Let’s see, what are the most important education issues facing the legislature this year? Fulfilling its promise to continue raising teacher salaries is definitely on the list. So is increasing charter school transparency and oversight to weed out rampant corruption and profiteering. And decreasing teacher shortages. And decreasing class sizes. And increasing education budgets so old buses can be replaced, old schools can be maintained and old textbooks and technology can be updated. And let’s not forget ridding the state of its destructive English Immersion model for ELL students.
Other problems could be addressed as well, like, say, updating the Department of Education’s computer data systems and fully funding the oversight and management of the ESA voucher program (Yes, those are important).
Any more? I know I’ve left stuff out, like increasing access to preschool and who knows what else. In a state that has shortchanged its children for so long, the list is almost endless.
But I know one issue that doesn’t even make the top one hundred: getting politics out of the classroom.
So what has the media talked about nonstop for weeks? A proposed bill to get politics out of the classroom.
Yes, such a bill has been proposed. Yes, it would be a travesty if it passed. But no, it doesn’t deserve all the attention it’s been getting. (And yes, I’m fully aware that I’m giving it more attention by writing about it.)
Giving that much press coverage to a non-story uses up all the oxygen in the room. Substantive educational issues struggle to get the media attention they deserve.
The beneficiaries of the current feeding frenzy around this story are the anti-public education forces in the state, people who would rather not put more money into education or increase oversight of charter schools. The purpose of the legislation is to demonize teachers. It turns them into villains with a political agenda who are corrupting the youth of Arizona. So: “Why encourage the scoundrels by paying them more? Why give them even more money for materials to further indoctrinate our children? Let’s get politics out of the classroom first, then we can talk about other education issues.”
This is a calculated response to the #RedforEd movement which was far too successful in the eyes of conservative legislators and the powerful interests who support them. Despite early attempts by Governor Ducey and fellow Republicans to demonize the demonstrating teachers, they grew in political power and popularity the longer they stayed on the streets, and they still have the public behind them. The “politics in the classroom” bill is an attempt to turn the #RedforEd success story on its head.
I’m one of those people who believe history doesn’t repeat itself; it rhymes. And to me, the current attempts to demonize teachers by claiming they’re pushing their political views on our children rhymes with past attempts to demonize TUSD’s Mexican American Studies program by claiming the teachers were churning out Latino students who hate white people and aspire to become bomb-throwing revolutionaries. Two Superintendents of Public Instruction, Horne and Huppenthal, rode their anti-Latino, anti-MAS campaigns into office. As an added bonus, when the anti-MAS story dominated the news, it pushed genuine educational issues off the table.
This year, Red Is the New Brown. RedforEd is the current version of the old “Scary brown people are taking over our schools” story.
Trump has been wildly successful at controlling news cycles by getting the press to obsess over the batshit crazy things he says and ignore more important, more substantive matters. If Arizona Republicans are smart and media savvy, which they tend to be, they’ll employ a similar tactic. Realizing that the “politics in the classroom” story is catnip for journalists, they’ll bring it out whenever they need a bright, shiny educational object to dangle in front of the media, turning their attention away from more pressing educational issues in the legislature.
It’s possible this story will disappear when the legislative session begins. Maybe the bill will die in committee and never be heard from again. But it’s also possible — I’d say probable — that anti-public school conservatives will milk it for all it’s worth. Stay tuned.
A “The Star Takes the Bait” Extra. Monday, December 31, The Star featured a story about the “Politics in the classroom” bill on its front page. Well, everyone else did it, so why not our local daily? But the editors decided that wasn’t enough. On the front page of the Tucson & Region section, they doubled down with a story about two teachers who were fined for political advocacy on school time. First, a story about the bill on the front page, then a story suggesting we really do need the legislation to stop all these nasty teachers from pushing their political views on our kids.
The accusations against the teachers were a purely political move. They barely deserved a mention. The teachers’ violations were about as insignificant as a pedestrian stepping into the street before the light turns green. But The Star featured the story anyway, creating a one-two, anti-teacher punch in its Monday edition.
The story came from the AZ Republic, which had run an excellent, important investigative series on charter school corruption and profiteering, which the Star didn’t see fit to print. But this trivial story about a couple of teachers behaving badly (even though they didn’t actually behave badly)? That, the editors decided, is a story that needs to be told.
This article appears in Jan 3-9, 2019.
