OK, so, Diane Douglas has come out with a serious, multi-faceted plan to improve Arizona education. It’s not perfect, there’s plenty of stuff to disagree with, but lots of it is pretty damn good. Lots of it. Douglas is an advocate for teachers. She wants to pay them more, she wants them working in classrooms with fewer students, she wants to give them more and better training when they’re in college and better mentoring when they’re in the classroom.  She wants to cut back on our obsession with high stakes testing. She wants the grades the state gives to schools to include a number of variables, including—and I have to pause every time I write this because it pleases me so much—including taking into account the quality of a school’s art, music and PE programs. In other words, she’s an advocate for comprehensive, whole child education. Her plan is more pro-education than anything I’ve seen out of any Arizona Republican in a position of power and authority, maybe ever.

Douglas has gotten some deservedly good press for the ideas in her AZ Kids Can’t Afford To Wait plan, much of it from folks who have spend the past nine months belittling her for the squabbles she’s been having with Governor Ducey and the state school board.  But some feel they need to add a caveat to their praise for her ideas. Yeah, her plan is good, they say, but because of her antics, none of the people she’s pissed off are going to listen to her. From a Republic editorial:

Douglas has alienated nearly every potential reform ally, from Gov. Doug Ducey to the state Board of Education to a healthy portion of the Republican majority of the Legislature.

So, that’s a problem. Leading a parade no one wants to follow is a challenge – a challenge the irascible Douglas has worked overtime creating on her own.

And that’s a shame. Many of her ideas percolate with a wide-based constituency.

If only she had made nice with the Republican power structure, the editorial says, maybe they’d listen to her. Seriously? If Douglas had been a good Republican soldier, they’d be paying attention to her ideas that contradict the party’s educational party line? Seriously? When Douglas says we need to come up with new funding to pay teachers more, they’d say, “Diane, you’ve been so cooperative with the board and the governor, we think, by God, we’ll go along with you and push for more money to increase teacher salaries”? And they’ll do the same with her testing and state grade proposals? Seriously?

These must be different Republicans from the ones I’ve been watching over the past decade. Ducey must not have a dark money mafia that goes after people who stand in the way of his agenda. Because the Republicans I seem to remember playing their power games don’t play nice with people who have played nice with them, if those people have the temerity to propose a few heretical ideas. 

If Douglas had played nice before she published her AZ Kids Can’t Afford To Wait plan, this is about the kindest response I can imagine coming from the governor, the state school board and like-minded legislators.

“Well, little lady, those are very interesting ideas you have there, very . . . interesting. But I’m afraid you don’t know much about the way things work around here. So listen, why don’t you go back to your office like a good girl and leave important matters to us. Don’t worry your pretty little head about these matters. It’ll just give you worry lines.”

And that’s if they just decided to be patronizingly sexist and not get really ugly on her.

Want to be taken seriously up in Phoenix? Make some noise however and whenever you can. Get yourself noticed. If you want the media to pay attention to you, if you want people in the state to pay attention to what you’re doing and saying, stir things up.

If Douglas is ever going to find allies for some of her best ideas for improving Arizona education, they’re not going to come from Ducey or his appointees on the state school board, no matter how go-along-to-get-along she tries to be. Her allies will be Democrats who are willing to find areas of agreement where they can work with Douglas. They’ll be some moderate Republicans who don’t go along with the Republican anti-school agenda. They’ll be the Arizona Education Association and public school advocacy groups and teachers and parents. They’ll be a growing number of Arizonans of all political stripes who are beginning to realize we can’t keep starving our schools and expect them to improve. They’ll be some members of the business community who realize that Douglas and the Democrats are their natural allies in making the state more business friendly by improving the quality of its education. They’ll be some of her most passionate right wing supporters during the election, and maybe some Republican legislators who were elected from those areas. In other words, if Douglas has any allies, they’re a collection of strange bedfellows who believe they can find common ground on these issues.

Will it happen? Will a critical mass of people and organizations and interest groups overlook their differences and join together for the benefit of our children? It’s possible. Not probable, maybe, but possible. But if it doesn’t happen, only a fool would say it’s because Douglas didn’t play nice with the Republican power structure. They’ll keep fighting her best educational notions no matter how much she smiles and makes nice—unless, of course, there’s enough pressure from enough people and groups, they have no choice but to give some ground.

This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2015.

15 replies on “Douglas Should Play Nice If She Wants To Be Taken Seriously? Are You Serious?”

  1. Nicely stated. Thanks for admitting that’s she’s actually right on a number of issues and deserves some credit for standing up to Ducey and his crew. This is much better than continuing to ridicule her.

    I sincerely hope there can be some sort of bi-partisan coalition of the SANE in this state to support education. It is sorely needed.

  2. But but…. I thought Diane Douglas was an unsalvageable right wing teabagger so far right she considered both Bushes “lefty internationalists”

    http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archi…

    With the pre-election hyperbole now spent and totally discredited she seems to be one of the better, if not the best, superintendent this sorry State has elected.

    “Her plan is more pro-education than anything I’ve seen out of any Arizona Republican in a position of power and authority, maybe ever.”

    You’re right David, after the fact and all. Sometimes labels are misleading, even “Republican Teabagger.”

  3. I think Diane Douglas cares about children. However, when she came in she did some bizarre things . I am not going to go into details because I like that she is showing she does care about children. However, I do not regret for a minute the things I have said about her in the past. She deserved every word. I hope she continues to redeem herself for she was the worst of the Republican party at times .
    I also continue to hope that watchdog groups continue to keep their eyes on her. I think she may be very unpredictable. Just because someone does something good now, does not mean that person didn’t deserve criticism in the past Rick Spanier.

