Last Tuesday night, the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) Governing Board held what could only be described as a marathon meeting, lasting six and a half hours, including the executive session. The agenda was packed with items, but one issue drew the most attention: the proposed adoption of a new Social Science curriculum.
Eighteen individuals participated in the public comment portion of the meeting. All but one focused on the curriculum. A significant majority urged the Board not to adopt it, citing deep concerns. Opponents argued that the curriculum was saturated with DEI narratives, anti-law enforcement bias, gender ideology, climate activism, misleading COVID-19 claims, and advocacy for student activism over academic learning. Their primary concern: the curriculum fosters political indoctrination, not education.
Despite their differences, both supporters and critics of the curriculum appeared to agree on two points: students need to be taught the truth about current events, and they must learn to think critically. The debate centers on what constitutes the truth and how critical thinking should be developed.
Those supporting the curriculum’s adoption argued that it presents an honest, if uncomfortable, portrayal of America, especially regarding race and law enforcement. The curriculum cites examples like the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. It emphasizes that Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, was shot six times and killed by a white police officer, and points to the incident as emblematic of systemic racism.
The curriculum also discusses the rise of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and its evolution from protesting police brutality to addressing broader systemic issues like housing, healthcare, and employment disparities for Black Americans.
Additional content includes explanations about gender identity, stating individuals can identify as male, female, both, or neither. The curriculum also addresses the COVID-19 pandemic, stating that the FDA approved two highly effective vaccines and suggesting that lockdowns saved lives. It frames the environmental benefits of lockdowns as evidence of climate change and the need for continued action.
One speaker supporting the curriculum even admitted that for those questioning these narratives, “I don’t know what to say.”
Critics, however, challenged these representations as incomplete or misleading. Regarding the Michael Brown case, there is no mention that the Department of Justice’s investigation found Brown was attacking the officer and trying to take his weapon—his DNA was found on the gun—and that the claim he had his hands up saying “don’t shoot” was debunked in court. By omitting these critical facts, the curriculum pushes a one-sided narrative that paints law enforcement as inherently racist.
If the goal were truly critical thinking, the curriculum would also include studies like that of a Harvard professor, who, despite his preconceived belief that there is racial bias in policing, found no racial bias in police shootings after analyzing hundreds of cases. An honest and open discussion would allow students to examine why Black Americans commit crimes at a rate disproportionate to their population, not just claim they are victims of systemic racism. Perhaps the high rate of crimes being committed by young Blacks might explain their high rate of involvement with the police. But with this curriculum, it is doubtful the students will ever have such a discussion.
Law enforcement professionals also voiced concerns. The President of the Maricopa County Colleges Police Officers Association, a former Scottsdale police officer, and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office both criticized the curriculum’s anti-police tone. They warned that such content erodes trust between youth and law enforcement—trust, they say, is essential for community safety.
Rather than comparing the BLM movement to the civil rights movement and implying BLM has done great things for Blacks in America, why not tell the truth that the leaders of BLM stole money and bought houses for themselves? Or that several of the local chapters said nothing has been done by BLM to help Blacks in their communities.
Critics also took issue with how the curriculum handles topics like climate change and COVID-19. The omission of data showing that Antarctica has gained ice in recent years, information that contradicts climate change alarmism, is concerning. While skeptics of the climate narratives are called “science deniers,” the curriculum promotes the idea that there are more than two genders and that gender is fluid is a fact, when it’s really a denial of biological science.
On COVID-19, the curriculum claims the vaccines were effective at preventing infection but fails to acknowledge how the scientific narrative evolved. Initial claims about vaccine efficacy were later revised, with experts clarifying that while vaccines may not prevent infection, they can reduce the severity of symptoms. The curriculum also omits discussion of the high survival rate of COVID-19, 99%, particularly in children, and the long-term educational harm caused by prolonged school closures. There is no mention of the fact that the government actively blocked any negative discussion about the vaccine, including reporting on the severe negative side effects many people experienced.
One especially controversial element of the curriculum encourages students to take political action, such as organizing protests or social media campaigns, in support of transgender rights, or creating NGOs, leading critics to argue that it turns students into political activists.
Questions were also raised about how the curriculum was reviewed and recommended. Supporters of the adoption process claimed the committee’s work was “thorough and inclusive,” but the review committee was composed mostly of teachers, with only one community member, who happened to be the spouse of a former Board member, and no parents on the committee. One supporter of the curriculum told the Board members it was their responsibility to approve the committee’s recommendation, apparently without considering the curriculum themselves and just rubber-stamping the committee’s work. I don’t think so.
