Stealth. That has been the watchword of the Koch brothers and their allies since they laid out their plan of attack on the country’s political system some 40 years ago. Do all our work under cover of darkness, they decided. The other side won’t know what hit them until it’s too late.

True to its roots, the University of Arizona’s Freedom Center, whose funders include the Kochs and members of the Koch network, prefers to avoid publicity whenever possible. It succeeded admirably when it managed to sneak the high school course, Phil 101: Ethics, Economy, and Entrepreneurship, into the TUSD curriculum. The school board had no idea the course was being taught at four of its district’s high schools.

The course remained well below the TUSD board’s radar throughout its first year, 2016-17, and into the second. That’s when I got a tip about its existence and did some digging. In October I wrote about the course and its connections to the Freedom Center. Others in the media followed suit. The Freedom Center folks were not happy.

At a December meeting, the TUSD board decided to cancel the course at the end of the school year, though the members left the door open for putting it back into the curriculum at a later date. In July, the board took up the topic once again but tabled a vote on whether to reinstate the course. One reason was, the textbook, which was written by the same people who created the course, had not been properly authorized by the board.

Skip forward to the present. The district planned to have a 60 day public review of the textbook, which is standard operating procedure prior to authorization. The review was set to begin September 4, but the book’s authors said they wouldn’t allow the district to put a digital copy online, even though that’s what most publishers do these days. That meant anyone wanting to take a look at the book had to go to a district office and sit there reading a hard copy.

TUSD responded by postponing the review until it can form a committee to evaluate the textbook.

The Freedom Center has opted once again for stealth over transparency. I’m left with two questions. First, why are the authors worried about the public reading the book and critiquing its contents? Second, why should a public school district — emphasis on the word “public” — consider using a course whose creators refuse to allow the public to take a close look at their work?

Ethics, Economy, and Entrepreneurship. That’s the title of the course and the textbook. I get the “entrepreneurship” angle when it comes to keeping the book away from public scrutiny. Sometimes it’s good business to hold some of your work close to the vest. But ethics? I have trouble understanding how denying the public the opportunity to take a close look at the way a public school textbook presents its subject matter can be considered ethical business practice.

This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2018.

18 replies on “Freedom Center-Affiliated Authors Refuse to Put Their Phil. 101 Textbook Online For TUSD Review”

  1. Please provide a link to a website where the full MAS curriculum is available for review. There was a nationwide uproar over what happened with that TUSD curriculum, and to my knowledge the public has NEVER been given the opportunity to understand what was being taught in those courses. (Nor was the state department of education given the opportunity; when they tried to examine it, there was nothing but bits and pieces taken out of context to look at. Read the trial transcripts.)

    So please dont try to give us the impression that failures of transparency RE curriculum like this Freedom Center debacle are an unheard of departure from the norm in TUSD.

    (Perhaps the Libertarians should take a few pages from the MAS play book:
    1. Bring in a speaker to communicate that Democrats hate Latinos.
    2. When constituents complain and the state department of education tries to audit the curriculum, make it disappear.)

    Looks to me like within the last decade, two different politicized groups have slipped curricula into TUSD and, when caught doing so, have failed to pony up materials that they know would whip up a firestorm of criticism from their ideological opponents and the public. So both curricula, MAS and Freedom Centers, will stay out of TUSD. Works for me.

    (These curricula will stay out, that is, unless someone sneaks them in again. Funny how the introduction of curricular materials governance has not approved and the public has not reviewed seems to keep happening in this district.)

  2. The parallels are superficial at best. MAS used textbooks that could be easily reviewed–they were not written in someone’s basement, (just a figure of speech) with no peer review, citations or bibliography, and they were not published out of the authors’ house. Not only did the Phil 101 publishers/authors not provide a digital copy, but there are also no hard copies available. We are to believe that the “third edition” is the one that will be used in the future and the only copies that Amazon has (1 new and 2 used as of a few weeks ago) are edition one. The copy that is reviewed online is the first edition, and there is no bookstore that has hard copies of the famed third edition either. So as of quite recently, the hard copy at 1010 is the ONLY copy that exists of the book. While we appreciate that they cleaned up the truly egregious numbers of typos and grammatical errors in the first edition, (perhaps there was also no proofreader…), it certainly does seem that they are — once again–using the money that inflates their importance to get a break from the kind of common practices that everyone else has to use. Like letting the public review your textbooks.

