TUSCON, Ariz. – The Tucson Unified School District has been hemorrhaging about 1,500 students each of the past several years, but officials are in denial that the enrollment drop has anything to do with the quality of their schools.

“Parents make decisions for their families based on what is going on in their own lives,” TUSD Accountability and Research Director David Scott recently told the Arizona Daily Star. “Rarely does it have anything to do with us.”

The student “exit polls” compiled by the Daily Star suggest otherwise.

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According to poll, nearly 25 percent of the 4,266 students who’ve fled TUSD in 2013 have ended up either at a charter school, a private school or being home schooled. That suggests hundreds of families are unhappy with the quality of Tucson’s government-run schools.

That analysis fits what Tucson-area charter school founder Sara Riegert has seen and heard first-hand.

“We hear a lot of people coming to us – disenchanted with their former district,” Reigert told KGUN9-TV.

Even the president of Tucson’s teachers union understands that school quality is a major reason families are leaving the school district.

“They’re not satisfied with that they’re getting, or they’re upset with how they’ve been treated by TUSD,” Tucson Education Association President Frances Banales told KGUN9-TV. “We fix that, we fix our house.”

Meanwhile, back at TUSD headquarters, school officials prefer to attribute the exodus to other reasons, such as a decrease in the number of school-age children living within the district, the economic downturn and immigration policies, reports the Daily Star.

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TUSD officials acknowledge that competition from charters also contributes to their enrollment decline, but they’re not too bothered by that.

“No one is in panic mode,” Superintendent H.T. Sanchez told the Daily Star.

Maybe they should be in panic mode, if for no other reason than to ensure TUSD’s remaining students aren’t cheated out of a decent education. Families and taxpayers alike should be troubled by TUSD leaders’ passivity on this important issue.

We can’t believe we’re saying this, but Tucson officials would do well to follow the advice of their teachers union and get busy “fixing their house.”