There are financial implications, too. Because the curriculum includes DEI and gender identity material, the SUSD risks losing funding—not just from government sources but also due to declining enrollment—as some families opt out of SUSD altogether. This ongoing trend of declining enrollment tracks with Dr. Menzel’s leadership of SUSD. Not only are students leaving, but critical, experienced staff and teachers are leaving. At this time, only about 50% of the eligible students attend SUSD—a dismal number, but reflective of just how well SUSD is perceived in the community.
On May 13th, board members Pittinsky, Sharkey and Lewis voted to defy Superintendent Menzel's "NO DEI" pledge and committed YOUR tax dollars for the purchase of DEI-filled curriculum.
— Scottsdale Unites for Educational Integrity (@ScottsdaleUnite) May 16, 2025
Keep in mind that indoctrination aims to instill a specific set of beliefs or ideas without allowing for critical thinking or questioning, whereas education encourages exploration, curiosity, and independent thought, fostering a deeper understanding through evidence and critical analysis.
After doing your research, ask yourself: Is this curriculum indoctrination or education? Which do you want for your child?
The current Board makeup makes any substantial changes in SUSD unlikely. Dr. Menzel’s apparent security in his position of “leadership” means we can expect him to continue his destruction of SUSD. I expect to see more 3–2 votes going forward and remain skeptical about the Board’s willingness or ability to restore trust and balance in SUSD and the classroom.
As this school year comes to an end, talk to your kids about what has gone on in their classrooms. What have they learned? Go to the SUSD website and look at the materials they will be using next year. If the information you are seeking is not available, use the Let’s Talk feature to question the staff and Dr. Menzel. If you find something objectionable, exercise your rights under Arizona law and opt your kid out of lessons.
Go to the Arizona Department of Education website and check the academic performance of your child’s school, or the new one they will be attending next year. Don’t fall for the SUSD hype of having so many A+ schools; rather, compare that rating to the academic performance of your schools. Does it meet your definition of A+? You just might be surprised at what you find.
Not every parent can take their child out of SUSD. Many will return next year, but despite the challenges, we must continue to strive for change in SUSD. Get involved. Go to Board meetings. Email the Board with your thoughts and concerns. Talk to the teachers. I know everyone is busy, but you can’t sit idly by and expect others to do the work by themselves. The number of people involved matters.
It’s your kid’s future we are talking about.
Mike Bengert is a husband, father, grandfather, and Scottsdale resident advocating for quality education in SUSD for over 30 years.
Vaccines may not be the most spectacular of all the miracles of modern medicine, but they are arguably the most beneficial. They have virtually eliminated the infectious diseases of childhood, including measles, diphtheria, mumps, rubella, smallpox, and polio that were once the sources of unimaginable worry and grief for parents everywhere.
Vaccines are estimated to have saved over 150 million lives in the last five decades, cutting infant mortality by 40% globally and over 50% in Africa. Closer to home, of all babies born in the U.S. in 2001 alone, a 2005 study showed that vaccines prevented 33,000 deaths and 14 million illnesses. Vaccines are also the most cost effective of all medical interventions, easily yielding the greatest amount of benefit received per dollar spent.
Like all medical treatments, vaccinations have side effects and risks, but they are rare and mostly insignificant, like a sore shoulder. There was for some time a concern that vaccines or the mercury in them caused autism, understandably so because autism was becoming much more frequently diagnosed just as vaccine use was expanding worldwide.
The scientific community took the threat seriously. Today, many exhaustive studies involving hundreds of thousands of children have all shown the same thing: vaccines don’t cause autism.
Yet in spite of the record of success and all the lives and dollars saved, experiences with COVID have led Americans to become less trusting of vaccines. Before COVID, America was a world leader in vaccination rates with 95% coverage. Since 2020, though, the percentage of children receiving the recommended vaccines has declined by 2% or about 70,000 children.
The result has been a resurgence of childhood diseases once considered vestiges of the past. Measles was considered to be entirely eliminated in 2020, yet last year multiple outbreaks sickened hundreds of children. Cases of chickenpox, whooping cough, and pneumonia are all on the rise. Trend lines don’t look good.