    You certainly can turn this into another case of TUSD malfeasance, but that would be really REALLY missing the elephant in the room (but some people can’t resist turning everything into another story of TUSD perfidy). 1) TUSD is trying to follow its own procedures now, and is being blocked from doing so by 2)the privileged Koch brother (and Arizona legislature) funded department on campus that doesn’t have to play by the rules. (And doesn’t believe in taxation until the taxes pay for its own professors!!) Does money talk at UA? You BET. IT HOLLERS! (And I am saying that as an alum that just had to say no 10 times to the sophomore who called me and tried to engage me in a conversation about my days at UA all the while trying to move me toward contributing). While the Kochs and the legislature and various members of the Koch donor groups (like the Templeton Foundation) can fund a substandard textbook that they do not make available and yet will probably STILL get reviewed, the rest of the university is literally begging for nickels and dimes from its alums. Pretty pathetic state of affairs, and hardly one that warrants turning the sites of your razor sharp analysis on the actions of TUSD at this time.

  4. And yet with Phil 101, Betts Putnam Hidalgo, the single textbook, of which copies of earlier editions are available, gives the public a better sense of what the actual program of instruction was in a course that follows that text closely than does a list of potential MAS texts that may or may not have been taught in any given teachers individual version of a loosely structured course, missing the curricular structure in which those texts were embedded. Which is not to say that we (the public) have ever been given a complete MAS book list. Is such a list available? Could we have it please?

  5. I don’t know if such a list is available anymore (it was back when this was relevant–) but the program was shut down and later vindicated as you no doubt know. My point, though, was that your insistence at turning everything into a battering ram for TUSD–even when they are trying to do the RIGHT thing–is more an indication of your own PTSD from your experiences there than an indication of their continued malfeasance. I’m not saying that there are no problems there, I’m just saying its a lot more effective to point a spotlight on them when they are actually erring, than to move the spotlight from where it needs to be right now–on authors of a textbook who also are designers of the course and curriculum–who will not make it available to the public to review. And where does your information come from that the course follows the textbook closely? How would you even know–have you been down to 1010 to review it and have you either sat in or taught the course?

  6. I have my child in TUSD. It has been a great experience for him, and I have full confidence in the teachers and administrators that I’ve come in contact with.

  7. Good for you. And which TUSD school would that be? Warren? Utterback?

    There are very different levels of quality delivered in different TUSD schools. Do you know what parents in low SES, high minority neighborhoods are getting from TUSD? Does your vote of confidence in TUSD imply an endorsement of what goes on in THEIR schools?

  8. Dear “Conditions vary”: Are you also “TUSDs recurring problems” who made two comments earlier? Just asking.

  9. The information that the Phil 101 course follows the textbook closely comes from previous discussions in Safiers blog and in these comment streams. That is the way the course was described: no curricular plan is needed because the textbook is the course. That was not the case with MAS. There was a list of books that could be used at the discretion of individual teachers and it sounded like there were themes or curricular goals for each unit, but when the state responded to complaints it received by requesting a curriculum plan with scope and sequence to review, no such material was provided. All they had to look at were bits and pieces that families whose students had taken the course (and in one case, a teacher) had submitted to them together with complaints. (That information about MAS comes from testimony in the most recent trial. If you read the transcripts you will find it.) The judgment in the trial was a judgment relating to the way Horne and the legislature had acted in handling complaints about the curriculum. It was not a judgment that the curriculum was sound, nor was it a judgment that TUSD had handled its public process / transparency issues surrounding the curriculum properly during the period leading up to the curriculum beginning to run in the districts classrooms.

    True, in the case of Phil 101 you would need to read the textbook and sit in on the course to verify that what was asserted was in fact the case. So someone should do that in one of the other districts where the course is running, if governance is proposing to approve running the course in TUSD.

    The point I am making here is that some people are not really promoting the uniform application of transparency. They use transparency as a weapon when it serves their political purposes. Some of the people involved in the outrage over Phil 101 were involved in the MAS controversies and dispensed no requests for the public to be allowed to review that curriculum and no outrage in that context over the MAS communitys failure to pony up a scope and sequence to the state. That is a fact that is independent of any single persons positive or negative experiences of TUSD, and it is valid to draw attention to it. And no, the district does not get points for using correct process only when it serves the partisan political aims of some to do so. When it begins using proper process uniformly and has a demonstrated track record of some duration (longer than one school year, for example) of finding it possible to prevent unapproved, unreviewed, politicized pseudo-curricula from slipping into its classrooms, then you can complain about observations like those Ive made here. In the meantime, as I wrote above, TUSDs recurring problems are what they are.

