National Republicans have demonized Nancy Pelosi as the “San Francisco Liberal” face of the Democratic party for years. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Maxine Waters are their latest demons of choice. The names change, but the song remains the same.
Arizona Republicans have found themselves a Democratic ogre: Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman. They have launched a steady string of assaults against her, claiming she is trying to destroy the state’s system of vouchers while she sexualizes school children by encouraging comprehensive sex education in schools.
There are a few reasons Arizona Republicans chose Kathy Hoffman as their Democratic bête noire.
Hoffman holds state office. That makes her visible statewide, and it also makes her especially dangerous to Republicans’ stranglehold on state government. She and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs are the first Democrats to hold Arizona state office since former Attorney General Terry Goddard left in 2011. Currently, Republicans only hold a slim two seat majority in the House, meaning if a single Democrat wins a Republican seat, the House is tied. A two seat Democratic swing in the Senate would tie that body as well. The threat of Arizona becoming a purple state, of Democrats having a say in what goes on, is real. Republicans hope they can hurt Democratic candidates by painting Hoffman as the dangerously radical face of the Democratic party.
Hoffman is also a threat because she is the top educator in a state where education is one of the major battlegrounds. Think RedforEd. Think the attempts by Democrats to make charter schools more transparent and accountable. Think the Republicans’ recent, unsuccessful attempt to increase the number of private school vouchers. With Hoffman at the Department of Education helm, Republicans will face resistance in furthering their privatization/”education reform” agenda.
Arizona’s education policies are more than a local issue. The education wars are raging nationwide, and Arizona is the tip of the privatization spear. That’s why Arizona Republicans are getting a major assist from one of the country’s big money conservative education organizations, the American Federation For Children, which, not coincidentally, was founded by Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
The first major attack on Hoffman was the charge that she wanted to rob Navajo children of a good education. Ten children on the Navajo Reservation have been using Arizona voucher money to attend a private school on the other side of the New Mexico border even though the money isn’t supposed to be spent for out-of-state schools. Hoffman’s staff noticed the problem and said the students would no longer be able to attend the school using Arizona voucher money.
“She hates vouchers!” Republicans screamed. “She wants to rob Native American children of their education!” The AFC created a video condemning Hoffman for her actions.
What the Arizona Republicans and the AFC failed to mention is that the AFC had advised the children to attend the New Mexico school, telling their parents it was OK to use their Arizona voucher money. It’s part of the “Widows and Orphans Fund” strategy Republicans love to use when promoting vouchers. They say they want the vouchers to help poor children who attend “failing schools,” but once vouchers are established, they expand them until millionaires’ kids can attend private schools tuition-free on the taxpayer dime. In this case, the plan was to expand the use of Arizona voucher money to out-of-state schools by placing Navajo children in the New Mexico school, then asking, “Who would be so cruel as to deny these poor Native American children the right to a quality education? Let’s change the law.”
When Hoffman took over and her staff discovered the situation, it was a twofer for Republicans and the AFC. They got to push their out-of-state voucher plan at the same time they called Hoffman heartless.
The situation was resolved temporarily when the legislature allowed the children to continue attending the school this year and the next, giving them ample time to find another school.
Next, Republicans tore into Hoffman for the way she was administering the Empowerment Scholarship Account voucher program. Parents trying to get their children into the program were put on long phone holds. Some children were denied their right to take advantage of the program. According to Republicans, it was a plot by Hoffman to cripple the ESA program. The AFC put out more anti-Hoffman videos.
Once again, an important part of the story was left out. The ESA’s budget includes money earmarked for administration. This year it should be $3.6 million. Instead, the legislators gave Hoffman $1.3 million. That means the education department doesn’t have enough money to administer the program effectively. Naturally there are going to be problems and delays.
Instead of giving Hoffman the rest of the money, Republicans are spending $175,000 on a state audit of the way the education department spends the administration money it receives, hoping to find problems the Republicans can blame on Hoffman. The audit is supposed to take about 9 months, which means the earliest the education department can possibly get the rest of the funds to administer the program is next July. By that time, school and the legislature will both be out of session, and legislators will be out stumping for reelection. Good luck getting any money allocated then.