Clearly, millions of Americans have become skeptical of medical authority, especially that coming from government. What happened to cause Americans to adopt behaviors that re-introduced these diseases into the population and caused needless suffering?
The answer is that our public health establishment became politicized, shilling for approved government policy rather than acting as honest, reasonably humble stewards of the public good. The bonds of trust were broken because we were often manipulated rather than informed. We were proselytized rather than respected. Vaccines were rushed to market and their benefits oversold.
Fairly or not, the bulk of criticism has centered on Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Chief Medical Adviser to the President on COVID. Dr. Fauci was a respected, competent public health physician until he became a celebrity. Signature prayer candles, action figures, and other trappings apparently caused him to lose his way.
For example, Dr. Fauci early on warned against dependence on mask wearing, citing “unintended consequences” and noting that they didn’t provide much protection. Yet he later repeatedly overstated the known benefits of masks and never disavowed his previous declarations, leading many to conclude that his counsel seemed rooted more in shifting public perceptions than actual evidence.
Fauci also had the exasperating habit of changing his estimate regarding the percentage of the population needing to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, the point at which protection effectively extends to all, vaccinated or not. He finally admitted that he changed his statements based only on his assessment of what the public was ready to hear.
He recommended mandating six feet of distance from others in public, although he later admitted it was nothing more than a personal guesstimate. He initially was an enthusiastic supporter of gain-of-function research in China’s Wuhan lab, but later evaded questions and denied involvement when the consequences of the catastrophic lab leak became known.
What Fauci left unsaid was equally harmful. He neglected to point out that participating in a George Floyd riot was as unhealthy as mingling in any other crowd in 2020 and that there was no evidence supporting school shutdowns.
Fauci indignantly informed his critics that “I am the science.” But the days of authority-based science are past. Fauci’s self-serving deceptions broke the trust relationship with the American people. We may be reaping the consequences for years to come.
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.
Shortly before his death in 2006, I had the privilege of interviewing Milton Friedman over dinner in San Francisco. The last question I asked him was: What are the three things we had to do to make America more prosperous?
His answer I have never forgotten: “First, allow universal school choice; second, expand free trade; third and most importantly, cut government spending.” That was long before Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden came along.
There are not too many problems in America that cannot be traced back to the growth of big and incompetent government.
It is notable that the two big bursts of inflation during modern times both occurred when government spending exploded. The first was the gigantic expansion of the LBJ “war on poverty” welfare state in the 1970s with prices nearly doubling, and then the post-COVID era spending blitz in the last year of Trump and then the Biden $6 trillion spending spree with the CPI sprinting from 1.5% to 9.1%.
Coincidence? Maybe. But I doubt it.
The connection between government flab and the decline in the purchasing power of the dollar is obvious. In both cases the Washington spending blitz was funded by Federal Reserve money printing. The helicopter money caused prices to surge. (I still find it laughable that 11 Nobel prize-winning economists wrote in the New York Times in 2021: Don’t worry, the Biden multi-trillion-dollar spending spree won’t cause inflation.)
The avalanche of federal spending hasn’t stopped even though COVID ended more than three years ago. We are three months into the 2025 fiscal year and on pace to spend an all-time high $7 trillion and borrow $2 trillion. If we stay on this course, the federal budget could reach $10 trillion over the next decade.
This road to financial perdition cannot stand. It risks blowing up the Trump presidency.
Upon entering office, Trump should on day one call for a package of up to $500 billion of rescissions — money that the last Congress appropriated but has not been spent yet. Cancelling the green energy subsidies alone could save nearly $100 billion. Why are we still spending money on COVID?
We could save tens of billions by ending corporate welfare programs — such as the wheel barrels full of tax dollars thrown at companies like Intel in the CHIPS Act. The Elon Musk Department of Government Efficiency is already identifying low hanging fruit that needs to be cut from the tree.
Along with extending the Trump tax cut of 2017, this erasure of bloated federal spending is critical for economic revival and for reversing the income losses to the middle class under Biden.
This is especially urgent because the curse of inflation is NOT over. Since the Fed started cutting interest rates in October, commodity prices are up nearly 5% and the mortgage rates have again hit 7% — in part because the combination of cheap money and government expansion is a toxic economic brew — as history teaches us.
Nothing could suck the oxygen and excitement out of the new Trump presidency more than a resumption of inflation at the grocery store and the gas pump. Trump’s record-high approval rating will sink overnight if the cost of everything starts rising again.