  10. David Safier: did you use one of your blogs to call attention to the fact that the MAS curriculum had not been approved in a proper public process prior to being taught in the districts classrooms? Did you call for a copy of that curriculum to be made available for public review?

    Yet you write, “why are the authors [of Ethics, Economy and Entrepreneurship] worried about the public reading the book and critiquing its contents? Second, why should a public school district emphasis on the word ‘public’ consider using a course whose creators refuse to allow the public to take a close look at their work?”

    Such great questions. So if you applied them to the parallel situation of MAS at any point during your career as a blogger, please do provide the links so we can review your uniform advocacy in support of TRANSPARENCY.

    (Doesn’t this blog actually fall under the rubric of use any weapon that falls to hand to block the spread of Libertarianism not SUPPORT TRANSPARENCY!? So why not BE HONEST and portray it for what it really is?

    Just asking.)

  11. Jacob, it only makes sense that you support TUSD. All we had to do was look at your previous posts.

    “Chavez and Dolores Huerta are in a new documentary TATANKA screening Wed, April 16, 6pm at the AZ Intl. Film Festival downtown Tucson. The film is about the idealism of the Sixties clashing with the realities of the present day–come check it out! http://www.tatankamovie.com.”

    Parent/activist?

  12. Personally, I give no credence to comments by authors who don’t have the courage to put their name on their comments. I think the Tucson Weekly should only accept comments from people with verifiable names.

  13. You cant tell fact from fiction unless there is a name attached? Fact is fact because its documentable, not because theres a name attached to it. A lot of things that DO have names attached are misleading or are outright lies. You dont have to watch Southern Arizona politics long at all to figure THAT out.

  15. All these comments prove one thing: politics is indeed tribal. Very little objectivity and reasoned arguments. Plenty of name calling. And meanwhile, TUSD is crumbling by all objective measures. Those that empowered themselves to be the “voice of concerned parents” should run for the TUSD board and get some legitimate representation -if they win, that is – and then enact some real change. Until then, I suggest you present your comments as personal opinions, not as expressing the will of the people, whatever that may be.

    And Safier fails to point out the real source of incompetence: TUSD leadership. If “the school board had no idea the course was being taught at four of its district’s high schools.” it is their responsibility. How is the failure to follow TUSD’s due process UA’s fault?!?

    Finally, any author and editorial have the prerogative to decide how their creations can be made available to the public. According to Trujillo’s comments on news reports, TUSD regulations require hard copies, Providing an electronic copy for the public means the books are now free to the world. No one should have the power to force any author to do that.

  16. I am having a good laugh at the “dislike” counts on the critical post that disagrees with the cheerleaders of the “progressive” movement… lol… Seriously? From 8 dislikes to 70+ in one night?… Same for the pumping the “likes” of the preaching they agree with…hahaha… I doubt 20 people total have read this article!… Anyway, keep the clicking going you guys… hilarious….

  17. Unless you have figured out a way to jimmy the system, I don’t think it lets you “like” more than once from the same computer….but then anyone who can make repeated comments under multiple names to make it look like they really are more than one person’s opinions probably HAS figured out how to do so! .And to an earlier commenter who I will maintain the myth is not the same person appearing under multiple names in the comment stream above: Yes, I think its true that the regulations only require hard copies. But that says more about the age of the regulations than anything else. In this day and age, the only way to actually get PUBLIC input (something that is transparent, even critics would agree) is to go (readable ONLY) digital (which is extremely common) because the books are only held at 1010 during office hours so automatically no working person or parent can see them. And finally, particularly in this town, I don’t think that winning in the political game is the only way you can represent others and make change…I’d really be a quitter if I did! Elections are only one (often highly rigged) way to make change.

  18. TUSD appointed a textbook review committee for the Freedom Center’s textbook. The committee met three times this fall, and the committee members have provided their feedback on the textbook to TUSD. The TUSD Board is expected to vote on the textbook and probably the course at its Dec. 11, 2018 meeting. The public can send their comments about the textbook and the course to the TUSD Board at governingboard@tusd1.org. Send your comments by Dec. 5, 2018.

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