The other issue being used against Hoffman is sex education. Arizona’s “No Promo Homo” law, which forbade schools from teaching anything which might promote homosexuality — that pretty much meant avoiding the subject entirely — was thrown out, meaning teachers can discuss LBGTQ issues in the classroom. A number of districts have changed or are in the process of changing their sex education policies, including TUSD. Republicans want to blame “the sexualization of Arizona’s school children” on Hoffman.
I expect the sex education issue to be a big deal in the upcoming legislative session and the elections. Vouchers are likely to be a battleground issue as well. And Kathy Hoffman’s name will be a regular part of the Republican talking points.
This article appears in Oct 10-16, 2019.
She is doing a great job. If Betsy DeVos, Cathi Herrod, Kelly Townsend, and Finchem dont like her, she must be doing the perfect job. Keep her forever.
A wonderful person who is killing it in this office!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Many folks in AZ have no idea what that means. It is such a foreign concept to actually have a qualified person in a political job, A job that takes an experienced, on point, educated professional that is ACTUALLY trained and ACTUALLY able to do the ACTUAL job they were appointed to do.
Frances, perfect comment and very true. They are baffled that she actually is educated and knows what she is doing.
How is so-called LIBERALITY consistent with aggressive obscenities launched at anyone who disagrees with party orthodoxy, or with justifications of the forced relocation of students?
What an absurd spectacle: David Safier and his whole gaggle of holier-than-thou, modern-day secularized Puritans, crusading, hysterical, self-righteous LIBERALS-in-name-only, stoking their hatreds and pursuing their various witch-hunts: they are coercive, dishonest, imperialist ideologues. The obscenity-slinging commenters who follow David around blow his civility cover with predictable regularity and make it very clear what kind of dysfunctional hatred and aggression his political cabal stokes and entrenches in our communities.
Go ahead, David: praise Kathy Hoffman for making sure those kids on the border with New Mexico will soon be back in schools where they may learn beneficial skills like how to call anyone who disagrees with you a f***un POS troll. The most important thing is that the schools they attend should be Arizona PUBLIC DISTRICT schools, right? No need to look into what kind of environment the forced change will put them in, with certified or uncertified teachers, with discipline problems, inadequate educational materials, or unsafe facilities. As long as the schools funding structures pass the Democratic Partys litmus test, Hoffman is doing those kids a favor by forcing their conformity with Party orthodoxy. That is the schizophrenic THINKING (?) behind your Partys interpretation of this situation, an interpretation which has nothing to do with education and everything to do with IDEOLOGICAL WARFARE, with no regard for civilian casualties.
As you wrote in your last blog, quoting one of the self-righteous Puritan prigs who is a suitable model for your latter day self-congratulatory BS-feed, they also serve who only sit and write. But serve WHAT, David? Oliver Cromwell, in the original case, and his dangerous 21st century equivalents, in yours. Very LIBERAL indeed. Revisit Cromwells history in Ireland some time, if youd like to get a good look at the moral quality of what was being served by your Puritan predecessor. There are some interesting parallels between Cromwells favored kinds of hatred and the sentiments behind some of your tribes educational policy priorities.
(Why did some political factions start developing a policy toolkit to limit the reach and influence of networks like Davids that have lodged themselves in some (not all) public institutions of education? Gee, I wonder.)
AZ/DC My apologies for getting your gender wrong. I had read it from another poster, but I still had trouble believing that a woman would talk like that.
This site allows us to post anonymously and I don’t use my full name for protection of the slander and defamation that continues to occur. I believe we can discuss things without all the cursing and name calling.
A note to “Q.E.D., again”: I don’t agree with you on most occasions, and I wish you would settle on a handle so it’s clear who is commenting. On the other hand, anyone who got my John Milton reference and could link it to Cromwell and the Puritans is at least a little all right in my book. However, in response, if I felt I had to agree with the politics or religious leanings of every writer, artist and musician I admire, I would be in serious trouble. Milton’s sonnet stands on its own merits.
