by Terri Jo Neff | Jun 24, 2021 | Education, News
By Terri Jo Neff |
The State Senate worked into the early hours Wednesday to pass an 11-bill budget packet, and now all eyes turn to the 60 members of the House which is slated to take up the bills Thursday.
But questions remain as to whether House Speaker Rusty Bowers can ensure 31 votes on the budget bill involving K-12 Education funding.
The Senate pushed its bills through a marathon of 16 to 14 party line votes which started Tuesday and did not end until 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. Many of those bills included amendments, including SB1826, the Senate’s K-12 budget bill, which as passed includes a major expansion of eligibility for Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs).
An ESA allows an eligible child to receive credit for most of the government education funding that would have been paid to the student’s public or charter school. Those funds can then be used toward private school expenses, including tuition, counseling, tuition, and other necessary costs.
The Senate’s K-12 bill jumps the number of students eligible for an ESA from 256,000 to nearly 726,000. However, the House K-12 budget bill, HB2898, does not currently expand ESA eligibility. And two Republicans whose votes are needed to pass any budget bill have been staunchly opposed an ESA expansion.
Those Republicans are Rep. Joel John (R-LD4) and Rep. Michelle Udall (R-LD25). Both have worked as educators, and it was their opposition earlier in the session that killed an ESA expansion bill introduced by Sen. Paul Boyer.
How strong the opposition of John and Udall is to expanding ESA criteria will be tested Thursday due to the fact Senate President Karen Fann included one of Udall’s own education-related bills in the same Senate’s K-12 budget amendment. There are also items in the amendment that John is known to support.
Less than 10,000 of the students in K-12 who are currently eligible for an ESA utilize the program. Assuming the same percent of eligible students enroll under the new criteria as under the current criteria, then nearly 2,000 new students would benefit in Fiscal Year 2022. That number of new students could grow to nearly 6,000 in Fiscal year 2024, according to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.
Boyer, an educator for a charter school, introduced his bill back in February and was able to get it through the Senate on a 16 to 14 party line vote. It then stalled in the House when it became clear Bowers did not have the necessary 31 votes for passage due to John and Udall’s opposition.
For the last few weeks Boyer had withheld support for the Senate’s 11-bill budget package, which he believed needed to provide more funding for education and paying down Arizona’s debt. With ESA and other expenditures added as amendments his vote turned to a yes. Whether Bowers can find a way to bring John and Udall on board for Thursday’s vote remains to be seen.
Those who support the ESA expansion include the Center for Arizona Policy, the Barry Goldwater Institute for Public Policy Research, and the Republican Liberty Caucus- Arizona.
by Dr. Thomas Patterson | Jun 22, 2021 | Education, Opinion
By Dr. Tom Patterson |
Yale, which protects its fragile students from dead white authors and offensive Halloween costumes, nevertheless featured a psychiatrist lecturing at Grand Rounds of her fantasies “unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, wiping my bloody hands, like I did the world a f___ing big favor.”
Grand Rounds is an educational presentation by which teaching hospitals augment routine clinical training with presentations of unusual cases or medical advances. It’s not a political forum nor a venue to permit social causes.
Yet Dr. Aruna Khilanani, a New York psychiatrist, gave a widely-advertised speech on “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.“ “There are no good apples out there. White people make my blood boil“ she informed the assembled doctors-in-training.
She backed up her opinions by “taking some actions. I systematically white-ghosted most of my white friends “including some “white BIPOCs.” Talking to white people is a “waste of time. We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks they are saints or superheroes to accept responsibility. It ain’t going to happen. They have five holes in their brain.”
We’re well aware that there are bigots with pathological tendencies from both political extremes out there. Until now they haven’t been featured in legitimate academic settings. Not only that, her lecture was well received in some quarters.
A Yale psychologist pronounced her talk “absolutely brilliant”. A woman thanked the doctor for “giving voice to us as people of color.”
Dr. Khilanani was given space in the Washington Post to explain that any negative reactions were mistaken. She simply was concerned about “minority mental health“. She hoped to stimulate “more serious conversations about race,“ rather remarkable considering she had just claimed reasoning with whites was impossible due to their inherent evil.
After some faculty members expressed concern, the medical school leadership allowed that “the tone and continent were antithetical to the values of the school.” Their response was to limit access to the lecture video to members of the Yale community.
But their concerns were primarily with the vulgarity and lack of respect in the speech. They never apologized for or condemned the speech, instead stating that the School of Medicine doesn’t condone violence or racism. Which is nice.
