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Whether she runs for governor or not, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan would need nine lives to bring the state's notoriously broken regulatory system into compliance with the nation's most reckless coal industry.
With state coal production soaring against national trends, Illinois cemented its reputation as the worst rogue state for coal operations last Friday, when the rubber-stamping operations of the state's EPA issued a pollutant discharge permit to a company already cited by the state for over 600 toxic discharge violations at its central Illinois non-union strip mine.
Translation: Imagine the Department of Motor Vehicles renewing the driver's license of a toxic-laden truck driver with 600 DUI's.
Welcome to Illinois--where the brand new Prairie State coal-fired plant is facing "potential fraud" investigations for rocket increases in electricity rates; where the second highest number of contaminated coal ash dump sites in the country abound; where a mind-boggling high hazard coal slurry dam continues to rise in sight of a farm town's nursing home and day care center; where Illinois taxpayers underwrite a huge slush fund for coal marketing, including a shameless "coal education curriculum" for students that blatantly covers up the facts on the state's deadly coal industry; where even the liberal US Sen. Dick Durbin fights for the pork of "clean coal" as the main utility company backs out of the FutureGen boondoggle.
Even with black lung disease for coal miners spiking, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources was also found in violation of state law's for failing to hire enough mine safety inspectors.
It's so pathetic in Illinois that even bankrupt energy companies are granted two-year extensions on their deadly emissions clean up requirements.
It's so pathetic in Illinois that there's not even a coal severance tax, or collection of sales tax for out-of-state transactions--a huge detail when record coal exports now drive the market.
It's so pathetic in Illinois that we don't even celebrate Coal Miners Day--just the coal barons.
And last Friday's notice by the Illinois EPA, sent in an email after working hours, on the granting of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for Springfield Coal's strip mine operation near the township of Industry might be the most unabashed denial of facts and community input in recent memory.
"The fact that this mine, with hundreds of water violations has been allowed to function these past 5 years without even having their permit approved until after the fact is totally appalling," said long-time area resident Kimberly Sedgwick, who has spent years begging state agencies and organizations to intervene in the violation-ridden mine. "If companies are allowed to proceed without having permits prior, then what sort of atrocities are actually taking place? Unless I am missing something here, This is a complete mockery of our state agency and our Illinois system. It points towards corruption if you ask me. This is totally unacceptable!"
Along with being a dumping ground of toxic coal ash, the Industry mine will continue to discharge into Grindstone Creek, a historic watershed that served the first mills in the region, and flows into Camp Creek, a major site for historic Native American occupation, and then into the Lamoine River.
Call it a chronicle of a rigged permit system foretold.
I'll never forget a public hearing on the Industry mine held in Macomb, Illinois, on April 12, 2011, packed to the gills by locals against the strip mine, and listening to Illinois EPA official Larry Crislip inform a concerned citizen that the IEPA had never denied a coal mining NPDES permit. Ever. No matter how bad of an outlaw mining operation.
From the hearing transcripts:
MR. MOOREHOUSE: Okay. In the past the IEPA has refused -- has the EPA in the past refused to issue a permit to a serial violator to a coal surface mine?MR. CRISLIP: To my recollection, I do not recall denying a permit. We work those issues out.
According to I-EPA spokesperson Dean Studer, Crislip was not available to explain how Illinois bureaucrats "work those issues out" this week because he was on a two-week vacation.
Kind of makes you miss the old days of disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was at least open about his Coal Revival Program.
Either way, forget climate change denial. Still in the 19th century regulatory mode, Illinois has become the king of coal denial. And regulated coal destruction.
Within hours of renowned climate scientists announcing a staggering milestone in carbon dioxide emissions, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn rolled out the booster wagons for Big Coal and celebrated his state's five-fold increase in record coal exports.
Gov. Quinn, once hailed by the Sierra Club as "the clear choice for Illinois voters who want to move to a clean energy economy and protect our drinking water and wild places," despite the fact that he had received huge contributions from the coal industry, declared:
"Illinois coal is in high demand overseas and we have the resources and infrastructure to take advantage of this opportunity for economic growth," Governor Quinn said. "Our rail lines and river ports, which we continue to improve under the Illinois Jobs Now! capital construction program, give us a unique export advantage over other states in the region."
