On Monday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper ruled that many laws passed within the recent budget were unconstitutional. Cooper stated that the legislation violated the single subject rule of the Arizona Constitution. The case, Arizona School Boards Association Inc., et al., v. State of Arizona, et al. (CV2021-012741) had a total of 15 plaintiffs. In all, Cooper’s ruling impacted a variety of budget-related bills, or BRBs: HB2898, SB1824, SB1825, and struck down SB1819 in its entirety.
“Subject and title of bills[:] Section 13. Every act shall embrace but one subject and matters properly connected therewith, which subject shall be expressed in the title; but if any subject shall be embraced in an act which shall not be expressed in the title, such an act shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall not be embraced in the title.” (emphasis added)
In a copy of the opinion obtained by 12 News, Cooper asserted that Section 13 was made with the intent to prevent “logrolling”: inserting a multiplicity of subjects into one bill in order to push a vote through. The judge supported her claim with Arizona Supreme Court precedent. In explaining her decision to strike down all of SB1819, a sweeping bill that expanded voter registration, modified ballot security requirements, removed the secretary of state’s legal authority over election laws, established an election integrity fund, limited the length of public health emergencies, and created a special committee to audit the voter rolls, among other things.
“No matter how liberally one construes the concept of ‘subject’ for the single subject rule, the array of provisions are in no way related to nor connected with each other or to an identifiable ‘budget procedure.’ The bill is classic logrolling – a medley of special interests cobbled together to force a vote for all or none,” wrote Cooper. “In this case, the State’s view would allow the Legislature to re-define ‘budget reconciliation’ to mean anything it chooses. Going forward, the Legislature could add any policy or regulatory provision to a BRB, regardless of whether the measure was necessary to implement the budget, without notice to the public. The State’s idea of ‘subject’ is not and cannot be the law.” (emphasis added)
Cooper also asserted that the bills in question weren’t in compliance with the state constitution’s requirement that bill titles clearly reflect the content of the legislation.
In striking down the entirety of SB1819, Cooper explained that prior court decisions don’t allow for severability to salvage portions of the bill.
“When an act violates the single subject rule, the whole act fails,” stated Cooper.
Whereas for the other bills, Cooper explained that the certain provisions banning mask, vaccine, and testing mandates; critical race theory education; and vaccine passports weren’t reflected in the bill titles. Therefore, they were invalid.
As AZ Free News reported last week, the main plaintiff in the case, Arizona School Boards Association (ASBA), recently hosted a law conference where photos showed attendees maskless and not social distancing, though spokespersons informed us that masks were required. ASBA also told us they encouraged some attendees to take off masks momentarily and group together for pictures.
The mask mandate ban would’ve gone into effect on Wednesday.
Governor Doug Ducey’s spokesperson characterized the ruling as “judicial overreach.” The governor’s office promised that they would challenge the ruling.
“We are still reviewing the ruling, but this decision is clearly an example of judicial overreach. Arizona’s state government operates with three branches, and it’s the duty and authority of only the legislative branch to organize itself and to make laws,” stated Ducey’s spokesman. “Unfortunately, today’s decision is the result of a rogue judge interfering with the authority and processes of another branch of government. Further action will be taken to challenge this ruling and ensure separation of powers is maintained.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
In a partial victory for 20 state attorneys general, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) backtracked on Monday on plans that would have prioritized $5 million in grant funds for American history and civics lessons that focus on the issue of racial marginalization.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich was among those who signed a letter sent in May to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona expressing “deep concerns” with proposed changes to how American history and civics instruction programs would be taught in K-12 schools across the country.
DOE had announced in April that some of the agency’s grant funding for history and civics instruction would be prioritized for programs which reflect “the diversity, identities, histories, contributions, and experiences of all students into teaching and learning.” That plan, however, received a large backlash.
A notice on July 19 in the Federal Register states DOE will consider grant proposals which “promote new and existing evidence-based strategies to encourage innovative American history, civics and government, and geography instruction” including those which address “systemic marginalization, biases, inequities, and discriminatory policy and practice in American history.”
But DOE has promised to not give such proposals an automatic advantage or competitive edge over other history and civics instruction grant requests. The application period opened Monday.
“The Department recognizes the value of supporting teaching and learning that reflects the rich diversity, identities, histories, contributions, and experiences of all students,” Cardona wrote on the DOE website. “As every parent knows, when students can make personal connections to their learning experiences, there are greater opportunities for them to stay engaged in their education and see pathways for their own futures.”
