Arizona families have watched a quiet crisis unfold in their local school districts. Board meetings once focused on academics and fiscal responsibility have become battlegrounds for political agendas and bureaucratic overreach. Parents have been silenced, transparency denied, and accountability brushed aside.
In the past few years, Arizonans have witnessed a series of troubling events that show just how far some school boards have strayed:
In Scottsdale Unified, the board president’s father compiled a secret dossier on outspoken parents—including photos of their children—an alarming breach of public trust.
Washington Elementary severed ties with Arizona Christian University over student teachers’ religious beliefs, only to reverse course after legal pressure.
In Isaac School District, state officials placed the district under receivership after uncovering a $15 million financial crisis, triggering multiple investigations.
These aren’t isolated incidents—they’re symptoms of a larger collapse in trust, academic focus, and respect for families. And for too long, parents had no organized way to push back.
A Movement Takes Root
That tide is now turning—led by unapologetically conservative school board leaders who are rejecting political indoctrination and delivering real results that put students, families, and local values back at the center of education.
Founded in 2021, the Arizona Coalition of School Board Members is a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to restoring integrity, local control, and academic excellence in our public schools. This isn’t a national agenda—it’s a homegrown movement, created by and for Arizonans, to restore excellence and accountability in our schools. While others raise awareness, the Coalition equips board members with the tools, legal support, and training to lead with confidence and principle.
Unlike legacy education groups that push top-down mandates, the Coalition promotes governance rooted in Arizona values—academic rigor, parental involvement, and education freedom. With members in more than 50 school districts across 10 counties, the Coalition is building a movement of student-first leaders who aren’t just calling for change—they’re delivering it.
Real Wins Across Arizona
Coalition-backed board members aren’t just talking about reform—they’re making it happen. Here are three local victories already making an impact:
Apache Junction Unified – Cell Phone Use Policy Limits phone use during the school day, restoring classroom focus and discipline. It’s a practical fix to a problem every parent and teacher sees daily.
Higley Unified – Staff Health and Safety Bans COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates for staff, reinforcing health freedom and parental values. This affirms the district’s commitment to individual rights, medical privacy, and protection from government overreach.
Peoria Unified – Student Privacy Policy Ensures multi-occupancy restrooms and overnight accommodations are designated by biological sex, while offering private alternatives as needed. It’s a firm stand for parental expectations, student safety, and local authority.
Empowering Voters, Building Leaders
Change doesn’t happen without an engaged public. That’s why Friends of the Coalition, a 501(c)(4), is leading a statewide voter education effort focused on school board elections and the issues affecting classrooms, transparency, and parental rights.
More than 500 individuals have attended our free School Board Bootcamp, designed to demystify the board member’s role. Dozens of those participants have since been elected—first in 2022, and again in 2024.
This is more than education—it’s about building a conservative leadership bench. Graduates of this movement are now serving in school districts, the Arizona State Senate, and even the Arizona Corporation Commission.
This Is the Moment
Arizona’s public education system is at a crossroads. Will it continue down a path dominated by bureaucracy and ideology—or return to a model that respects families, demands excellence, and puts students first?
With the Federal Department of Education steadily returning power to states and local communities, school boards now carry unprecedented responsibility. That shift brings both urgency and opportunity. Local leadership is no longer secondary—it’s the front line.
Thanks to the Arizona Coalition of School Board Members and Friends of the Coalition, Arizona conservatives are executing a strategic, multi-pronged plan—educating voters, equipping leaders, and empowering bold school board members.
This isn’t rhetoric. It’s results.
Whether you attend a Bootcamp, become a Coalition member, support candidates who share your values, or make a tax-deductible gift to sustain this work, there’s a role for everyone in this movement. The future of Arizona education will be decided by those who show up.
News broke last week that the Biden Department of Energy (DOE), led by former Secretary Jennifer Granholm, was so dedicated to the Biden White House’s efforts to damage the dynamic U.S. LNG export industry that it resorted to covering up a 2023 DOE study which found that growth in exports provide net benefits to the environment and economy.
“The Energy Department has learned that former Secretary Granholm and the Biden White House intentionally buried a lot of data and released a skewed study to discredit the benefits of American LNG,” one DOE source told Nick Pope of the Daily Caller News Foundation.. “[T]he administration intentionally deceived the American public to advance an agenda that harmed American energy security, the environment and American lives.”