  4. “Well Done” and Rick, I ridiculed Diane Douglas during the campaign, true, but if you look at my posts about her since the election — and there have been a number of them — every one of them has been from hopeful to favorable. And I regularly expressed how glad I was to see that I had misjudged her. I’ve said the same thing a number of times when I’ve been a guest on the Buckmaster show. Just setting the record straight here.

  6. Thanks David. My point was the vicious attacks on Douglas prior to the election, including yours and the editor’s were symptomatic of TW commentary at that time. I agree your reporting on Douglas has been openhanded and fair since then. Strip away the politics including your support of the incumbent TUSD board and we agree on most issues in education at the local and state level. Perhaps I noticed a change in attitude toward Sanchez after the details of his contract were made public?

    You do a great job, thanks for keeping a sharp eye on these issues.

  7. From the link:

    This was a result of a concern she had over the certification documents provided as part of the Board action. The documents in the Board action were reprinted on current letterhead under her name as opposed to having been copied from the original certificates. Because the original certificates were issued under previous superintendents, the Superintendent said she was unsure, without a legal opinion, as to whether they were indeed legal documents. As a result, she did not feel comfortable voting to approve the motion. She would certainly have voted in favor of the motion had that issue been corrected.”

    So fear of legal entanglement slowed down what is right. She had to err on the side of caution.

  8. Douglas ran as a one trick pony candidate obsessed with one issue, Common Core, because it was red meat to the base, not for any substance over the actual standards. David Garcia was so overwhelmingly qualified for the job it was embarrassing for Douglas. So Douglas loses Pima and even Maricopa Counties but wins the election because many Mohave and Yavapai voters would vote for a chicken if it said it was against the Muslim socialist fascist gun confiscating war on Christmas Obama candidate that was anyone else. Now that a blind monkey can type one page of Shakespeare, we are supposed to be happy? Douglas is politically irrelevant. She has previously burned her bully pulpit. The real problem is Biggs thinks students should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, just like he did–by winning a Sweepstakes. And Ducey only listens to his Koch Brothers masters.

  9. Diane Douglas is the superintendent of schools and could have gotten the original certificate information with the click of her fingers. She signs them for heaven’s sake. So she voted against taking certificates away from convicted child molesters because her board provided copies of the certificates? Bad excuse for an extremely bad vote and she knows it. Now I am very happy with what she has done lately and I heartily applaud her for her decisions since. That was a very bad vote and there was no excuse for it.

  10. David:
    What would you call this: “She’s a novice who does and says silly stuff in her pursuit of her education agenda, throwing tantrums…and seeing if she can win by taking her marbles, or her websites, and going home.” That is taken directly from one of your recent articles about Douglas.
    Though you have acknowledged in past articles that some of her ideas are superior to those of other Arizona Republicans, your tone has been condescending at best and, if I recall correctly, you usually conclude that it’s very entertaining to watch her fights with other Republicans, that she’s gumming up the privatization works a little, which is good, and generally not doing as much harm as Huppenthal would have. But I don’t believe you’ve ever gone this far in the direction of suggesting that she be taken seriously and that she may accomplish some good in collaboration with other supporters of education.
    If you don’t want to acknowledge that your way of handling Douglas is changing, that’s fine — and unsurprising. You run in a crowd that doesn’t expect its constituency (or readership) to be bright enough to recognize inconsistencies (or outright lies). Perhaps some of the assumptions this crowd makes about those to whom their discourse is delivered have rubbed off on you.
    But some of us remember the language you’ve used about Douglas since the election and think it bears some resemblance, ironically, to the language you hypothesize those nasty Republicans would have used of her if she had attempted to collaborate with them.

  11. Here is my personal favorite:

    Re: “Schools, Society And Snake Oil Salesmen”

    Good comments, ChetDude. However, when I encounter a comment like Rat T’s, my maxim is “Don’t feed the trolls.” When people try to hijack the discussion, I say ignore them. If it’s too egregious, I’ll remove the comment — not as an act of censorship, but to keep the discussion more-or-less on topic. There are too many good, intelligent folks — on both sides (all sides?) — who contribute their ideas here to let some troll distract us.
    1 like, 1 dislike
    Posted by David Safier on 08/22/2014 at 10:46 AM
    ———————————————————————————————
    Last week I was referred to “as the only voice of reason here.”

    My how times change!

  13. Every superintendent of schools honors all certificates of the previous superintendents. An original certificate is honored no matter what superintendent of schools signs it. As I said before, she could have gotten any original certificate if she was unsure of the status( copies) of those in question. She used that to excuse a terrible vote. If she didn’t know that, she was in worse shape than we even knew at the time. The education community was aghast that that was her defense because it was no defense. So convicted child molesters have certificates and to vote on whether they should be revoked because of the convictions is a no brainer. She voted no. The only one who voted no. If it mattered which superintendent signed it, every certificated employee would have to get a new certificate every time we changed superintendents. She has come a long way but when she started she was terrible( and said things that were awful while campaigning I might add).

  14. @ Change in Tone – He’s probably received marching orders on this from his wealthy friend who sits atop the TUSD admin hierarchy (who has made friends with Douglas) and from the three Board Members who take direction from their employee. I’m guessing the marching orders run something like this:

    “We’d like to have that money Douglas is proposing to give to the schools, so stop making fun of her and do what you can to promote her and her agenda.”

  15. Ok, Supt. Douglas does express some good ideas. But constant feuding and loud confronatation rarely yield positive results no matter how smartly conceived. I would not be surprised if she wishes she had tried a more diplomatic approach during those first few months in that high office in Phoenix. If not inclined to change, she can always change the drapes.

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