by Corinne Murdock | Jun 21, 2021 | Education, News
By Corinne Murdock |
Just over 87 percent of parents support school choice, according to a recent survey by Wordtips. The greatest majority of parents to express support were Black or African American parents at nearly 58 percent, followed by Hispanic or Latino parents at about 51 percent. A slight majority of parents reported that the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t change their perception of school choice; 2 in 5 parents supported school choice more since the pandemic.
776 parents were surveyed across the country. Nearly 53 percent were female and over 47 percent were male, averaging about 39 years old.
The study explained that nearly 90 percent of parent respondents understood the concept of school choice. A majority of respondents familiar with school choice were White, with Black or African American parents coming in a close second. Hispanic or Latino parents ranked third in familiarity, with Asians ranking last.
Access to safe schools was the primary reason that 87 percent of parents support school choice. Parents were nearly split on the runner-up reasons for supporting school choice: choosing better schools outside the district, greater flexibility for parents, supporting children’s talents, and better resources for children with learning disabilities or special needs.
Additionally, the concept of inclusivity was a sweeping reason for parental support of school choice: just over 65 percent of parents agreed with that sentiment. They believed it would make private and charter schools more inclusive environments.
Republicans strongly supported school choice by about 6 percent more than Democrats; independents and Democrats nearly tied on strong support, with Democrats strongly supporting school choice by about half a percentile more. Although, independents ranked higher on somewhat supporting school choice than both Republicans and Democrats.
Generation X strongly supported school choice slightly more than millennials.
Nearly half of the parents that expressed support for school choice reported that they don’t use it. The vast majority of those respondents explained that it was due to living in a district with a good public school.
Of the 116 parents that opposed school choice, over 46 percent said they were deterred by private and charter schools’ ability to deny admission. 42 percent reported that vouchers don’t provide full tuition. The three reasons listed after those two are often the top arguments for opposition to school choice: it takes away funding from public schools, it would lead to privatization of education, and it would benefit wealthier families over low-income ones.
Additionally, 46 percent of parents feared that school choice harbored a hidden agenda in which religious institutions would receive indirect, secret funding.
When asked what priorities schools should have, 43 percent of parents believed that “life skills” classes should be taught. A close second in desired priorities was increased teacher wages.
Corinne Murdock is a contributing reporter for AZ Free News. In her free time, she works on her books and podcasts. Follow her on Twitter, @CorinneMurdock or email tips to corinnejournalist@gmail.com.
by azfreenews1 | Jun 21, 2021 | Education, Opinion
By the Free Enterprise Club |
The indoctrination needs to stop. And thankfully, many parents are fed up.
For quite some time, activists have been trying to force Critical Race Theory or similar programs into government and especially our schools. This movement combines Marxist theories of class conflict within the lens of race. It teaches that some races have been “minoritized” and are considered oppressed while those who are “racially privileged” are called “exploiters.”
These sorts of programs made their way into our public schools because proponents of Critical Race Theory are good at disguising it. They use terms like “social justice,” “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “equity” which seem harmless enough. So, you can see how easy it could be for a busy parent with a mountain of responsibilities to overlook such a curriculum.
But parents around the state of Arizona are starting to catch on. And they’re speaking up.
In 2019, Chandler Unified School District adopted a program called “Deep Equity” (note that keyword). Parents spoke out then, and the program was phased out.
Just a few months ago, Litchfield Elementary School District published an “equity statement” along with a set of “equity goals.” These “goals” were presented at a school board meeting by a “district diversity committee” because someone on the school board must have been using their Critical Race Theory dictionary. But parents and other community members voiced their opposition, and the district agreed to revise these “goals.”
And last month, parents in Scottsdale demanded more transparency from the Scottsdale Unified School District after some parents heard indoctrination from teachers while their kids were in school online at home.
It’s great that parents are speaking up. And they should continue to do so. But multiple states around the country have started to ban Critical Race Theory. And parents should demand that Arizona lawmakers do the same.
>>> READ MORE >>>
by Loretta Hunnicutt | Jun 7, 2021 | Education, Opinion
By Loretta Hunnicutt |
Recently, the Arizona Attorney General settled civil rights cases involving Uber Eats, Postmates, and DoorDash in a case he was corporations with the “best of intentions” doing the “wrong thing.” The “wrong thing,” in this case, was offering “price distinctions based on a person’s race.”
The corporations in question planned on waiving delivery fees for black-owned restaurants. The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) found that the plan squarely violated equal access laws and the corporations were charged with public accommodations discrimination based on race.