To Dr. Khilanani “this was “suppression of my talk on race.” But she made an obvious point. Yale should not claim surprise because “they knew the topic, they knew the title, they knew the speaker,” Exactly. They bought it, they own it.
The doctor is hardly a lone wolf. A paper accepted by the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association instructed that “whiteness is a malignant, parasitic-like condition that renders its hosts’ appetite voracious, insatiable and perverse” and to which white people have a particular susceptibility.
Corporations spend millions demanding their employees accept that they’re secret, unacknowledged bigots. School children are called-out and demeaned simply for belonging to the wrong race.
Yet in spite of all the provocation to hate raining down from the cultural heights, America is not a racist nation. Look around you. Of course there’s racism (see above). But normal Americans today bear no ill will personally to people of other races and accept them implicitly. Racism doesn’t drive policymaking. Judging people on the basis of their skin color is considered unacceptable by most of us.
Even though America is the least racist nation on the planet, it’s still a work in progress. But among the woke population, emerging voices are urging an ethos of resegregation. The renowned “anti-racist“ Ibram X. Kendi openly teaches that “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.”
Free Americans have traditionally favored the opposite, liberal mindset of Frederick Douglass, Lincoln and MLK , urging true equality and comity among the races. Chief Justice John Roberts expressed this ethos in his opinion that “the way to stop racial discrimination is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
It’s time for choosing. Roberts and Kendi can’t both be right. Hopefully Americans will decide to work together for a future of yet greater equality and opportunity.
We can’t afford to lose the progress we have made. Bigotry is not OK, no matter what.
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 azfreenews1 | Jun 21, 2021 | Education, News
By Corinne Murdock |
One of the latest diversity hires by Arizona State University (ASU) for their Shakespeare program researches and promotes critical race theory. She is one of five others hired recently on the basis of their race and similar perspectives on that race within academia.
Soon-to-be assistant professor Dr. Brandi Adams shared with ASU in an interview that she’s especially excited about her ongoing work in premodern critical race studies, and how that intersects with the history of reading.
The first search return for “premodern critical race studies” is a website on Ayanna Thompson – the same Regents Professor of English and Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies director that hired Adams and four other “diverse” professors.
According to the Folger Shakespeare Library, premodern critical race studies argues that there were times in history that perceptions of race didn’t exist. Instead, other aspects like faith and family were scrutinized.
“Today, premodern critical race studies scholars are offering new insights into the prehistory of modern racialized thinking and racism. They are helping to create anti-racist spaces.”
Adams spoke at the Folger Shakespeare Library on the subject in March.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk0efa_6PF4&t=4s
As for application of Adams’ research in premodern critical race studies, she shared in the ASU interview that the research would be part of a chapter for a collected volume on the relationship between premodern critical race theory and the histories of books and reading.
Adams’ dissertation, Representations of Books and Readers in English Renaissance Drama, didn’t focus on premodern critical race theory.
Additionally, Adams recommended four novels. All of the recommendations were steeped in social justice messaging such as race and climate change. These were: “American Spy” by Lauren Wilkinson, “Broken Earth” by N.K. Jemisin, “Pachinko” by Min Jin Lee, and “The Old Drift” by Namwali Serpell.
Last June, Adams published a piece on Medium that relayed a postmodernist approach. She criticized Senator Tom Cotton’s (R-AK) remarks implying that Shakespeare’s works were an integral influence on American principles, linking Cotton’s physical attributes such as his skin color to his perspectives, beliefs, and morality.
Adams took offense to Cotton’s “effortless alignment of Shakespeare with both the casual and systemic racism woven into our national landscape.” She decried the universal conflation of Shakespeare and “whiteness.”
“Cotton remains wholly unoriginal in claiming Shakespeare as fundamental to a white American university education,” wrote Adams. “He is, however, part of a disappointing recent trend of public figures, critics, filmmakers, and even scholars who have continued to adapt, appropriate, or write about Shakespeare’s plays with a problematic central tenet – that there is a specific perspective needed to regard them. More often than not, the lens through which we are asked to consider these plays is that of a white, cisgender, able-bodies, man who often vociferously insists that he embodies the universal interpretive mode for all conversations about Shakespeare.”
Adams will work under the Department of English and the Arizona Center for Medieval Renaissance Studies. Some of her forthcoming works include chapters, articles, or reviews focused on premodern critical race studies, inclusivity, “Blackness,” and race.
Adams didn’t respond to AZ Free News’ request for comment by press time.
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 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.
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