The Federal Register notice marks a major change by DOE exactly two months after Brnovich and several colleagues complained to Cardona that the grant priorities announced in April were a “thinly veiled attempt” to promote the controversial teachings of the 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory (CRT).
The 1619 Project’s focus on America’s history is changed from 1776 to 1619 when the first Africans arrived at what was Colonial Virginia one year before the arrival of Pilgrims near Plymouth Rock. CRT views or interprets American history and civics primarily through the narrow prism of race.
The attorneys general argued to Cardona that DOE’s promotion of CRT and the 1619 Project and ideologies would be endorsing the teaching of a warped, factually deficient view of American history. Their letter asked that the proposed priorities not be adopted or that DOE make clear that grants may not be used to fund projects which characterize the United States as irredeemably racist or founded on principles of racism instead of principles of equality.
DOE’s notice in the National Register did not go as far as the attorneys general wanted, but it is seen as a partial victory which guarantees grant applications for for history and civics lessons which veer substantially from traditional lessons will not have an advantage.
It is well known that America’s schoolchildren are woefully ignorant of their national history and government. Majorities of young adults no longer feel grateful to be an American, undoubtedly because they fail to comprehend the precious freedoms to which they were born.
So are the teachers unions who educate our children concerned about this deplorable situation? Do they have a plan to correct it? You know the answer.
Instead, the National Education Association recently voted to ensure that all American school children are comprehensively taught Critical Race Theory. This is the unscientific notion that white people are inherently, incorrigibly racist and thus America’s foundational values were and are bigotry and racial oppression.
As the NEA puts it, “all K – 12 schools should teach children that White supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-indigenity, racism, patriarchy, capitalism, and anthropocentrism form the foundation of our society“. Furthermore “to deny opportunities to teach truth about Black, Brown and other marginal races minimizes the necessity for students to build efficacy.”
Not sure what that last means, but basically nobody is trying to prevent teaching about slavery, Jim Crow or the struggles racial minorities have faced. It should be balanced with the recognition that America has come a long way in correcting injustices and that there are boundless reasons to feel pride and love for our country.
The NEA means business. They’re allocating a $70,000 addition to normal operating funds to push CRT. More ominously, they are funding an “opposition research” effort meant to smear parents and organizations opposed to racist propagandizing of their children. Charming.
These same unions also spearheaded the effort to keep schools closed long after it was known that school children were neither the victims nor spreaders of serious Covid disease. They demanded political favors, like forcing private schools to also close and limiting new charter schools, as the ransom for their return to the work they were being paid to do. Some schools are not open even yet.
The results of their mulish selfishness are trickling in. It’s bad. Students in every grade are failing classes and falling behind.
Preliminary research suggests that students will return with less than 50% of normal learning gains in math and under 70% in other subjects. Since these are averages, disadvantaged and disabled learners will fare even worse. Catching up this much academically is difficult, if not impossible. It will take years, if ever, to undo the damage.
Meanwhile, our nation’s teachers’ unions are doubling down on the effort to turn public schools into centers for radical indoctrination. History is now taught as the ceaseless struggle between oppressors and victims. A substitution of “race” for “class“ is the only deviation from classical Marxist theory.
Students in biology are taught that gender is merely a social construct and that they are free to select theirs “don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Math instruction is threatened by “social justice” warriors who deem requiring one correct answer and showing your work to be “white.“
Great literary works are being culled, and our history obliterated, for lack of adherence to modern standards of political correctness. Shakespeare and Steinbeck are among those facing permanent removal.
Some teachers are refusing to teach “To Kill a Mockingbird” because of racist language and the depiction of a “white savior.” That’s rich. Arguably the most influential anti-racist novel of modern times is shunned because Atticus is a decent white man who helps blacks and that doesn’t fit CRT’s malignant stereotypes.
In a few months, they’ve gone from claiming CRT isn’t taught in K-12 to insisting that instruction must be universal. Fortunately, grassroots and parent groups are waking up and fighting back. They should consider resisting not only objectionable courses of instruction, but the politicized education system that creates them.
Clear majorities, Including 75% to 85% of minority parents, favor charter schools and other forms of school choice. Yet there is stiff political resistance to reforms like Educational Savings Accounts, which empower parents. Arizona’s legislative Democrats this session voted unanimously to deny parents these options, thus denying them leverage in their dealings with unresponsive unions and schools.
So is public education meant to benefit the big people or the little people?