The AGO alleged that the corporations unlawfully discriminated against non-Black owned restaurants and their patrons, in violation of the Arizona Civil Rights Act (ACRA).
“Even with the best of intentions, corporations can do the wrong thing. Altering the price of goods or services based on race is illegal,” said the Attorney General in a press release. “My office opened these investigations and pursued these settlements to protect civil rights and ensure businesses offer their services and products based on equal and neutral criteria.”
It is with the same good intentions that companies are doing the wrong thing across the country by funding “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” and “anti-racist” programs in school districts.
There is little doubt that the average company participating in the promotion of programs based on the aforementioned buzz words believe that they are advancing civil rights and social harmony. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. The Critical Race-based programs are creating deep divides and distrust in communities just as the Critical theorists intended.
Given that the majority of corporations exist for the most part because of capitalism, it is hard to conceive that they would ever knowingly support programs based on Western-Marxist philosophy, but that is exactly what they are doing.
Some more cynical observers suspect that the mega-corps are funding the “antiracist movement” in order to divide the middle- and lower-classes and thus keep them conquered. While the cynics might find a rare case, for the majority of companies it is the trust they have in educators that is driving their funding decision-making.
As it stands, corporations with the best of intentions are doing the wrong thing and creating nightmares for parents and children. I have confidence that this is not the intended outcome.
Contrary to the implications made by “antiracists,” parents are not objecting to “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” and “anti-racist” programs in school districts because they are bigots. It is quite the opposite: they do not want their children growing up to be the segregationists – the bigots – the Critical Race Theory-based proponents want them to be.
Companies have mostly relied on national and local chambers that mostly relied local educational organizations to decide where and what educational programs they funded. In the past, that process delivered good outcomes. Now, with the over-representation of the National Education Association by a wide margin on local school boards and state organizations like the Arizona School Board Association, the product of corporate spending on our classrooms can only lead to a proliferation of anti-capitalist, anti-corporatist, anti-American pedagogy.
As a result, it is essential that the small businesses that are the backbone of middle-America and the large corporations that benefit the most from them re-evaluate the resources they rely on to determine to whom those charitable dollars flow.
RELATED ARTICLE: Loretta Hunnicutt, Glenn Beck explore indoctrination in TUSD schools
by Dr. Thomas Patterson | May 21, 2021 | Education, Opinion
By Dr. Tom Patterson |
I recently took the test required for US citizenship applicants. It consisted of 20 out of 100 possible questions. It was shockingly simple.
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Constitution were all answers to straightforward questions. Probably the most difficult question was the minimum voting age (18). I’m no scholar but there was no doubt about any answer.
Yet only one of three American adults can achieve the 60% pass rate. It’s another stark reminder of the sorry condition of our public education system.
You see it everywhere. Most third grade graduates can’t read. High schools award diplomas to students with eighth grade (or worse) academic skills. Colleges must give remedial instruction before freshpersons can tackle even the most basic courses.
Employers complain about uneducated, untrainable college graduates. Tech companies lobby for visas so foreign workers can fill jobs where they can’t find qualified applicants.
America still has an academic elite which produces world leading research and wins prizes, but we suffer at every other level from the lack of academic attainment. Achievement scores have been stagnant for over 50 years, since teachers’ unions assumed de facto control of our public school systems.
Nothing new here, but the public school monopoly has been remarkably successful in fending off desperately needed reforms, like universal school choice. Instead of taking accountability for failures, they simply change the standards.
Arizona has had several iterations of “high stakes“ achievement tests in the last few decades, all created in response to unacceptably high failure rates on previous tests. Yet the public school monopoly is widely supported in demanding yet more money while delivering an inferior product.
The SAT and ACT college entrance exams have also quietly inflated their scores but they still serve as a useful tool for colleges in the admissions process. They prevent gaming of the system by grade inflation and help colleges identify students likely to be successful. Meanwhile, worthy but overlooked students are provided a pathway for proving themselves..
But this month, the University of California system announced it will no longer consider the SAT or ACT in their admissions process on the basis that they employ “racist metrics“. Over half of American four year colleges and universities also have dismissed these tests as requirements for the incoming class in 2021.
The truth is these tests have been thoroughly scrubbed for bias. They’re not racist in any honest sense of the term except that they produce differing results for racial groups. Biased testing is not the explanation, which more likely lies in in unequal opportunity and effort among the groups.