Three other issues deserve attention. First, its criminal the legislature doesnt fund anything for Pima and Maricopa Community colleges, and underfunds all other community colleges in the State. The most cost effect post secondary education. Second, All University tuition is way too high, much from an underfunded system. Third, under the statewide radar, is the incoming Arizona House speaker an employee of the EVIT JTED district or a consultant or what. And will he try to force all Statewide JTED (CTED) districts into Czar Sally’s (EVITs superintendent who cooperates with no one) Oklahoma empire system, and tell local parter districts to drop dead. This turned a normally staid JTED board election into a highly politicized event. (She played both sides as Hoffman’s primary opponent was also an EVIT employee or consultant or something.)
David, thank you so much for mentioning this! ” And let’s not forget ridding the state of its destructive English Immersion model for ELL students.”
I dont often agree with Frances Perkins, but she is right about community college funding and public university tuition. David doesnt generally address these problems, and they deserve attention. Pro Publica did a good piece on increases in public university tuition recently:
https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/publictuition
As for Davids assertions in this blog, I hope people read the Star article and decide for themselves whether the disciplined actions were as innocuous as David implies they are. If public schools are to thrive, parents of all political persuasions need to be confident that tendentious, partisan political messages are not being conveyed to students or teachers on the public dime.
The public school system is not the property of the Democratic Party. It is the property of the PUBLIC, which includes citizens of other political persuasions. Democrats tolerance for allowing it to be treated like a cite for political indoctrination and political organizing is one reason so many families (and legislators) have become advocates for the alternative school systems Dems deride and undermine. Unless you want constituents of different political persuasions choosing separate systems, you need to protect the political neutrality of the public district system. Surely even some Dems understand this, even if David Safier does not.
There is no doubt as to the Fundamental Importance of Education in a Representative Democracy!…and ….there is no doubt, as well, that Republicans in Arizona and our Country are using their positions to Control what is Taught in our Public Schools; following the Advice/Example of Joseph Stalin:
“Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don’t let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?” (Joseph Stalin).
The American Voter needs to Wake Up and participate in the electoral process, at all levels of Government; using their notion of what is in the best interests of all US Citizens and their Understanding of our Constitutionally Protected Liberties; that the primary focus of Government is the development of Citizens primarily through Public Education and Health Care; both should be provided at Public Expense and NOT through a “Free Market, Profit Based Economic System” where maximizing Profit and Salaries are the primary motivations and NOT First Rate Systems of Public Education and Health Care for ALL US Citizens; understanding that the very Nature of Human Society involves an Inherent Relatedness, Commonality, and Mutual Dependence; Domestically and Internationally.
“…To assure each one the facility of perfecting his skill…..Those talents with which Nature has endowed him; and thereby to establish among all citizens an actual equality, thus rendering real the political equality recognized by the law. This should be the first aim of any national education…an obligation of justice.” (Condorcet, 1792)
The question is: as a car driving toward a precipice; are we at the fulcrum or have we moved beyond?
Yup, most Dems do not get it, that they are not holy crusaders for all that is RIGHT and JUST and operating with license to use public institutions to convert everyone (including the children of their neighbors) to the CORRECT way of seeing things, but are instead simply one faction, one tribe in a country whose constitution guarantees the right to moral and religious plurality. It would be great if they could see themselves for what they are and have the kind of humility and consideration that would enable constructive conversations with other groups to take place. Not coincidentally, this is the same kind of humility and consideration that would enable the proper functioning of a truly PUBLIC (not DEMOCRATIC PARTY) system of PUBLIC education. But they are increasingly showing themselves incapable of it, so the splintering of our publicly funded education systems will continue.
Far be it from the Republicans to allow the use of examples they themselves furnish for teachers to show their students how to discern truth from lies, sound thinking from nonsense.
If we can’t trust either the Democrats or the Republicans to refrain from using publicly funded schools to push their partisan political agendas, then separate systems will develop, one with a Democratic slant and one (or several, charter and private) with a Republican slant. No one in this comment stream has said that partisan pleading does not take place in curricular materials promoted by both sides of the political spectrum. To whatever extent one party controls a public district, errors will be more likely on that side of the spectrum. The point is not that Republicans (or Libertarians) don’t do it, but that when we have one system that all (or most) of the citizenry must use and partisan pleading happens on either side in that venue, it needs to be stopped.
This is true even on initiatives relating to public school funding. The funding initiative public school employees were disciplined for promoting in public school venues was not a non-partisan funding initiative. There were many people who agreed that funding should be increased, but not in the manner and through the mechanisms that particular proposition contained. (Another problem with it was that it was framed in misleading language that created false impressions about what its actual effects would be.) To promote that proposition in public venues was an abuse. The disciplinary actions were appropriate and news coverage of what happened was not out of order.