And “deceived” is the best word to describe what happened here. When the White House issued an order signed by the administration’s very busy autopen to invoke what was supposed to be a temporary “pause” in permitting of LNG infrastructure, it was done at the behest of far-left climate czar John Podesta, with Granholm’s full buy-in. As I’ve cataloged here in past stories, this cynical “pause” was based on the flimsiest possible rationale, and the “science” supposedly underlying it was easily debunked and fell completely apart over time.
But the ploy moved ahead anyway, with Granholm and her DOE staff ordered to conduct their own study related to the advisability of allowing further growth of the domestic LNG industry. We know now that study already existed but hadn’t reached the hoped-for conclusions.
The two unfounded fears at hand were concerns that rising exports of U.S. LNG would a) cause domestic prices to rise for consumers, and b) would result in higher emissions than alternative energy sources. As the Wall Street Journal notes, a draft of that 2023 study “shows that increased U.S. LNG exports would have negligible effects on domestic prices while modestly reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. The latter is largely because U.S. LNG exports would displace coal in power production and gas exports from other countries such as Russia.”
An energy secretary and climate advisor interested in seeking truth based on science would have made that 2023 study public, and the “pause” would have been a short-lived, temporary thing. Instead, the Biden officials decided to try to bury this inconvenient truth, causing the “pause” to endure right through the final day of the Biden regime with a clear intention of turning it into permanent policy had Kamala Harris and her “summer of joy” campaign managed to prevail on Nov. 5.
Fortunately for the country, voters chose more wisely, and President Trump included ending this deceitful “pause” exercise as part of his Day One agenda. No autopen was involved.
So, the thing is resolved in favor of truth and common sense now, but it is important to understand exactly what was at stake here, exactly how important an industry these Biden officials were trying to freeze in place.
In an interview on Fox News Monday, current Energy Secretary Chris Wright did just that, pointing out that, fifteen years ago, America was “the largest importer of natural gas in the world. Today, we’re the largest exporter.”
He went onto add that, “the Biden administration put a pause on LNG exports 14 months ago, January of 2024, sending a message to the world that maybe the US isn’t going to continue to grow our exports. Think of the extra leverage that gives Russia, the extra fear that gives the Europeans or the Asians that are dying for more American energy.”
Then, Wright supplied the kicker: “They did this in spite of their own study that showed increasing LNG exports would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and have a negligible impact on price.” It was an effort, Wright concludes, to kill what he says is “America’s greatest energy advantage.”
This incident is a stain on the Biden administration and its senior leaders. The stain becomes more indelible when we remember that, when asked by Speaker Mike Johnson why he had signed that order, Joe Biden himself had no memory of doing so, telling Johnson, “I didn’t do that.”
Sadly, we know now there’s a good chance Mr. Biden was telling the speaker the truth. But someone did it, and it’s a travesty.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
In 2022, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club crafted the blueprint to stop illegals from voting in our elections, authoring landmark legislation that was signed into law, becoming the first state in the nation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote with HB2492. Now, states around the country are taking notice and adopting our model, and just last week President Trump signed an Executive Order to do it nationally. Arizona was just the tip of the spear, and the dominoes are finally beginning to fall.
As of this week, two states require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Arizona was the first with HB2492. Earlier this year, Wyoming became the second. And now, the Texas Senate is considering a bill that is nearly identical to the Arizona Model, which would make them the third.
Arizona has long been at the forefront of this issue. In 2004, Arizona voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 200 to require proof of citizenship to vote. After nearly a decade of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed us to only implement the requirement on our own voter registration form but prevented us from requiring it on the federal form. The result over the decade following the decision was the complete proliferation of the “Federal Only Voting” list, amounting to tens of thousands of potential noncitizens registering and voting in our elections…
Many Americans believe the Supreme Court rulings on Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963)—landmark cases banning prayer and Bible reading from public schools—effectively removed all forms of religious activity during educational hours.
As a result of these decisions, and the incessant drumming of “separation of church and state,” mainstream society now considers it unconstitutional to read Scripture or bow one’s head on government property. Every generation since 1963 has gone along with this diabolical rhetoric that blatantly violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
“Congress shall MAKE NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; or abridging the freedom of speech…”
Truly, the progressive left succeeded in its efforts to (morally) overthrow the United States.