Cutting spending won’t be easy. The resistance won’t just come from Bernie Sanders Democrats. Trump will have to convince lawmakers in his own party — many of whom are already defending green-new-deal pork projects in their districts.
This is why Trump should make the case in his inaugural address that downsizing government is the moral equivalent of war. Borrow a line from Nancy Reagan: just say no — to runaway government spending. Say yes to what Friedman titled his famous book: “Capitalism and Freedom.”
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. His new book, coauthored with Arthur Laffer, is “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
Recently, Tim Walz said the quiet part out loud, declaring, “We can’t afford four more years of this.” When Walz and JD Vance face off on the debate stage this week, this is one statement they will both agree on: Americans can’t afford four more years of the Biden-Harris agenda transformed to a Harris-Walz Administration.
As we and others around us grapple with skyrocketing inflation, depleting savings accounts, soaring interest rates, and wages unable to keep pace with the financial ruins from the Biden-Harris agenda, Tim Walz is right – Americans cannot afford four more years of Democrat failed policies. We’ve heard time and time again that Kamala is from a middle-class family. However, Harris continues to be oblivious to the consequences of her failed economic policies that impact our families at the grocery store, gas stations, and electricity bills. It seems she’s the only self-identified ‘middle-class’ person who is immune to the inflation crisis that she and President Joe Biden have created.
Here are the inconvenient facts for Harris and Walz. Inflation has cost the average Arizona household nearly $27,000. Everything from energy to food has dramatically increased in price. Our electric bills are up 30%, and gas prices are up 46%. Putting food on the table is increasingly expensive as grocery prices have spiked 21% since President Donald J. Trump left office. Under Biden-Harris, nothing in our lives is immune to inflation, which is a hidden tax on every American. And for growing families, everyday baby essentials have skyrocketed, with a pack of diapers increased by 32% and baby food up by nearly 12%.
While men and women are paying more for just about everything, we are also taking home less after inflation. Families around the nation have had to take out additional lines of credit just to make ends meet. Now, nearly four years into the Biden-Harris failed economy, those credit cards are maxed out, with debt reaching a record high of $1.14 trillion. Thanks to Kamalanomics, one in five Americans’ credit cards are maxed out.
Arizonans are at their breaking point, and the 2024 Democrat ticket will only make these economic crises worse. A Harris-Walz agenda is a page out of the socialist playbook. Between their costly Soviet-style price controls and a tax on small businesses that is higher than the tax rate in China, the Democrats’ agenda puts America last.
Don’t take my word for it; it was Tim Walz himself who once said, “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.” He also told business leaders, “We’re not taxing people–we’re taxing businesses.” Walz clearly doesn’t understand basic economics. When you tax a business, they pass that cost onto consumers.
These price controls and record-high tax rates will decimate what’s left of the American economy. But it’s not just our pocketbooks that are at risk. Walz, like Kamala, is a far-left radical socialist.
Together, they are the most liberal presidential ticket inhistory.
Tim Walz has a long record as Minnesota Governor that shows us how he would assist Kamala Harris in their shared mission of destroying our country. At a time when families are struggling to make ends meet, Tim Walz will help usher in his Electric Vehicle mandate nationwide, requiring Americans to drive unaffordable electric cars that cost on average $56,575, which is over the average yearly salary in Arizona.
Tim Walz has a history of implementing unconstitutional mandates and socialist policies. Walz mandated lockdown long after Covid-19 ended, keeping children out of schools, and promoting the vaccine for children as young as six years old. During the lockdowns, Tim Walz even created a hotline to snitch on people who defied his ‘stay at home order,’ an authoritarian move that took officers from fighting crime to making criminals out of church services, and business owners who did not strictly follow masking rules – a power trip that turned Minnesota into North Korea.
Walz is no less radical on immigration and border security. As Governor, he signed legislation to provide free taxpayer-funded healthcare to illegal immigrants, and he celebrated issuing driver’s licenses and car registrations to over 81,000 illegal immigrants in his state. Going even further, Walz granted illegals access to free college tuition. It’s clear that he puts illegals above American citizens. In response to President Trump’s border wall, Tim Walz said he would invest in ladders so that unvetted illegal migrants could still come over. It’s hard to believe that this current crisis at the border could get much worse, but it definitely would under the Harris-Walz Administration!
