In the Tucson Unified School District, the percentage of test-taking students who scored high enough to be classified as proficient in English more than doubled — from 10% in 2025 to 24% in 2026. Rather than a big leap in fluency, however, the test results reflect the Arizona Department of Education lowering the grade needed to pass.
Author Archives: Rafael Carranza
Rafael Carranza is a bilingual multimedia reporter born in Mexico and raised in Arizona who has covered the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and immigrant communities for the past 15 years. He previously worked as a border and immigration reporter for The Arizona Republic and the USA Today Network, where he led several multimedia projects, including an investigative podcast about a cross-border shooting in Arizona. Carranza was part of the reporting team awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for “The Wall” and received an Emmy for his video reporting on the project, which looked at the impacts of the construction of border barriers.
Contact: rcarranza@azluminaria.org
