Katie Hobbs avoided a mistake that contributed to her party’s upset loss in Virginia last week, saying that Arizona parents should have a great deal of input into what their children learn in school.
Asked about parental control and the effect the issue had on the Virginia governor’s race, Hobbs, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in next year’s gubernatorial race, told reporters during a press conference Tuesday that curriculum is a local issue — and one that school districts and school boards should work with parents to determine.
“We absolutely need parents as partners in our education system. We need to do everything we can to make sure that every student in Arizona, no matter where they live, has access to high-quality public education, and that starts with bringing our teachers and our parents together to work together to make that happen,” Hobbs told reporters.
Parental control over curriculum has been a hot-button issue throughout the year, as parents and conservative activists have swarmed school board meetings across the country, including in Arizona, to denounce “critical race theory.” The term, which refers to a field of academic study about the ways in which race and racism are intertwined with American society, has become a broad, catchall term used by Republicans to describe teaching about certain racially sensitive topics.
The issue came to the forefront in the recently concluded Virginia governor’s race. Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe said during a Sept. 29 debate that, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” which many observers believe contributed to his loss to Republican Glenn Youngkin on Tuesday.
But while parents should play a role in determining school curriculum, Hobbs was adamant that the state legislature should stay out of setting curriculum.
“I feel very strongly that the legislature should not tie the hands of local school boards and school districts and communities to make those decisions about their curriculum that’s best for their communities,” she said.
On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court struck down a law that prohibited curriculum in public K-12 schools “that presents any form of blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex,” that teaches that a person is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive due to their race, ethnicity or sex, or that “an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress because of the individual’s race, ethnicity or sex.” The high court ruled that the provision violated the “single-subject” clause of the Arizona Constitution, which leaves lawmakers and Gov. Doug Ducey the option of passing an identical law as a standalone bill in the 2022 legislative session.
Hobbs said she would oppose the passage of a similar law.
While parents should be involved in determining curriculum, Hobbs said students should be taught accurate accounts of U.S. and Arizona history, including sensitive issues surrounding race.
“Our history is fraught with uncomfortable race issues, and we shouldn’t gloss over that,” she said.
Many political observers view Youngkin’s win in Virginia and the GOP’s surprising near-win in the New Jersey governor’s race as signs of a Republican wave to come in 2022. Hobbs, however, did not view it as a bad omen for her campaign next year.
“Arizona is not Virginia, and I’m going to continue talking to the voters of Arizona about their concerns and the issues that matter to them, and how we can work together to solve those problems when I’m governor,” she said.
Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and Twitter.
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2021.
Sorry Katie but the cat is out of the bag. Most of us had no idea what the schools with pressure from the NEA were actually teaching.
Why didn’t you think to blame it on Trump and Russia? It’s what the new democrat party is best at.
The lying media said last Tuesday night that they were not teaching CRT, but yesterday they changed their tune to say “if you oppose us teaching it you are racist.”
Americans have had enough of the race baiting tactics.
Just watch the next election.
I tried talking with adminstrators at my child’s HS about what they had been teaching regarding science and American History and they told me that “my parenting skills were suspect.” I was done with them.
That child now has a Masters Degree in American History and is teaching at an independent HS.
Turns out their educational skills were suspect and they were actually politicians that were un-elected taking a paycheck from our property taxes.
But I thank you for the motivation to undo some of your damage.
Tell all your friends.
“we can work together to solve those problems when I’m governor,
Ain’t gonna happen Cupcake.
Sorry Katie but you have finally exposed just exactly who you are.
Goodbye!
Karl Marx’s famously said that all of history is the struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor.
Critical Theory applies this Marxian construct to a variety of relationships. Critical Race Theory defines Whites as oppressors and Blacks and other minorities as the oppressed.
Philosopher Palo Freire spread this culture across Latin America, through the Palo Freire Institute and his books: “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and “Pedagogy of Critical Consciousness.”
As a result, Latin America is an incredibly violent society with a murder rate eight times that of the U.S.
When you label every successful business an “oppressor”, you can’t prosper. According to the World Bank Data System, 60 million Latin Americans live in multi-dimensional poverty: no car, no cell phone, no running water, no electricity, no shoes, eating rats to survive.