At issue, in 1962, was a nondenominational prayer recited alongside the Pledge of Allegiance in K-12 schools:
“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.”
These 22 words pose no threat to anyone’s sincerely held beliefs. Although prayer was a standard part of every school day before 1962, students and staff members were not mandated to participate in the invocation. Nevertheless, anti-God activists have always deemed public prayer—that is, calling upon a higher power than government—an act that goes against the First Amendment. So, under the guise of nondiscrimination, several state laws were amended to abolish religious activities in public schools and bar educators from sharing their faith.
Don’t misunderstand what’s really at play. The false “church and state” narrative as well as the prohibition of Scripture and prayer are all aimed at one religion: Christianity. The progressive left wasn’t hellbent on expelling every god from mainstream society—they specifically intended to eliminate the God of the Bible (namely Jesus Christ) and silence His followers. Once God and Christianity were declared unlawful on school grounds, an alternative moral/religious code came into effect.
In the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watson—just one year before God and prayer were banned from public education—the Supreme Court asserted that “secular humanism” (a form of atheism) was a religion fully protected by the First Amendment. If you will, the religion of unbelief is now considered to be legally and morally on par with Christianity. Yet only the former is allowed in public schools.
Of course, parents don’t recognize that their children are absorbing secular humanism because the doctrine is masked by minimal education requirements. Secular humanism is bright red lipstick on a filthy pig. If your child’s K-12 school requires a class or an assignment in the following subject areas, they’ve likely been indoctrinated with secular humanist dogma:
Evolutionary Theory—secular Creation Story
Social Studies—secular civil code (falsely teaches America is a democracy instead of a Constitutional Republic founded on Judeo-Christian principles)
Social Emotional Learning—secular moral code (falsely teaches restorative justice)
God may not be permitted on school grounds, but the religion of secular humanism is alive and well.
In his 2007 book “Separation of Church and State: What the Founders Meant,” David Barton wrote:
“[F]ollowing the 1962-1963 court-ordered removal of religious principles from students, teenage pregnancies immediately soared over 700 percent, with the United States recording the highest teen pregnancy rates in the industrialized world. Similarly, sexual activity among fifteen year olds skyrocketed, and sexually transmitted diseases among students ascended to previously unrecorded levels. In fact, virtually every moral measurement kept by federal cabinet-level agencies reflects the same statistical pattern: the removal of religious principles from the public sphere was accompanied by a corresponding decline in public morality.
Furthermore, consider the fact that suicide is one of the top five leading causes of death among children aged 12 to 19. Homicide among 15 to 29 year olds makes up 40% of the total number of homicides worldwide each year. There’s not enough time to discuss the increase in school mass shooting incidents over the last two decades.
Every case of teen violence and sexual deviance may not be directly linked to secular humanistic education. However, after nearly 18 years of being told you evolved from nothing, you’re a “clump of cells” with no inherent worth or purpose beyond the present moment—what reaction should we realistically expect other than rage and rebellion?
Parents choose public schools for a number of reasons, ranging from convenience to affordability to sports. And while there’s no shame in keeping certain traditions, it’s clear that America’s public education system is on the verge of total moral collapse. The emergence of “trans” activists coupled with the lack of basic social/survival skills among youths is evident. Ignorance is willful at this point.
According to Proverbs 22:6, God holds parents primarily responsible for educating their children. If we don’t want them indoctrinated with a secular humanistic worldview—one that says gender is fluid, America is systemically racist, and God is dead—then it’s time to abandon public education. This is one sure way to conserve family values, strengthen our nation’s moral foundation, and secure the freedom of future generations.
President Trump, by his own declaration, loves tariffs. In fact, tariff is his “favorite word.” Tariffs purportedly produce funds, “billions and billions, more than anybody has ever seen before,” which can be used for essential spending or to reduce taxes and meanwhile will “bring back jobs.”
The president is all in on his enthusiasms. As matters now stand, he is imposing both universal baseline as well as country-specific tariffs, affecting more than $1 trillion of imports. This compares to the mere $380 billion in tariffs passed in 2018 and 2019 by the first Trump administration but will rise to $1.4 trillion when/if the temporary exemptions for Mexico and Canada expire in April.
There is a logic to tariffs which appeals to those with a protectionist bent. If foreign producers are selling in your country and taking profits which could otherwise be earned by domestic enterprises, why not make the cost of doing business higher for them and keep the profits at home?