Never mind that climate destabilizing torrential rains and floods, along with coal barge accidents, tied up the Mississippi River last week.
Never mind that CO2 emissions will reach an alarming 400 parts-per-million (ppm) for the first time in 3 million years.
Never mind that last year's historic drought and climate destabilization had nearly brought the Mississippi River to a standstill.
Never mind that world coal consumption, thanks in part to U.S. coal exports, will keep coal-fired plants as the lead source of CO2 emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Never mind that Illinois' own rogue coal industry and state regulatory agencies have failed to protect coal miners, waterways and watersheds, farms and forests, and communities from deadly and costly toxic pollution.
Never mind that the job-robbing union-busting heavily-mechanized economic-diversification-blocking coal industry has left Illinois' historic coal mining counties at the bottom of the charts in entrenched poverty, hopeless unemployment and ruin.
As Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Assistant Director Dan Seals said, "It is truly an unbelievable achievement."
As a historian, I do give Gov. Quinn credit for following in the great tradition of coal exports in Illinois. In 1810, an enslaved black man named Peter Boon shoveled and loaded the outcroppings of coal along the south bank of the Big Muddy River in Jackson County, Illinois. Pushing off toward the Mississippi River in their flatboat, William Boon, a captain in the mounted rangers, and his slave Peter transported the first commercial barge of coal in the heartland.
In effect, Illinois' coal industry was launched with legal slavery--not that Gov. Quinn's notoriously shameless "Coal Education Curriculum" teaches that to Illinois students and teachers, as part of the state coal marketing slush fund.
Despite Peter Boon's presence on the slave schedules, virtually every history book and modern news report of this historic event failed to recognize his enslavement, or the fact that William Boon purchased a "voluntarily indentured" servant as late as 1822. One text geared toward children referred to Peter as Boon's African American friend. As a former lead miner from Kentucky and Missouri, Boon engineered the first commercial slope mine in Illinois.
He and his slave embarked on six epic voyages down the Mississippi to New Orleans, where they were paid in European currency for coal and loads of forest and farm products. Boon's efforts attracted attention. As the first state legislator from southwestern Illinois, he also played a role in shaping the laws that allowed for slave labor to assist his work. He would also set the precedent for the entrepreneurial coal foundations in government office--effectively, the first coal lobby in cahoots with the statewide government.
And the coal ships move on.
Author of Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland, Jeff Biggers can be followed on Twitter @jeffrbiggers
With the daily silica-laced blizzard from five million pounds of toxic explosives in the background, U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth and Rep. Louise Slaughter reintroduced the biggest no-brainer bill of the year for Congress -- the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act.
Given its 40-year rap sheet, and 20 peer-reviewed academic studies on the devastating health impacts of mountaintop removal, the job-killing mechanized form of strip mining that only provides 5-7 percent of all U.S. coal production, the ACHE Act simply asks Congress to do what it should have done back in 1971: Place a moratorium on new mountaintop removal mining operations while the first comprehensive federal study of the health dangers is conducted.
Yes, a no-brainer: Especially when Big Coal, like the Patriot Coal Company, now recognizes the health crisis from mountaintop removal and agrees to phase out large-scale operations, and support for the bill comes from big green groups like the Sierra Club and Earthjustice and religious groups like Christians for the Mountains.
Kentucky Rep. Yarmuth kept it simple: "If it can't be proven that mountaintop removal mining is safe, we shouldn't allow it to continue."
If President Obama and the U.S. Congress are committed to keeping the children in the hills of Appalachia -- or the coal country on the Navajo Nation, the heartland and West, for that matter -- "always safe from harm," as the president noted in his inaugural address last month, they need to wake up and deal with the daily reality of terrifying birth defect rates, cancer risks, chronic cardiovascular diseases, and even fly rock on our nation's most vulnerable citizens -- kids.
"The U.S. Geological Survey has advised us not to eat the vegetables or fruits from our gardens because toxic fallout from mountaintop removal blasting has contaminated our soil," said Laura Antrim Caskey, founder of Appalachia Watch, Rock Creek, West Virginia. "We need swift passage of the ACHE Act."
