PHOENIX (AP) — An audit of a controversial ethnic studies program in Tucson paints a dramatically different picture from an announcement by the state’s education chief.
Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal says the ethnic studies program in the Tucson Unified School District is illegal for advocating ethnic solidarity among Latinos and promoting resentment toward white people.
He gave the district two months to make changes or face losing 10 percent of its annual state funding, or about $15 million.
But the audit by Dallas-based Cambium Learning Group effusively praises the program, saying that there was no evidence that it promotes racial resentment.
The audit says that “students are taught to be accepting of multiple ethnicities of people” and that “resentment does not exist in the context of these courses.”