Donna H:
Huh?!
Okay, I do agree that we can do this commentary thing more civilly. But, the sock puppet that uses a different name with practically every post, isn’t civil. I have a thing about that. It pisses me off. I would be a much more civil person if other persons practiced the same thing.
Thanks for your response. DC
I like this as a handle. Perhaps I’ll keep it.
David: Too bad this is not a discussion about literary history and theory, which might be enjoyable. As a discussion about American public policy and public institutions of education, it is predictably contentious, divisive, and miserable.
Some of us will have to keep registering protests here and elsewhere when your party tries to usepublic policy and public institutions to disadvantage, subordinate, discipline and correct Roman Catholics and other disparaged minority religious groups. Our Constitution and our public institutions were carefully and deliberately formed to try to prevent the imposition of the values of dangerously self-righteous, morally crusading and judgmental factions (secular or religious) on groups that disagree with them. It is disturbing how thoroughly your party seems to have forgotten that these days. (Or perhaps many members of your party never learned it because it is not being taught accurately in some portions of the public school system? All things considered, that would not be too surprising.)
When a decent, well educated professional woman with direct experience makes it to a state-level elected office, out comes the loud, foul derisive trolling by “conservative” men. And worse, these male masses of political protoplasm then seek to expand their stupid, vituperative BS to a whole range of issues beyond the education of little kids in school. Kids in school are not just political opponents for insults and loathing.
Vote them out.
Yeah, “Constant Voter,” there are actually substantive policy issues here that directly relate to “the education of little kids in school,” like the Navajo kids on the New Mexico border. Some of us think those children and others like them should be able to apply the tax funds they save the state of Arizona when they choose not to attend AZ public schools in other schools, in New Mexico or elsewhere. It’s not just about “foul” men who are prejudiced against a “decent, well educated professional woman with direct experience.” And I write that as a decent, well-educated professional woman with direct experience teaching in Arizona schools. It would seem that well-educated professionals could honestly acknowledge the substantive policy issues and refrain from disparaging their political opponents as a class, with language like “male masses of political protoplasm.”
“A Decent Well Educated Professional Woman”
Or, what most of us see this person for what they truly are: a worthless Troll.
Looks like another worthless ad hominem attack from AZ/DC! Guess that intention of doing the commenting thing more civilly didnt last long. Not a big surprise.
In order to be able to vote intelligently, people need to understand policy differences, not refuse to acknowledge them and make broad, inaccurate generalizations about their political opponents. But policy misrepresentation and slander and obscenities aimed at opponents are a pretty large portion of what goes on in these comment streams. Davids discourse has the gloss of civility, but it also uses misrepresentations, overgeneralizations, and villainization of opponents. And when those techniques are used, it provokes anger among those misrepresented and villainized. To let some anger show while stating reasons why misrepresentation is unacceptable is not uncivil. Calling someone names IS uncivil. Try understanding the difference between the two, and giving reasons for policy preferences some time.
Not a big surprise that you’re still being a worthless sock puppet troll. You stop, then I’ll stop. Deal?
When I have something to say about policy, I will say it. Usually, I stop when it seems to me there is no policy point that still needs to be made to correct misleading propaganda and policy misrepresentations. Occasionally, I comment on the use of obscenities and insults because they illustrate the entrenched dysfunction in some Southern Arizona political factions which never manage to achieve their aim of using aggression to shut down reasonable disagreement, but only discredit the broader party and lame its effectiveness.
Still Civil.
What a laugh.
Try harder. Right now, you’re failing with flying colours.
*Chuckle!* Still (but never was in the first place) Civil. *Chuckle!*
Promoting homosexuality in school is wrong! Parents should consider homeschooling if this is what she calls education! I also saw a picture of her being sworn in on a Dr. Seuss book instead of a bible. I seriously hope it was a fake picture because that is beyond disrespectful!