By comparison, we have essentially zero people in multi-dimensional poverty. A family of four in poverty by the U.S. definition lives better than 80% of the world. In other words, they really are rich by world standards.
If not for U.S. $51 billion in healthcare research, Latin America would have no pharmaceuticals, if not for 23 million immigrants to the U.S., they would have another 15 million in multi-dimensional poverty, if not for remittances of $100 billion (2019), Latin America would be a total hellhole.
Now, Dems want to bring that philosophy to the US.
Ethnic studies were just really applied Critical Race Theory.
They were talking about how wonderful Che Guvera was, a monster who had 14,000 people shot in the back of the head for the ideas they were speaking, our first amendment privilege.
Much like the old Outcome Based Education. We have learned that when the NEA puts a name on the process you better fear the destruction that they are attempting to subject your children to.
Are they educators or master manipulating politicians?
After listening to these commenters would I be incorrect in believing that American never had slavery? Jim Crow?
A Constitution that declared blacks to be 3/5 of a person?
I dare even one of these angry shouting folks to tell us what CRT is.
Or even a close approximation? Enlighten us please.
Hint: if you consider it a part of communism, socialism (democratic or Marxist),
fascism or any other ideology, you’re already dead wrong.
kensolar69
Of course there was slavery in this country. There is slavery around the world today. It was once so common as to be perfectly normal. That said, Britain and the US were the first countries to ban the slave trade.
Jim Crow laws were a Democrat construct. It wasn’t then, nor is it now conservatives/Republicans who tried to keep blacks down, Democrats are still doing it, just doing it in different ways, all the while pretending to be the saviors of black people and doling out tax money in exchange for votes.
The Constitution doesn’t mention blacks; it speaks of other (non-free) persons.
CRT is another Democrat construct, Offered up as atonement by liberals suffering from “White guilt”. Well, I’m not guilty, none of my ancestors were wealthy enough to own slaves, since some of them came to this land as indentured servants. Transported in the same ships that brought Africans here. The only difference being, the survival rate for Africans was higher, since they were more valuable. (Ref: “Bonded Passengers to America”)
You would be wrong ken but we are used to that. You would do better to listen to communist Van Jones explain that “CRT is simply a dog whistle.” If that is so give parents ALL of the curriculum and let them read it for themselves. Most do do want info spoon fed from a communist. Nor did McCaulliffe want parents involved in knowing what their children were being taught.
Is there anything that you would not want your child/children taught? What would that be?
Thank goodness Wes and the Huppster are not teaching American history. Otherwise Slavery was just jobs program for poor African immigrants, the Civil War was really about federal over reach, no Native Americans were harmed in the whole Manifest Destiny program, the Butte miners just didn’t want to work, the WW2 Japanese internment program was really for their own safety, and at least Hitler had the trains running on time and got rid of those pesky labor unions (Dachau) holding up progress.
Frances Perkins criticism explains exactly why blacks are leaving the Democratic party to support Trump. He did more in four years to improve life for blacks while the rest took Soros money and burned down cities.
Lesson learned?
Frances,
I do read history and not just the pabulum they feed out in schools. I know that the most of the Nazi ideas came from the universities and research journals and much of it from the US, particularly California . Read all about the Proctor and Gamble family sponsoring Joseph Mengele and Darwin’s third theory of evolution, the idea that the master race kills off the inferior races. They never told you about that gem did they as they extoll Darwin, did they.
I’ll bet you can’t even tell me the title of Darwin’s most famous book: “The Preservation of the Favored Races…”
Read Darwin’s correspondences with Hoeckler deciding who those inferior races were.
Read all about Darwin’s cousin using his ideas to develop eugenics theories which directly fed into Nazi ideology.
Read all about Darwin coming to the conclusion that German’s were the “favoured race”. Germans went wild in joy when they found that out.
Read all about how Climate “scientists” are coming to the conclusion that only population control can “save” us from climate extinction.
It would take 3,000 Auschwitz style ovens operating 24 hours per day to keep Subsaharan Africa’s population from increasing. Don’t think they aren’t going there. They are that insane.