After having already received over $1 billion in CARES ACT ESSER and ESSER II funding for Arizona’s schools, Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman issued a publicly paid for press release to expressed her gratitude to Arizona’s democratic congressional delegation for the passage of the American Rescue Plan.
According to Hoffman, the Plan will provide nearly $2.6 billion dollars to Arizona for K-12 education, of which the Arizona Department of Education will allocate 90% of those funds directly to public schools.
“The latest round of federal relief and recovery dollars comes at a time of high need for Arizona’s schools and families as many prepare for a return to some degree of in-person learning. From teaching and learning to providing critical wrap around supports, over the past year, every Arizonan has seen just how essential our schools are to our communities,” said Hoffman in her press release. “I am grateful to the members of Arizona’s delegation who supported the American Rescue Plan, their advocacy and their votes are essential to our recovery as a state.”
As noted by Hoffman, schools are essential, and as a result, parents have gone in search of those essential service providers. Public school enrollment is down by approximately 38,000 students for the 2020-2021 school year compared to last year.
Despite the fact that the Arizona Department of Education released a report showing public school enrollment is declining dramatically, funding for schools is growing due to COVID by nearly the same dramatic rate.
ESSER allocations were only for Title I districts and were set by the federal government. Non title I districts did not receive a direct allocation from the federal government through the CARES act so the Department used its discretionary funds to ensure they had access to relief dollars, according to Richie Taylor with the Arizona Department of Education.
TOP 20 ESSR RECEIPIENTS
TOP 20 ESSR II RECEIPIENTS
LEA NAME
ESSER Fund Allocation
ESSER II Allocation
TOTAL
Tucson Unified District
$18,558,099.29
$76,396,636.50
$94,954,735.79
Mesa Unified District
$17,062,873.58
$70,241,361.27
$87,304,234.85
Phoenix Union High School District
$11,993,688.79
$49,373,455.48
$61,367,144.27
Cartwright Elementary District
$7,999,141.31
$32,929,422.74
$40,928,564.05
Washington Elementary School District
$7,318,952.59
$30,129,344.49
$37,448,297.08
Alhambra Elementary District
$6,507,560.37
$26,789,151.34
$33,296,711.71
Sunnyside Unified District
$5,721,902.88
$23,554,897.94
$29,276,800.82
Glendale Elementary District
$4,804,642.37
$19,778,885.64
$24,583,528.01
Roosevelt Elementary District
$4,701,263.40
$19,329,140.54
$24,030,403.94
Paradise Valley Unified District
$4,513,659.06
$18,581,882.84
$23,095,541.90
Phoenix Elementary District
$4,420,353.51
$17,741,161.13
$22,161,514.64
Peoria Unified School District
$4,230,397.55
$17,414,938.09
$21,645,335.64
Glendale Union High School District
$4,163,991.22
$17,141,568.48
$21,305,559.70
Dysart Unified District
$3,914,351.21
$16,114,569.28
$20,028,920.49
Isaac Elementary District
$3,839,593.72
$15,565,659.76
$19,405,253.48
Deer Valley Unified District
$3,656,154.10
$15,072,832.22
$18,728,986.32
Chandler Unified District #80
$3,276,351.66
$13,574,728.96
$16,851,080.62
Creighton Elementary District
$3,317,717.18
$13,452,995.34
$16,770,712.52
Amphitheater Unified District
$3,173,678.01
$13,002,600.04
$16,176,278.05
Today, I am pleased to announce the allocation of ESSER II dollars to our state’s public district & non-profit charter schools. Every school must have the necessary resources to support its students, staff, and families throughout the #COVID19 pandemic.
At yesterday’s teacher roundtable, educators discussed the issues regarding teacher mental health and wellbeing. They also expressed viable solutions to help overcome the addressed challenges such as providing teachers with supportive resources and better financial opportunities. pic.twitter.com/K8e9kXLJJR
While multiple studies show that students are suffering greatly from school closures including increased anxiety and even suicide, Hoffman has been nearly silent on the subject of student mental health and what programs might be developed with the millions in surplus monies not allocated to schools to improve students’ mental and intellectual well-being.
The Democrats discovered electoral gold in 2020. They featured a historically weak, senile presidential candidate backed by a radically left-wing US senator. Yet they were able to win a record 85 million votes cast for their unattractive candidates.
