Tuscon Board Suspends Ethnic-Studies Program

From http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/01/10/20120110tucson-ethnic-studies-fate-weighed.html

Tucson board suspends ethnic-studies program
by Emily Gersema
January 11, 2012

Faced with slashing reductions in state funding, the Tucson Unified School District board Tuesday night voted to suspend its controversial Mexican-American studies program.

The district now will write new a curriculum to be integrated into a more general social studies program. Students currently enrolled in Mexican American studies classes will be transferred into other courses.

The board, which oversees the district of 3,100 teachers and more than 55,000 students, met to study its options for responding to the decision by state schools chief John Huppenthal to cut the TUSD budget by 10 percent each month until it modified or ended the Mexican-American studies classes. An administrative law judge last week affirmed Huppenthal's finding that the program was ethnically divisive and violated a state law restricting ethnic-studies courses.

Had the board defied Huppenthal, the district would have lost $4.9 million this month and as much as $14 million by the end of the fiscal year.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/01/10/20120110tucson-ethnic-studies-fate-weighed.html#ixzz1jGpBT4Jq

Read a related January 6th article about events leading up to the suspension article at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ethnic-studies-20120107,0,5378689.story