"I have fought the impacts of mountaintop removal (MTR) on my home and health for 18 years," added Maria Gunnoe, a West Virginia-based organizer with Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, and the 2009 North American Goldman Prize recipient. "Now science is showing that it's killing me and my community, and Congress needs to listen. Cancer here is as common as the cold. The fact is this is not about who is winning; it is about who is dying from the violent impacts of mountaintop removal."
Rep. Slaughter, a New Yorker raised in Harlan County, Kentucky and the nation's only microbiologist serving in the U.S. Congress, spelled it out:
"Every American has a right to live and work in a community free from environmental health risks. And it is our duty to ensure that this right is not infringed upon by industries that consider community health and environmental protection to be less important than their profit margins. Given the growing field of evidence that people living near mountaintop removal coal mining sites are at an elevated risk for a range of major health problems, we should place a moratorium on further mountaintop coal removal activity until we can ensure the health and safety of families in these communities."
Appalachia has not cornered the marketing on coal mining misery; industrial strip mining got its birth in my Illinois woods in the 1850s, and after 150 years of non-stop plunder of our farms, forests and communities the heartland is now facing an unabashed coal rush. Last month, Dine (Navajo) residents traveled to Peabody Energy headquarters to remind the nation of a half-century of destruction and corruption on Black Mesa. The largest strip mine in the East is now expanding unfettered by regulations across Indiana. The colossal Powder River Basin in the West is ramping up efforts to export to the Asian markets.
In the 20-odd states beholden to strip mining, Congress would be wise to create a Coalfields Regeneration Fund like Great Britain to jump start clean energy manufacturing and transition coal mining communities into a sustainable economy.
In the meantime, the ACHE Act is the first step in addressing the long-overdue health costs in Appalachia, and hopefully beyond.
"The failure to do so," as President Obama referred to the threat of climate change, "would betray our children and future generations."
As President Obama unveiled his immigration reform plan in Las Vegas yesterday, admonishing the U.S. Congress to not get "bogged down" in endless debate, the shackled Operation Streamline shuffle of undocumented immigrants caught up in our federal immigrant enforcement system continued in full force.
If extrapolations from last year's record deportations give any indication of the Obama administration's operations, over 1,100 undocumented immigrants were deported on Tuesday -- that's approximately 45 people as the president spoke.
This includes mothers, fathers, and shattered families.
According to the Department of Homeland Security's own assessment, nearly 40 percent of these so-called criminal deportations will be related to immigration offenses and traffic violations.
While the president's plan included measures to streamline legal immigration and "keep families together," the truth is that the record number of families broken by our flawed immigrant enforcement policy still remains in the shadows of the immigration reform debate.
As Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network noted Monday:
To be productive, the threat of deportation needs to be taken off the table immediately, by Congress or by the president. Until deportations stop, President Obama and Congress will be in the impossible position of deporting the very people they are ostensibly trying to bring into citizenship.
Beyond the "enforcement-first" rhetoric, as net migration from Mexico has come to a standstill, immigration reform must begin with a moratorium on deportations, and a recognition by the Obama administration and Congress of their role in tearing apart families.
According to a groundbreaking study by the Applied Research Center last year, "In the first six months of 2011, the federal government removed more than 46,000 mothers and fathers of U.S.-citizen children. These deportations shatter families and endanger the children left behind."
At least 5,000 children of deported immigrants will languish tonight in foster homes.
"We cannot keep talking about immigrants as criminals," the National Immigrant Youth Alliance said in a statement.
The President and the Senate have placed themselves in the irreconcilable position of trying to both criminalize immigrants and argue for a pathway to citizenship. The only way that immigration reform can be accomplished is if the president chooses to stop treating immigrants as criminals.
While fumbling Tucson school officials and their extremist Arizona state counterparts await the fate of the outlawed Mexican American Studies in a federal court desegregation order, the prestigious Prescott College announced it will grant college-level credit for a banned Chicano/a Literature course taught by nationally acclaimed Tucson high school teacher Curtis Acosta.
Welcome to Freedom College.
Designed by Acosta and Dr. Anita Fernández, a Prescott College faculty member in the Education Program of the Resident Degree Program, the two-credit Chicano/a Literature course will be part of Prescott College's "Early High School Experience" and held in the spring at the John Valenzuela Youth Center in South Tucson.