How did they do it? They ignored traditional methods of garnering voter support—rallies, platforms, showcasing the candidates and their vision for governing. Instead, they focused on manipulating the election system itself, creating and exploiting ballot uncertainty and potential fraud.
It worked so well that Nancy Pelosi is attempting to permanently institutionalize the stratagems that brought victory with the obvious goal of tilting elections permanently to Democrats. It’s called HR1, the (humor alert) For the People Act.
HR1 would federalize all significant election law, incorporating the most fraud-friendly aspects that made the 2020 election suspect to so many Americans. For example, the bill would greatly expand mail-in voting. Bulk mail voting, by demolishing the chain of custody for ballots, is inherently susceptible to non-detectable fraud.
The New York Times recognized that mail-in balloting makes it “much easier“ to buy and sell votes and renders elderly voters especially vulnerable to coercion and exploitation. The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project deemed the “significant cost to the integrity of the voting process“ sufficient to justify ending the process. Yes, ending.
Instead, HR1 blocks attempted reforms at mail-in voting. The bill prohibits states from “requiring any form of identification as a condition of receiving an absentee ballot“ or requiring a witness, notarization or any other form of signature authentication.
Moreover, the voter rolls used for mailing would still be protected from “purging“, i.e. updating. This means hundreds of thousands of ballots addressed to dead, moved or ineligible voters can easily be cast by anyone who found them.
Ballot harvesting ratchets up even more opportunities for fraud. For example, party workers walk door-to-door in selected neighborhoods, helpfully offering to assist residents in filling out and delivering ballots and then submitting piles of completed ballots. No safeguards are present to prevent throwing out unwanted ballots. Naturally, ballot harvesting is legalized without limit in HR1.
Bulk mail voting available to anonymous recipients with ballot harvesting serving as the delivery system turns elections into contests to see which party can more successfully scale up legalized fraud. Any party hoping to win an election would be forced to participate. Possessing scruples against organized vote manipulation would be a recipe for failure.
But wait, there’s more. States would also be mandated to except same-day registration. They would be forced to count late arriving ballots for 10 days after the election. Virtually any effort by poll workers to check ID or verify that a vote is legally cast is prohibited.
Let’s connect the dots here. An illegal immigrant, using his “papers”, could register the day of the election and then demand a ballot. By law, poll workers must comply so long as he simply attests to citizenship. (If found out later, he would face no penalties). Thus he could cast a “legal” ballot that is virtually untraceable.
HR 1 would also require political causes and candidates to disclose their donors. Ideally, transparency would be desirable. In the world we live in, the Left has become very aggressive at harassing and canceling supporters of conservative causes.
Countless workers, including CEOs, have lost their jobs and their voice for donating to conservative causes or speaking out. Since sanctions for advocacy work in only one direction, the effect of forced disclosure would be to further hamstring the Right.
The given justification for all this is voter suppression. Yet voter suppression is virtually nonexistent, a relic of our past. It is difficult to find an interested, eligible voter who is thwarted from voting by the system or anyone who thinks they should be. Registration is convenient and broadly available, while transportation is provided free for potential voters.
In the end, HR 1 may come down to a test of whether our Constitution still protects us from tyranny. The premise is that purposeful voter suppression requires that we legalize fraud potential.
If Democrats can get Americans to believe that, they’re in. Free and fair elections are out.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
A bill to limit the state’s 15 county recorders to participating in voter registration events only on government-owned locations appears to have died following pushback from election officials, including Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
SB1358 would amend state law to ban county recorders, who are elected to office, from engaging in voter registration events at any “location, facility or property” that is not government owned. However, the bill introduced by Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita (R-LD23) has been mired in the Senate since Feb. 24.
ARS 16-134 currently requires a county recorders to make voter registration forms available free of charge at locations “throughout the county such as government offices, fire stations, public libraries and other locations open to the general public.” It also requires recorders to provide a voter registration form to any qualified person who makes such a request.
For years county recorders have utilized large-attendance events to help reach as many new voters as possible to maximize the return of their time and expense.
But Ugenti-Rita’s would restrict the elected county recorders from conducting voter registration activities at places like churches and synagogues, nursing homes, private colleges, homeowner association centers, American Legion halls, even shopping malls. And if the local county fair is held at property owned by a nonprofit group instead of the county, then that would be a no-no as well.
