but it left unanswered the hardest questions about detainee policy for the future.

How do we prosecute detainees suspected of committing war crimes now that military commissions have been suspended? How should we handle those detainees who cannot be tried, but who are too dangerous to release? Where will we house them?

How should we deal with detainees who, if released, would return to the fight against us? How do we deal with prisoners held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where some detainees captured outside Afghanistan are being held?

There are no easy answers. As senators who have struggled with these issues for years, we believe some basic principles can help us find a common path forward.

• First, do not confuse war with common criminality. The majority of detainees held at Guantanamo are not common criminals, but warriors fundamentally committed to the destruction of our way of life.

The appropriate legal foundation upon which detainee policy should be built is the law of war, along with procedures adapted from our military justice system.

• Second, military commissions remain the appropriate trial venue for these individuals. We would strenuously oppose any effort to try enemy combatants in our civilian courts.

By an overwhelming bipartisan vote in 2006, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which set forth procedures for trying enemy combatants for war crimes.

Our domestic criminal laws – including their treatment of classified information – are ill-suited for the complex national security issues inherent in the trial of enemy combatants. We have great faith in our military justice system – appropriately modified for war crimes trials – and we believe that military judges and lawyers render fair and impartial justice not only for our troops, but for enemy combatants as well.

• Third, preventive detention will continue to have a place in the war on terror. Under the law of war, the idea an enemy combatant has to be tried or released is a false choice. Rather, it is well-established that combatants can be held off the battlefield as long as they present a military threat.

While there is little doubt that we initially cast the net too broadly in determining who merited enemy combatant status, the Department of Defense estimates nearly 1 in 10 detainees released from Guantanamo have returned to the battlefield.

This includes Said Ali al-Shihri (second in command of al-Qaida in Yemen), and Abdullah Gulam Rasoul, who reportedly now serves as the Taliban’s operational commander in southern Afghanistan.

We cannot let this continue.

A significant group of detainees still in custody at Guantanamo may be too dangerous to release, but they are not suitable for war crimes trials.

In these cases, a system needs to be devised in which a designated national security court, with a uniform set of standards and procedures administered by a civilian judge, hears the petitions for habeas corpus authorized by the Supreme Court, and an annual interagency review is conducted to determine whether the detainee remains a security threat to the United States.

• Fourth, we must address the detainee situation at Bagram in Afghanistan. An improved system for reviewing the need for further detention of detainees is required at Bagram – but we must not lose sight that Afghanistan is still an active theater of war and we cannot impede the ability of our Armed Forces to fight the enemy.

We are encouraged that the Department of Justice has appealed a ruling by the D.C. district court that extended habeas corpus rights to detainees held on the battlefield in Afghanistan.

In its motion, the Department of Justice argued that allowing the ruling to stand would harm our military’s ability to win the war.

• Finally, Congress must be involved in crafting detainee policy. It is critical for all branches of government to work together to develop solutions to the complex legal problems presented by this war.

We believe that the time has come to focus on these urgent issues, rather than spend the nation’s energy on the debates of the past.

We stand ready to work with President Obama to develop an enemy-combatant detention process that is transparent, provides robust due process consistent with the law of war, involves an independent judiciary, and protects us against a dangerous enemy.

The American people and the international community will see such a system not as an arbitrary exercise of power, but as an intelligent balance of due process and national security.”

John McCain is a Republican senator from Arizona.

Lindsey Graham is a Republican senator from South Carolina.

Military judges and lawyers will render fair and impartial justice not only for our troops, but for enemy combatants as well.

Citizen Staff Writer

Has Giffords taken equestrians for a ride?

I am very concerned and upset that the passing of important equine legislation isn’t happening quickly.

Horses are transported in horrible, deplorable conditions across the border to Mexico and Canada for slaughter, and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is not co-sponsoring these bills even though we people and our horses campaigned for her re-election. Why?

Ms. Giffords is a sponsor or co-sponsor to HR322 to declare July 25 as National Day of the Cowboy.

How can she honor the cowboy and sell the horse he rode in on down the road to the slaughter plant?

E.J. Jones

Phoenix

Trial & error: Mockery needs work on attitude

Poor Corey Wlodarczyk (May 7 letter “Mock Trial member judges UA to be unfit”).

His letter reveals an attitude that spells future disaster for this poor, disillusioned graduate.

Have you noticed what happens to lousy neighbors as they move from area to area? They’re still lousy neighbors.

Corey needs to move on, but an attitude adjustment would be beneficial. Could poor grades produce such hatred? I wonder.

Don’t let the door hit your fanny, as you slink away into the night, Corey!

Jerry Pulliam

Sahuarita

Sorry, but Dupnik does not owe any apologies

I am a lifelong Republican, but I have voted for Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for as long as I can remember because he does the job he was elected to do.

He does not owe anyone an apology!

While I disagree with his policy of enforcement in the illegal immigrant problem, I understand the constraints of budgets and personnel.

Still, I believe every law enforcement officer has the duty to enforce every law of our country, be it federal, state, county or city.

After all, he surely would not hesitate to apprehend a suspected terrorist planning to blow up the state Capitol.

Nevertheless, he does a fine job, and I applaud him! I repeat: Sheriff Dupnik does not owe anyone an apology!

D. Versluis

retired

Food tax will hit all, not just folks already down

The state, county and city seem to be determined to balance budgets by raising taxes: the state with higher income taxes, the county with higher property taxes, the city of Tucson with property taxes (renters tax), taxes on cable, trash pickup, water, electric and more.