"Having seen the level of rigor in these classes during extensive visits in the past," said Fernandez, an expert on critical multicultural education and teacher education, "we recognized the importance of continuing on with the content and rigor, and the need to make available this incredibly rich literature that has been eliminated from students' lives. These books and stories are an important part of this community and cultures, and everyone should have a chance to take this course."
Acosta, who lectures across the country and contributed to the recent book, Educational Courage: Resisting the Ambush of Public Education, discussed the Chicano/a literature course in an earlier Huffington Post interview. As I noted last month:
With nearly 20 years of teaching experience, Acosta has always played a critical role in the Mexican American Studies debate. In the wake of the tragic Giffords shooting in 2011, CNN turned first to Acosta and his nationally recognized efforts to reduce tensions in the community. Recipient of the University of Arizona's Kenneth S. Goodman "In Defense of Good Teaching Award," among numerous other national honors, Acosta was featured in the Precious Knowledge film documentary, and provided an illuminating counterpart to the Daily Show's embarrassing expose of TUSD school board member Michael Hicks.
In a press announcement, Prescott College, which was founded by Congregationalists over a half century ago as the "Harvard of the West" and has emerged as one of the leading schools in the nation for environmental and social justice studies, called Arizona's controversial Ethnic Studies law an "inappropriate effort to regulate ethnic studies that drives elimination of highly effective, culturally relevant and nationally recognized approaches to the teaching of U.S. history, politics and culture from Arizona public schools."
The town of Prescott, ironically, shares a long history with Tucson and Mexican American studies. With a limited-residency bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in Tucson, the College's main campus is in Prescott, which served as Arizona's territorial capital and was named after the celebrated historian William H. Prescott, author of the classic text The Conquest of Mexico. In his 1908 chronicle The White Conquest of Arizona, Orick Jackson dismissed the Mexican influence in Tucson and praised Prescott and Yavapai County as "the cradle of Arizona," laying out a cultural division between southern Arizona and its more conservative central and northern parts embodied today by the state's extremist Tea Party politicians.
Author of State Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream, Jeff Biggers can be followed on Twitter @jeffrbiggers
What a difference a year makes -- especially for students in Tucson, Arizona, the "Little Rock" of education for our modern times.
While President Dwight Eisenhower overruled the "leadership of demagogic extremists" in that segregated hotspot in Arkansas more than a half century ago, federally-appointed Special Master William Hawley and U.S. District Court Judge David Bury will begin the final process of adjudicating the agreements and objections in Tucson's historic federal desegregation order on Friday, which could pave the way for the return of the outlawed Mexican American Studies (MAS) program in the fall of 2013.
Never has federal intervention in the Tucson Unified School District's disgraceful fiasco over Mexican American Studies seemed more needed -- at least until the next governing school board takes power on January 8, 2013.
Arizona is not simply a rogue state; it's a dysfunctional one.
Nearly a year ago, when the TUSD school board drew national attention for its widely denounced move to dismantle the acclaimed Mexican American Studies program and banish Latino books and curriculum from the classrooms, long-time education activist Sylvia Campoy had warned TUSD officials of the federal desegregation order's overriding mandate.
Arizona extremists, and their Tucson allies, still don't seem to be paying attention.
Despite his own spiraling series of embarrassing scandals, Attorney General Tom Horne doubled-down on his bizarre witch hunt of Ethnic Studies in Arizona and filed his own objections to the Unitary Status Plan, the federally-negotiated agreement between Mexican American and African American plaintiffs, TUSD and the Department of Justice.
Specifically, in terms of reinstating the outlawed Mexican American Studies program, this is the make-or-break provision in newly proposed Unitary Status Plan mandate:
By the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year, the District shall develop and implement culturally relevant courses of instruction designed to reflect the history, experiences, and culture of African American and Mexican American communities. Such courses of instruction for core English and Social Studies credit shall be developed and offered at all feasible grade levels in all high schools across the District, subject to the District's minimum enrollment guidelines. All courses shall be developed using the District's curricular review process and shall meet District and state standards for academic rigor. The core curriculum described in this section shall be offered commencing in the fall term of the 2013-2014 school year. The District shall pilot the expansion of courses designed to reflect the history, experiences, and culture of African American and Mexican American communities to sixth through eighth graders in the 2014-2015 school year, and shall explore similar expansions throughout the K-12 curriculum in the 2015-2016 school year.
