State Out of the Union author and former Tucsonan Jeff Biggers recently interviewed former Tucson Unified School District Mexican-American studies co-founder and former director Sean Arce about the district's desegregation proposal and the future of MAS and the program's former teachers.

You can read the entire post here. Snippet:

Jeff Biggers: According to the proposed Unitary Status Plan, TUSD must hire (or designate) a Coordinator of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Instruction, and implement core courses in social studies and literature that reflect the history, experiences and cultures of African American and Latino Communities. What role should you, as the co-founder of MAS and former director— and other MAS teachers— play in shaping this new Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Instruction program?

Sean Arce: I believe that the former MAS teachers and myself to be the experts in the district in Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Curriculum, and Instruction. Since 1998, we have been the teachers with the vision and the wherewithal to successfully deliver this pedagogy and curriculum in both social studies and literature even within a context of a hostile educational environment towards Latinas/os that the Tucson Unified School District had created. In short, the MAS teachers and I, as a collective, are the only cohesive unit within TUSD who can successfully implement what is called for in the Unitary Status Plan. Moreover, I believe that we are the only group of teachers who have the capacity to build upon the successful program that we had in MAS.