Two to three years ago, renters began renting houses and now they are buying houses because it’s cheaper than renting an apartment.

Apartment complexes were feeling the pinch before the economy went south. Now the city wants to hit the working poor, disabled and people on Section 8 with more taxes.

If the city would begin saving enough money to last six to nine months with no income from the federal government or the state, we would be in much better shape today.

Perhaps this policy as well as a half-cent tax on food (excluding the disabled, elderly and Section 8 residents) would help balance the budget.

We may even be able to eliminate most of the other taxes under consideration.

Dwayne Giorsetti

laborer

Pass the buck . . . or simply print more

Simply priceless! Why should I be in insufferable debt when my children and grandchildren can suffer for me?

The right economic track of repressing investment and trade can easily be made up for by printing more money!

Why hasn’t someone thought of this before?

shorty griswold

May designated month for ALS awareness

ALS. Those three letters never held much significance for me until three years ago, when I learned I have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – Lou Gehrig’s disease.

For those who don’t know, ALS is a ruthless killer. It gradually paralyzes all voluntary muscles, including those used for walking, talking, swallowing and breathing.

There’s no cure, and most people survive only about three to five years.

One thing about receiving such a terrible diagnosis: You learn who you can count on. My family and friends are absolutely amazing.

In addition, the Muscular Dystrophy Association provides invaluable help.

Besides sponsoring a worldwide program of ALS research, MDA provides me with medical care at the MDA ALS Clinic at University Physicians Healthcare Hospital at Kino Campus in Tucson.

MDA has helped me obtain expensive assistive equipment and its support groups and online communities offer advice and hope.

May is National ALS Awareness Month, and in this area, MDA will sponsor an ALS seminar May 14 at the Viscount Suite Hotel.

ALS attacks healthy adults in the prime of life – people such as me. This May, please help conquer this disease by supporting MDA.

Call (800) 572-1717 or visit www.als-mda.org to learn more.

Thank you, southern Arizona, for all your support.

George Borboa

Freelance
My Tucson

ANDY MORALES

letters@tucsoncitizen.com

“We’re looking for a leader, someone walks among us and I hope he hears the call.”

- Neil Young

It’s as mysterious as Rio Nuevo and as elusive as a chupacabra. A responsible and fair state budget is nowhere to be seen, and there seems to be no leadership to get one done.

The conservatives who control our Legislature have taken a position of delay and political cowardice, knowing their budget will not be kind to public education or to poor families.

If you think the $140-per-year rental tax will hurt working-class Tucsonans, then wait till families lose full-day kindergarten.

Lawmakers’ inaction has forced governing boards and superintendents to do the right thing and plan for a shortfall.

How could they not? They are responsible to the taxpayers in their school districts, and they must do what’s right by their employees as stated in law.

They do not have the luxury of stalling to prevent political opposition.

The governing boards have faltered in their responsibility to their teachers in one major area, however.

They attempted to get legislation passed to extend the deadline to issue nonrenewal notices to June 15 instead of April 15 for new teachers. This earlier deadline was put in place to prevent inaction by governing boards – the kind now displayed by the Legislature.

The failure to move that deadline was a small victory for teachers. Many are now without jobs or waiting to be placed in other schools because there is no workable budget in place.

A little known clause gives three years’ recall rights to teachers who are let go due to the economy. That means a district cannot hire someone else for three years until they rehire those let go first if qualified for the jobs advertised – even if they get a job in another school district.

This is another provision in law that might be attacked by conservatives and governing boards.

But there would be fewer suspicious mass layoffs in the private sector, in the name of maintaining high profits, if this clause were in place for them.

Many of my colleagues have asked about the burden school administrators are carrying throughout all of this or, rather, the lack of it.

It’s a tricky question. Bad administrators are an easy target. Some of the grief they are receiving may not be fair. Then again, much of it is.

When districts say their administration has been cut, they are not talking about vice principals, principals or associate superintendents. They are talking about other budget items under “administration.”

Teachers know this. It’s time the public did, too.

If, by a long shot, a principal is let go, then he has immediate recall rights as a continuing teacher unless he gave up those rights in writing, which is highly unlikely.

They have more job security than teachers in good times and bad.

I applaud the decision by Vicki Balentine, superintendent of Amphitheater Public Schools, to take a five-day furlough without pay next year. It was an example of good leadership – the kind we have become accustomed to with her.

I also had the pleasure of exchanging e-mails recently with Elizabeth Celania-Fagen, superintendent of Tucson Unified School District. She is impressive and reachable.

The issue of the importance of administrators over teachers is always a topic superintendents like to stay away from.

The educational pay system tells us a person making as much as four times more than someone else signifies a degree of higher importance – though we all know classroom teachers work much harder.

Let’s face it: A teacher attempting to teach 25 to 30 6-year-olds how to read and write is a more difficult job day in and day out, but you will hardly find an administrator who would agree.

That’s why my exchange with Fagen was refreshing. She spelled out to me that teachers are of higher importance and severely underpaid. She became an administrator because she was frustrated with bad leadership.

But even though teachers are important, she added, leadership matters, too. And it does.

I only wish our legislators heard her call.

Andy Morales was born in Tucson, received a master’s degree in special education from the University of Arizona and has been teaching in Amphitheater for 20 years. E-mail: amoralesmytucson@yahoo.com