In a clever tactical move, Horne conjoined the state of Arizona's objection's to "TUSD's objections," as a reminder of an internal battle being waged inside TUSD by the supporters of the acclaimed Mexican American Studies program, the fumbling school board and TUSD Superintendent John Pedicone, who has drawn national condemnation for his use of excessive police force and tactics.
That conflict between TUSD administrators and the school board became more apparent on Tuesday, when the governing board surprised the community with a confusing vote on the district's objection over the key "culturally relevant courses" provision in Unitary Status Plan, only to backpedal after meeting with TUSD counsel and announce that the vote was apparently more symbolic than real.
Watch the TUSD school vote for yourself in this video.
"The apparent manipulation of the Governing Board votes stole an important first step," Tucson attorney Richard Martinez noted.
It also marked a turning point, as long-time community leader Miguel Ortega suggested on Tuesday night.
In looking at the long-term impact of the vote, as a new TUSD school board takes over in January, and as Mexican American Studies students await another federal court decision on the constitutionality of the controversial state law against Ethnic Studies, Ortega said:
Despite the confusion over last Tuesday's board meeting, we are still within striking distance of victory. In the Sonoran Desert, politicians and their hateful rhetoric tend to come and go. These temporary gasps of intolerance are never a real match for us. We have grown deep roots made of history and identity over the decades and they protect us from being moved. Our fight is not over and, as expected, we will continue to receive push back from TUSD bureaucrats and even from the incumbents we have kicked out of office. If last Tuesday's vote from the very board that ended MAS tells us anything it is that newly elected board members will be hard-pressed to do anything less than finish the job quickly & decisively once seated. So long as our community continues to work from a position of barrio self-determination, so long as we continue to push our newly elected board members to find the courage to use their voices and advocate, so long as we as community members continue to resist a draconian vision for our kids' future, 2013 will be the year the Mexican American Studies program returns to Tucson for good.
Make that: 2013 will be the year the Mexican American Studies program returns to Tucson for good, as long as the federal courts continue to bring some sanity back to students in Arizona.
With President Obama still unpacking his suitcase in his new digs at the White House in 2009, the AP story headlined newspapers across the nation with great fanfare: Capitol Power Plant: A Symbolic Clean Energy Hurdle.
"Eliminating coal from the fuel mixture should also assist the City of Washington, D.C., in meeting and complying with national air quality standards," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi hailed, "and demonstrate that Congress can be a good and conscientious neighbor by mitigating health concerns for residents and workers around Capitol Hill."
Yes, we didn't, yet.
When the public comment period closes next week for a series of air quality permits from the DC Department of the Environment, the century-old Capitol Power Plant will creep one step closer to a coal-free promise--made nearly four years ago.
If the US Congress can't even move off its own use of dirty energy--so symbolically small--is it any wonder that the annual UN climate talks result in such pathetic action?
In the meantime, while a much ballyhooed plan for a natural gas-powered cogeneration plan has been in the works for over a year, the Capitol Power Plant's primary fuel source remains natural gas, according to the Architect of the Capitol spokeswoman Eva Malecki, "but we have the capacity to burn 3 types of fuel." Read: Dirty coal, natural gas and diesel fuel. Below is the AOC's 2011 Energy Management Chart:
Meanwhile, at Germany's Reichstag government chambers, as author Osha Davidson reminds us in his new book, Clean Break: The Story of Germany's Energy Transformation -- and What Americans Can Learn From It, "a bank of solar panels, seamlessly embedded in the roof, powers a swiveling metal shade that reduces glare by tracking the sun's path and filtering its harshest rays."
Four years, folks. Four years, and the US Congress is still at the permit stage.
After waging a tireless six-year campaign in the historic Spoon River region of central Illinois, residents in the small town of Canton are celebrating a state hearing officer's proposed denial of a permit to a rogue coal company for a devastating stripmine.
While an appeal is still possible, this might be the most symbolic victory against Big Coal in 2012.