“I have seen where we’ve had a recorder who likes to frequent certain kinds of events at the exclusion of others,” Ugenti-Rita said during a meeting of the Senate Committee on Government, which she chairs. “We want to make sure we’re hitting all voters and not just setting up voter registration at certain events that may more align with our political views than others.”
Even if SB1358 were to pass out of the Senate its prospects for passing the House are uncertain due to strong opposition from the majority of the elected county recorders as well as the Arizona Association of Counties.
Reading, writing, arithmetic…these aren’t controversial topics, and neither should be the education of our children. Kids are supposed to go to school to learn life skills and become productive members of society. This isn’t complicated. And yet, schools are increasingly becoming the primary tool of a radical agenda to indoctrinate children in leftist ideology.
Take the 1619 Project for example. Various schools across the country have adopted a history curriculum centered on this series of essays from The New York Times,which claims that the United States was actually founded on slavery in the year 1619.
But the radicalization doesn’t stop there.
A school district policy in Madison, Wisconsin not only helps children adopt transgender identities, but it instructs teachers to lie about it to parents.
And right here in Peoria, Arizona, parents are dealing with similar frustrations after district officials denied them access to review learning materials that appear to be based on the principles of the Black Lives Matter organization.
In a year that’s already been challenging enough for parents as they’ve navigated through COVID, online learning, “sick outs,” and more, you would think that school districts would seek to build trust with them.
But apparently some public schools are too committed to their agenda.
Thankfully, the Arizona Senate is seeking to create more transparency through SB1058. This bill, which has now been transmitted to the House, requires district and charter schools to post a list of procedures used to review and approve learning materials on a prominent portion of their websites. In addition, they would also have to post procedures by which a parent can review learning materials in advance.
But what about district and charter schools that do not have such procedures? They would have to clearly state this on their websites.
While Arizona law currently allows for parents to review learning materials, the process hasn’t always been easy. And many parents have grown frustrated by officials who block access to curriculum.
But SB1058 would allow for more transparency from schools without burdening the staff. This should be a win-win for everyone involved, except of course for schools that have something to hide.
After all, any school that’s currently featuring the 1619 Project as part of its history curriculum probably doesn’t want parents to know that several renowned historians have criticized it for being inaccurate and pushing a false narrative. And they also probably don’t want them to know that Nikole Hannah-Jones, the architect behind the 1619 Project, has admitted that the whole point behind it is to make an argument for slavery reparations.
But a bill like SB1058 would help bring this to light. And while more work needs to be done, this is definitely a step in the right direction. Parents have a right to know if ahistorical and fringe topics are being taught to their children. And now the House needs to pass this essential piece of legislation to give parents the transparency they deserve from the schools their children attend.
On Thursday, as the Biden administration hints at increased restrictions on Second Amendment rights, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar and U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith introduced the GRIP Act. The Act would prohibit states, localities, or any other organization from using federal funding to maintain gun registries.
There are 41 original cosponsors of the House measure including Rep. Andy Biggs and Rep. David Schweikert.
The GRIP Act (Gun-owner Registration Information Protection Act) would, according to Gosar, clarify existing law that prohibits the use of any federal funding by states or local entities to store or list sensitive, personal information related to the legal ownership or possession of firearms.
The legislation is in response to states that in recent years enacted statutes requiring gun owners to register their handguns.
Current law prevents the federal government from storing information acquired during the firearms background process. The GRIP Act would ensure the federal government does not support, either intentionally or otherwise, state or local efforts to collect and store personally identifiable information related to legal firearm purchases and ownership.
This legislation further clarifies that states and local entities cannot use federal grant funds from programs, such as the National Criminal Histories Improvement Program, NICS Amendment Records Improvement Program, or the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, to create or maintain full or partial gun registries.
The measure does not include any limitations related to state recordkeeping for permitting, law enforcement-issued firearms, or lost or stolen firearms.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) supports the bill.
“On behalf of our more than 5 million members, the National Rifle Association thanks Senator Hyde-Smith and Congressman Gosar for introducing this important piece of legislation to prevent the use of federal funds to create a national gun owner registry. Biden-Pelosi-Schumer and their gun control cohorts have longed for the disarming of America, and a national gun registry is a dangerous step towards reaching that goal,” said Jason Ouimet, executive director, NRA Institute for Legislative Action.