For example, Asian-American students spend 13 hours per week on homework according to a UCSD study. White students spend 5.5 hours weekly, Hispanic and black students less. Asian-American parents are education-oriented and stress the value of hard work.
However, high-end charter schools have shown that children of all races can learn when given the encouragement and rigorous instruction necessary. The mainstream response to these successes has been not emulation but attempts to shut them down or at least limit their growth.
Far from focusing on pathways to success, many public school systems are now promoting the notion that achievement itself is racist. Math instruction is considered to be biased against minorities because of its insistence on one right answer. “Show me your work“ is white. No, really.
Oregon and California are among states developing courses for teaching “equitable math instruction“. Worse, many public schools are starting to teach outright racial hate. Critical Race Theory has likely come to a school near you, without bothering to notify parents.
This is the notion that racism and slavery were the founding principles of America. White people alone are inherently, incurably racist. They must own their racism rather than deny it or advocate racial equality, which only proves their guilt.
We are facing an uncertain future if we continue to produce an uneducated, polarized citizenry. The ray of hope may lie with parents made newly aware during the Covid epidemic.
Reports are growing of concerned parent groups rising up around the country to protest the academic failings and intolerant teaching prevalent in our public schools. May their tribe increase.
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.
by B. Hamilton | May 20, 2021 | Education, News
By B. Hamilton |
The Scottsdale Unified Governing Board canceled its meeting on Tuesday, May 18th, 2021, according to Board President, Jann-Michael Greenburg, because of “a belligerent mob.” Greenburg was referring to the parents who had come to the meeting hoping to be heard on the subjects of masks, and Critical Race Theory-based curriculum.
Even though the Board was, admittedly, well aware and prepared for the number of parents that came to attend the meeting, they still chose to recess the meeting after three minutes. The Board then opened the meeting again just long enough to scold parents before gaveling it to an end.
In an interview on the James T. Harris show on KFYI News Talk 550 AM, one attendee, Amy Carney, stated that while she had never attended a school board meeting before, the pandemic opened up many parents’ eyes to what is happening in schools and what is not happening in schools.
Carney said questions about the Scottsdale district due to the fact that private schools and religious schools were able to open classrooms while Scottsdale schools were shuttered. She noted that the private schools have not seen any more cases of COVID than her kids’ schools, leaving her and other parents to wonder why.
Carney explained that more and more parents began asking the same questions and before anyone knew it, parents are “now awake.” That “wokeness” is fueling the increase parent participation on the school board level.
Carney was shocked by the Board’s decision to shut the meeting down as the parents were neither belligerent nor out-of-line. According to Carney, the parents went from determined to defeated after the Board exerted their power. They may have felt defeated, but it was only momentary. Carney vowed future engagement as have parents across the state once they experience the heavy hand of bureaucrats.
That parental population is growing. The Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board isn’t the first board that has decided not to hold a meeting because they disagreed with the parents that showed up. Just recently the Vail school board shut down a meeting rather than allow parents to speak.
Across the state, groups of parents are organizing to take back the education of their children, ensuring that the Scottsdale Board was not the first to face a “mob,” of mid-mannered parents, nor will it be the last.
by Corinne Murdock | May 19, 2021 | Education, News
By Corinne Murdock |
A coalition of Peoria mothers descended on a Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) Governing Board meeting last week to demand an end to critical race theory (CRT) influences in the classroom. Near the end of their public remarks, one mother warned the board members that if they didn’t eradicate CRT from PUSD, then parents would remove their kids.
“If not parents, I want you to know this: the first 100 days of the school year, you yank your kids out of this district. And you will bankrupt this district. Because at the end of the day, it’s all about money. And we all know it. So if they don’t do it, parents – first 100 days, take your kids out. It’s not worth what you will get if you let this go full circle. If you don’t believe me, go to California.”
That mother explained that she and her family fled California after CRT in their schools destroyed their communities. She said that she’d seen how, in real time, the “flowery names” of CRT, diversity, equity, and inclusion ruined schools.
“It has not a thing to do with equality. It has to do with payback. It turned our schools into war zones. [It] was insane – the ‘inclusion’ part was really great too – they break you up into little subcategories and they pit everyone against everyone. I lived it. My 21-year-old son is still dealing with the after-effects,” said the mother. “It is a nightmare. I moved to Arizona to get away from this, only to find it to take root here. And it is on your watch. You are to be the guardians of these people’s children. I don’t want their voices heard. I want their voices listened to. You remember, you had this chance to stop what people are running from. They say 240 Californians are coming here every day. And I can tell you why. It doesn’t work.”