With the heartland facing a brutal surge in coal mining production, as operations shift westward from Appalachia, the seeming defeat of the proposed North Canton Mine should galvanize the efforts of besieged residents across southern and central Illinois--and across all 20-odd states fighting devastating strip mining and long wall mining operations.
"Canton Area Citizens for Environmental Issues was able to preserve and protect the environment, Canton Lake and its watershed!" said Brenda Dilts, on behalf of a group of farmers, business people, health care professionals, teachers, attorneys, students and retirees, and camping, hunting and fishing enthusiasts, in announcing the December 3 decision by Hearing Officer Jack Price on North Canton Mine permit #385. "I hope this is a beacon for others to follow," she said.
Price ruled that a "preponderance of the evidence" demonstrated that the application for the mining permit "fails to comply with the State Act and its regulations."
According to Dilts, the Capital Resources Development Company and its parent Springfield Coal Company, which was recently found guilty of hundreds of clean water violations for a nearby strip mine in western Illinois, and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources have 10 days to file exceptions to the permit denial.
It's been a long time coming for Dilts and her indefatigable group -- almost a year to the day that members of CACEI and supporters from the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations bravely faced off against the coal company at a raucous public hearing and made their case for preserving the town's watershed and drinking water from the proposed strip mine.
The proposed strip mine would have released toxic discharges into the Copperas Creek and Canton Lake watershed--the sole source of drinking water for an estimated 20,000 people in the Canton area.
As I wrote last year, central Illinois is hardly a stranger to strip mining; the "rape of Appalachia," as author Harry Caudill once wrote of his devastated eastern Kentucky hills, got "its practice in Illinois." The birth of industrial strip mining, in fact, took place in nearby Vermilion County in the 1850s. As early as 1940, the destruction of central Illinois farms and waterways was so widespread that conservative Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen attempted to introduce the first federal legislation to regulate strip mining.
"I feel for everyone who has to go through this," Dilts said, referring to other coal mines in the Illinois Basin and across an estimated 20-odd states, "but it also proves that a group of citizens that really cares can get together, and make an impact. One step at a time. But we must keep moving forward."
In tonight's final round of public testimony at Tucson's historic three forums on the proposed "Unitary Status Plan," the federally arranged desegregation agreement between Mexican American and African American plaintiffs and the Tucson Unified School District, the voices of one community desperately need to be heard by the court-appointed "Special Master" and rest of the nation: Tucson's youth.
"In order for these court-ordered district changes to be genuine, sustainable, and transformative," concludes a new statement released by an alliance of student and youth activists, "students and community members must be engaged in meaningful ways at every level of the process."
Few other participants understand and have carried the burden of TUSD's national disgrace over banning Mexican American Studies better than Tucson's youth.
Among the nearly 7,000 students served by the nationally acclaimed but now dismantled Mexican American Studies program, recognized by recent studies for its higher graduation rates, test scores and civic engagement and hailed by educational experts as "the nation's most innovative and successful academic and instructional program in Ethnic Studies at the secondary school level," they have been demonized by extremist state politicians in a bizarre witch hunt for sheer election gain, and dismissed by patronizing TUSD officials; they have witnessed the firing and persecution of their beloved teachers, and had their Mexican American Studies literature and history curricula and books confiscated from their classrooms.
Throughout Arizona's manufactured crisis over Ethnic Studies, Tucson's youth have been in the forefront of engaging in dialogue and discussion, galvanizing an enduring new civil rights movement, and carrying on a legacy "to restore respect, justice, and equity in our educational experience and school district."
"As a collective, as students and alumni (Chicano Literature After School Studies program, Tucson High and U of A MEChA, and UNIDOS)," Mexican American Studies alumni and UNIDOS activist Danny Montoya noted, "we held a forum on the Unitary Status Plan, and out of the suggestions of the community, along with our input, we drafted this document--Declaration of Intellectual Warriors--to present to the Special Master and the plaintiffs."