Yet the history of tariffs is, to put it kindly, dismal. The 1930 Smoot-Harley tariff is America’s best known and most instructive experience with protectionism. In 1929, the League of Nations passed a resolution declaring that tariffs were destructive and should be ended by all. When Smoot-Hawley was introduced, Franklin Roosevelt campaigned against it. After the bill passed, 1,028 economists and even some business leaders like Henry Ford urged a veto.
President Hoover termed the measure “vicious, extortionate and obnoxious.” He signed it anyway at the urging of his advisors. Americans, especially the agricultural sector, were facing a perceived problem with overproduction, mainly due to electrification and other laborsaving innovations. Republicans generally agreed that prices were too low, and it would help pull us out of our economic slump if American producers were shielded from foreign competition.
Big mistake. Trading partners had warned of retaliation and indeed boycotts and reciprocal trading restrictions soon broke out. Canada, our most loyal trading partner, imposed tariffs on 30% of our products and formed closer economic ties to the British empire. France, Britain, and Germany all formed new trading alliances.
Yet initially, the medicine seemed to be working. Factory payrolls, construction contracts, and industrial production all profited from the reduced market competition.
But the loss of the inherent advantages of trading soon became clear. From 1929 to 1933, U.S. imports fell 66% and exports decreased 61%. World trade nearly ground to a halt, falling by two-thirds from 1929 to 1934.
Unemployment was about 8% when Smoot-Harley was enacted, but the promises to lower it further never panned out. The rate jumped to 16% in 1931 and 25% in 1932-33, falling back to pre-depression levels only during World War II.
Tariffs didn’t cause the Great Depression, but they clearly deepened and prolonged it. Without Smoot-Hawley, it might have just been another temporary recession, not much worse than many other economic downturns in our history.
The take-home message is that free trade is a voluntary interaction that reliably promotes prosperity, both in theory and in practice. It is a classic win-win for participants, in contrast to protectionism which is based on the principle that the stronger party wins by defeating the weaker one.
The 2018-19 tariffs imposed by Trump and expanded by the Biden administration proved the point once again, by reducing long-term GDP by 0.2% and resulting in the loss of 142,000 full-time equivalent jobs.
Still, Trump favors strength and domination, based on negotiations where he “holds the cards.” The lack of success last time has not dissuaded him from unleashing a barrage of tariffs with impositions, pauses, increases, suspensions, and escalations that have left producers around the world desperately scrambling to protect their businesses by anticipating his next move.
Trump is playing with fire here. If he does ignite a trade war that results in another downturn, he may find that the American economy is not as resilient as it once was. Decades of uncontrolled deficit spending have left us deeply in debt and without the reserves necessary to withstand much more fiscal abuse.
The lessons of history and the laws of economics are clear. Tariffs don’t work. Proceed with caution.
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.
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs and the Radical Left have made it clear that they want to dismantle school choice in our state. Despite getting trounced in November’s election where teachers’ unions and other anti-school choice groups made it a referendum on educational freedom, Hobbs has doubled down on her same tired and out-of-touch efforts since the start of this year.
Once again, it hasn’t worked. Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program continues to grow—with enrollment now over 87,000 students. So, Hobbs and her buddies in the teachers’ unions have resorted to employing one of their favorite tricks: relying on activist reporters in the corporate media to give their anti-school choice messaging an extra boost.
In early March, a coordinated attack was launched against Primavera, an online charter school serving thousands of K-12 students across the state. It began with a story from Craig Harris, a Red4ED activist that calls himself a reporter, who claimed that Primavera received a ‘D’ letter grade from the Arizona Department of Education for the past three years. According to the report, the school failed to meet the minimum academic requirements for a traditional charter school. Harris’ column then went on to complain about the owner of Primavera and how much money he has made while operating the school.
After the story was published, the Arizona Charter School Board convened a hearing to review the allegations against Primavera. In a span of just a few hours, the board imposed the most severe punishment at their disposal, revoking the schools’ charter and setting them up for eventual closure. In effect, Primavera was given the charter school death penalty after one meeting.
On the surface, this might make sense. After all, if a school is failing its students, it deserves proper accountability. But as so often happens with today’s corporate media, an important fact was omitted from this manufactured takedown…