Some mothers presented receipts: emails obtained from open records requests. Another mother documented an email exchange involving PUSD Social Studies Curriculum and Instructional Specialist Jen Mundy, which she reported was proof that teachers were being bribed by EverFi with $15 Amazon gift cards for teacher referrals.
As AZ Free News reported, EverFi is an online educational platform that specializes in social justice curriculum. In an email copy obtained by AZ Free News, one EverFi director did offer teachers $15 Amazon gift cards for each successful referral to another teacher. As we reported previously, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is one of EverFi’s top donors.
The mother also cited an email from an elementary school principal, which reportedly called parents “wackos” for challenging the curriculum.
“‘Parents are wackos with a platform to spread propaganda.’ Does the administration not view parents as partners?” asked the mother. “We elect you, school board members. We should be partnering together. We are entrusting our children to you for their education. Are you going to continue to condone administration speaking this way about parents? Why is the administration being told to silence parents? I will not be silenced. Parents will not be silenced.”
The mother also claimed that EverFi 306: Continuing Stories, a curriculum focused on African American history, was being paid for by the NFL and Arizona Cardinals. AZ Free News has been unable to verify that claim. EverFi markets its courses as free to K-12 educators.
That mother also brought up a survey administered to students by EverFi’s Diversity Foundations program called “Recognizing Privilege.” She said that it asked children private questions about their home life.
“This is a third-party vendor that is collecting personal data on our kids. Where is this data going and how will they use it?” asked the mother.
The mother then cited remarks made during the Arizona School Boards Association’s (ASBA) annual Equity Event, which she noted some PUSD board members attended.
“One of the guest speakers, Calvin Terrell stated that: ‘White privilege families abuse IEPs [individualized educational plans] for their kids to get into Ivy League Schools.’ I have three kids on IEPs who need these plans and services to succeed in school,” said the mother. “Because my kids are white, do they fall into this statement, President Sandoval?”
While she was on the subject, the mother took a moment to criticize the ASBA’s Equity Event. She challenged PUSD Board President David Sandoval for the content and nature of that event.
“The ASBA Equity Event tries to create a divide in America by trying to shame kids into apologizing [for] something they never were. We should be teaching our kids about seeing and valuing humanity, not colors,” said the mother. “David Sandoval, your actions speak louder than any statement you give.”
Another mother, Jodi Brackett, presented a passage printed in her son’s yearbook declaring that no lives mattered until black lives mattered. As she raised the book for the board to see, attendees gasped and booed.
“This […] should never be in any kid’s yearbook: ‘All lives won’t matter until black lives matter,’” read Brackett. “That is unacceptable. And I think everyone knows that all lives matter. And this should never be advertised in a yearbook.”
Brackett also noted that CRT shouldn’t be in schools because of its Marxist elements.
Another mother pleaded with the board members to stand strong and be leaders against CRT.
“Do not lose your authenticity in an attempt to be liked by the sick-minded who are trying to convert your schools into indoctrination factories,” said the mother. “You are also parents yourselves. It is impossible to believe that you will embrace for your own kids such [a] curriculum injected with hatred and adult content materials.”
The mother noted that she couldn’t discuss some of the curriculum because it was prohibited by board rules – though her son was learning about it in class.
“The Code of Conduct when addressing the board lists ‘no political views, no sexual content.’ So I, an adult, am not allowed in this forum, to bring for show-and-tell, pornographic material or talk about sexual orientations – but you are voting to give permission to the superintendent, to in turn give permission to [the] master of curriculum to do just that,” noted the mother.
She also pointed out that the board was being hypocritical by having police present at the meeting, though they allow EverFi educational content that promotes defunding the police through its teachings on Black Lives Matter (BLM). The mother’s point earned applause.
BLM’s call for police to be defunded, #DefundthePolice, gained traction last year after the death of George Floyd.
Another mother, Gina Blair, explained that CRT would only hurt children and divide the country further.
“What happened to looking at someone’s heart and character and judging them on that very important factor only? Isn’t that the one true way to be truly non-biased [sic] and not racist?” said Blair. “Please understand we elected you as board members
Blair explained that she was very well-versed in inclusion, considering her two school-aged children have severe disabilities, and that CRT wasn’t inclusion. She said that teaching inclusion had nothing to do with modifying history.
Watch the mothers’ full remarks here:
Corinne Murdock is a contributing reporter for AZ Free News. In her free time, she works on her books and podcasts. Follow her on Twitter, @CorinneMurdock or email tips to corinnejournalist@gmail.com.