Here's a copy of the document:
Declaration of Intellectual Warriors
November 26, 2012
Created by:
Chicano Literature After School Studies program
Tucson High M.E.Ch.A
University of Arizona M.E.CH.A
U.N.I.D.O.S
Declaration of Intellectual Warriors
Dear Special Master Hawley,
We, the youth belonging to the Chicano Literature After School Studies program (C.L.A.S.S.), Tucson High M.E.Ch.A, University of Arizona M.E.CH.A, and U.N.I.D.O.S., along with community input, collectively submit the following response addressing the proposed TUSD Unitary Status Plan:
Restoration of Mexican American Studies
The new Mexican American Indigenous Studies program must be built on the foundation of the previous program that had demonstrated quantitative and qualitative measures of success. Therefore, the implementation of the Mexican American Indigenous Studies program and the other Ethnic Studies Programs must take budgetary priority over the implementation of the Multicultural Program.
Expansion of Ethnic Studies
With the expansion and implementation of the new Mexican American Indigenous Studies and African American Studies, we demand that Native American, Asian American, and Middle Eastern American Studies be included in the plan. Core level curriculum will be essential for these courses. We believe that all ethnic groups should have a chance to develop their cultural identity by learning the contributions their people have made in the United States, as well as their experiences in this country.
Core vs. Elective
All Ethnic Studies course must be considered as core English and core Social Studies classes, as opposed to Elective credits.
Women’s Studies and LGBTQ Studies (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer)
In every section of the Ethnic Studies curriculum there will be an emphasis on the perspective and contributions regarding gender, women, and the LGBTQ community.
K-8 Expansion
It is imperative that all of the Ethnic Studies programs be expanded to all learning levels. We reaffirm the decision to expand the programs from K-12 grade levels and expect that the newly developed African American, Native American, Asian American, and Middle Eastern American courses be held to the same standard.
Directors
The position of Coordinator of Culturally Responsive Curriculum and Pedagogy needs to be changed to a Director’s position. In addition, there should be multiple directors (i.e., one representing Latino, and one representing African American Studies), with each Director having appropriate teaching experience in the field of study s/he will be directing, and each reflecting the ethnic background of the community s/he serves.
Public Hiring of Directors
The hiring process of the Directors of Culturally Responsive Curriculum and Pedagogy must include representatives of the community who are former Ethnic Studies students and teachers because of their unique expertise and experience with culturally responsive curriculum and pedagogy. These community members must also have decision-making power in the hiring of the directors.
Community Decision-making Power
To ensure grassroots participation, we demand the creation of a community committee with formal representatives and full voting powers be established, that takes part in the following areas and decisions:
The hiring process of the Directors of Culturally Responsive Curriculum and Pedagogy, and other staff.
Curriculum
Course creation
And Overall USP Implementation and Accountability
The district must ensure formal representation, with full voting powers, to:
C.L.A.S.S.
M.E.C.h.A.
U.N.I.D.O.S.
Parent
Community member
Former MAS teacher
Naming
Each program Director (i.e. Mexican American Indigenous, African American, Native American, Asian American, and Middle Eastern Studies) must have the authority to name her/his corresponding program as s/he sees fit in reflecting the cultural relevance of the curriculum.
Capacity for new classes
A course involving culturally relevant pedagogy must be available at every high school. As enrollment demands indicate the need for additional courses, additional courses must be established. The establishment of an Ethnic Studies Class shall be determined by the number of students requesting the class, not by the set number of previously established classes. The number of students in a class should not exceed thirty students; allowing more than thirty students in one class is detrimental to the learning environment.
Censorship
The Unitary Status Plan must promote a pedagogy and curriculum that is free from censorship. Teachers must have the freedom to teach all aspects of the literature and history called for in the curriculum.
English Language Learners (ELL)
The Unitary Status Plan must limit the segregation of ELLs to no more than two hours per day. Interaction between ELLs and their English-speaking peers promotes ELLs' acquisition of English and fosters a shared sense of community among all students, while extended segregation creates social divisions and restricts ELLs' opportunities to acquire English in real-world situations.
Dual Language Programs
The Unitary Status Plan must also recognize and include Dual Language (DL) classes as Advanced Learning Experiences. Dual Language programs provide academic enrichment and offer the same kind of rigorous and challenging instruction found in GATE and IB programs. Moreover, DL programs have a greater capacity to serve ELLs and are more likely to positively affect a significant portion of the ELL population.