Additionally, Walz and Harris’ radical defund-the-police ticket should concern every community in Arizona and around the country. Just a handful of years ago, Walz essentially stood by while his own cities burned down and businesses were looted and violently destroyed, and then Kamala Harris helped raise money to bail the criminals out of jail. They make quite a team in these and many more areas. Americans be warned: this is what would be heading to our Arizona cities if this weak, failed, and dangerously liberal ticket has its way.
Americans can’t afford to send the most radical socialist ticket in U.S. history to the White House. With days left until election day, we must vote for a strong economy, safety in our communities, and a secure border. To do that, we must send tested and proven leaders to the White House—Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance. Let’s make the right decision for the future of our great nation!
Congresswoman Debbie Lesko represents Arizona’s 8th Congressional District. She is currently running for Maricopa County Supervisor in District 4.
Republican Congressman David Schweikert, working alongside Reps. Mike Kelly (R-PA), Glenn Grothman (R-WI), and Jared Golden (D-ME) introduced the Employee Retention Tax Credit Repeal Act on Tuesday. The bipartisan legislation is designed to streamline lower-risk returns from small businesses for more rapid processing by prohibiting the IRS from processing COVID-19 Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) claims filed after January 31, 2024. The bill also drastically increases the penalties on businesses and individuals defrauding the government.
According to a press release from Schweikert’s office, the ERTC was initially created to enable “Main Street” businesses to keep furloughed staff employed during the COVID-19 pandemic. “However, legitimate returns from small businesses desperately needing support were crowded out by perverse promoters looking to take advantage of an emergency program, landing ERTC on the IRS’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ list in 2023.”
In a July statement, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel warned that the law, as written, presented “more and more questionable claims,” noting that, “The further we get from the pandemic, we believe the percentage of legitimate claims coming in is declining.” The Congressman’s office noted that Werfel asked for Congress to help with this situation and to assist the U.S. Department of the Treasury to “address fraud and error.”
“The ERTC Repeal Act would enable the return to fiscal sanity and end a program riddled with fraud that could cost up to seven times more—up to $550 billion—than initially estimated if allowed to continue. By eliminating the ERTC program, this bill would save taxpayers an estimated $79 billion over ten years. “
🚨 The bipartisan Employee Retention Tax Credit Repeal Act was introduced this week by @SenatorRomney (R-UT), @SenThomTillis (R-NC), and @Sen_JoeManchin (I-WV). In response to massive cost overruns and fraud associated with the pandemic-era Employee Retention Credit (ERC), the… pic.twitter.com/kdzSyBhHqL
Schweikert explained, “We’ve all heard from the number of small businesses in our district waiting for their claims to be processed. A 1.4 million return backlog still exists, and moving the deadline up, rather than waiting until April 2025, will enable the IRS to go after the bad actors seeking to take advantage of taxpayers while approving legitimate claims faster and delivering long-overdue refunds to small businesses. Congress would be perpetuating a moral hazard if this level of fraud were allowed to go unpunished. It’s past time fiscal responsibility prevails, and we act on behalf of future generations who will be shouldered with a more than $35 trillion national debt.”
Per the release, the ERTC Repeal Act would advance the sunset date of the original program, and in addition to prohibiting processing of claims submitted after January 31, 2024, it would:
Increase penalties for promoters from $1,000 to $10,000 for individuals and $200,000 for business promoters;
Impose a $1,000 penalty for failure to comply with due diligence requirements; and
Extend the statute of limitations period on assessments to six years.
According to the text of the bill, any businesses promoting the ERTC may also be subject to “75 percent of the gross income derived (or to be derived) by such promoter with respect to the aid, assistance, or advice.”
A corresponding Senate Measure spearheaded by Senators Tom Tillis (R-NC), Mitt Romney (R-UT), and Joe Manchin (D-WV) was announced September 18th.
“Repealing the ERTC is a critical step towards addressing America’s debt crisis,” Tillis said in a statement. “It’s past time to eliminate this fraud-ridden pandemic-era policy so we can concentrate on getting our fiscal house in order.”
According to the Senate findings, the ERTC added approximately $230 billion to the U.S. deficit through Fiscal Year 2023 and was projected to ballon to as much as $550 billion. The IRS also announced in June that between 10% and 20% of claims showed “clear signs of being erroneous” while another 60% to 70% showed an “unacceptable risk” of being improper.
Under existing law, the credit will persist until April 25, 2025.