Discipline
Students guilty of minor infractions shall not be subject to removal from class as a part of their punishment, whether through in-school suspensions or out-of-school suspensions. Humiliation and demeaning disciplinary tactics must be prohibited.
Restorative Justice
Restorative Practices must be used as stated in the Unitary Status Plan in order to promote accountability, while building a healthy, positive, constructive, and supportive school environment for every student. TUSD must not resort to police, border patrol, or Juvenile Hall as means of disciplinary action.
Transportation
TUSD is responsible for the providing school bus transportation for all students. Students must be provided with school buses before and after school. Providing students with public transportation vouchers is an inadequate form of transportation. The use of public transportation extends the travel time from students, taking time from their studies.
Equal Time in Class
All schools of equivalent educational levels need to be in the classroom for the same amount of time. Decreasing any schools meeting time creates disparities in the quality of education a student receives.
No School Closures
TUSD proposes school closures that are disproportionately targeting Southside and Westside area schools. This negatively impacts working class, students of color, and their families and communities. It is impossible for TUSD to implement a Unitary Status Plan if it finds solutions in closing down our schools. We ask that the USP clearly state that no school closures are acceptable.
Supervising of the Implementation of the Unitary Status Plan
Students enrolled in TUSD schools and Ethnic Studies courses must have the same right as other community members to play an active role in monitoring the district’s implementation of the Unitary Status Plan. Their active participation in the monitoring process will be a key factor in keeping TUSD in compliance with the Unitary Status Plan.
Conclusion
As students, we are clear that in order for these court-ordered district changes to be genuine, sustainable, and transformative, students and community members must be engaged in meaningful ways at every level of the process. To restore respect, justice, and equity in our educational experience and school district, we ask for the full integration of our student demands in your Unitary Status Plan.
Mr. Hawley, we, the students await a detailed response to all our points above.
With Gratitude & Sincerity,
Chicano Literature After School Studies program,
Tucson High M.E.Ch.A,
University of Arizona M.E.CH.A,
U.N.I.D.O.S
St. Louis-based Arch Coal obviously didn't get the memo last week.
As fellow absentee coal company Patriot announced its intentions to phase out large scale strip mining operations in central Appalachia, and a renewed effort was launched in Washington, DC to get Congress and the White House to deal with the mounting health and humanitarian crisis and pass the ACHE Act moratorium on all mountaintop removal, Arch displayed its Big Coal hubris by moving forth with a permit application to strip mine the historic confines of Blair Mountain in West Virginia.
Another Blair Mountain Thanksgiving, another outlandish, toxic and unnecessary strip mining permit to fight in an area that virtually every historian and archaeologist and coal miner considers to be one of the most important and sacred sites for labor history--the site of largest armed insurrection for labor rights in the country.
Residents in the Blair Mountain region need you to speak now against the destruction of their history--and their health and livelihood.
Here's a link to the writing letter campaign to the West Virginia DEP on the proposed permit, which is due at the end of this week.
“The Adkins Fork permit would destroy one of the most important areas of the battlefield,” said Brandon Nida, an archaeologist from UC Berkeley and organizer with the Blair Mountain Heritage Alliance (BMHA) located in Blair. “From archaeological surveys, this is the one of the only areas we positively know was occupied by the miners. We’ve found ammunition from the miners, we know where they fought and died. This is some of the most hallowed ground in labor history.”
Earlier this spring, West Virginia-raised Nida gave an overview of Blair Mountain and its historical significance and the latest battle against Arch Coal.
“This permit adds to the cumulative impacts for the Spruce Fork watershed which has an estimated 17,000 acres permitted or with current operations,” said Kenneth King, a local resident who has worked to preserve Blair Mountain for the last twenty years. “And it's not just the environment, I’m also really concerned about how this is going to affect people’s health.”
King cited numerous peer-reviewed health studies linking mountaintop removal mining to health hazards and risks, including rare forms of cancer, respiratory issues, and birth defects.
Here's a video overview of the campaign, featuring local resident King:
King added: “We need everyone to write in, but that is just the first step. This is going to be a tough campaign against one of the largest coal companies in the world. We need people to stay involved as we take this campaign to the national level."