As a retired Arizona teacher and former member of the National Education Association, I am disgusted regarding the teachers unions’ recent solid support for instruction based on “critical race theory” – a point of view that promotes divisiveness based on race and/or ethnicity. Although recent state legislation outlaws CRT instruction in public schools, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, is advising the teachers to break the law and continue with it nevertheless. She promises that the union will pay any fines imposed on them.
CRT instruction is not new to Arizona. For several years, the Tucson Unified School District has implemented a program referred as “ethnic studies,” specifically “La Raza” for Hispanic students. This course of study promotes racial hatred toward whites, much like CRT. For example, the book OccupiedAmerica used in La Raza classes includes a speech by a Mexican leader who calls upon Chicanos To “kill the gringo” and end white control over Mexicans.
In 2008, several Tucson students reported that the director of the La Raza program had called a popular Mexican-American teacher a “White man’s agent” because he did not agree with the anti-white instruction. The students added that they were advised to “not fall for the White man’s trap” and to attend college to attain the power to take back “the stolen land” and return it to Mexico.
Tom Horne, former Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction (2003-2011) and then State Attorney General (2011-2015), opposed this instruction so much that he wrote a bill prohibiting it. The legislature passed it and Governor Jan Brewer signed it into law in 2010. However, in 2017, after Horne had left office, a liberal federal judge found the law to be unconstitutional. No one in public office at that time bothered to appeal this judgment so it has continued in Tucson schools.
People do not realize teachers unions have failed the public in other ways. While still a teacher in 1998, I left the union myself in response to its involvement in replacing a competent Phoenix high school principal who valued student achievement with an incompetent one who favored equity over equality. This leadership-change resulted in the gradual demise of advanced placement instruction and the watering down of other classwork. A once-orderly high school turned into a teenage day center. This high school never recovered. Presently, Great Schools ranks it, out of a possible “10”, as “3” in academic progress and “2” in state test scores.
Several years ago, in a community column for the Arizona Republic, I compared Phoenix school districts with high union enrollment with those with low or no union enrollment. The highest paying district had the greatest number of union members, yet turned out to be the one with the lowest rate of student achievement. Other factors such as poverty come into play when making these evaluations, but not as dramatically as the unions claim.
In one large low-income, predominantly minority Phoenix elementary school district, the superintendent successfully persuaded her teachers to invest in mutual funds instead of spending thousands of their hard-earned money every year on union dues. She realized that a powerful union would make it impossible for her to do anything about low achievement, a consequence of poor-performing teachers. Soon, the schools showed remarkable academic progress and the teachers were quite proud of what they had accomplished.
In a “right to work” state like Arizona, unions have to work diligently to build membership among teachers because no one can be forced to join. Thus, in order to gain support, the unions focus on salary, benefits, job-protection, and political action against anyone who disagrees with their union causes.
School boards and administrators are supposed to be a force of opposition to union control. Unfortunately, that seldom happens because unions themselves often handpick and fund the campaigns of those board candidates – whom they can count on to hire superintendents of the same mind.
Parents would be wise to seek out the dedicated teachers who realize that union policy has become detrimental to student success. Together, they could establish a better way – either through reform or total abolishment of teachers unions.
Johanna J. Haver is a retired teacher with 32 years of experience. She was a member of the Maricopa County Community College District board (2015-18) and has written three books, most recently Vindicated: Closing the Hispanic Achievement Gap Through English Immersion (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).
A growing number of parents of K-12 and high school students throughout the country have rebelled against the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) and “anti-racism” in public and private schools. The reasons for their alarm vary, and the rhetorical battles can be confusing, but it is not hard to get to the heart of parents’ objections.
They reject the presentation of our country, its history, its founding, its institutions and its present laws and practices as pervasively, uniformly, profoundly and irredeemably racist. Nor do they accept the corollary that all white Americans automatically enjoy illegitimate “white privilege”—and that they are to blame for every problem that people of color, especially blacks, experience today.
We think that these tenets are dubious at best. But in our opinion the most pernicious aspect of CRT instruction, from an educational perspective, is not its content, but the one-sided, dogmatic intolerance of any alternative point of view.
CRT banishes any classroom mention, let alone thoughtful discussion, of the full range of ideas about race currently articulated across the political spectrum. (The same thing is true in corporate America and at universities, where employees know better than to openly object to CRT’s rigid dogmas.) The CRT-approved story, in a nutshell, is that white racism is pervasive and accounts for all racial deficits and disparities. What is not being taught—what students are not exposed to, and not even allowed to hear—is the contrary position that persistent racial inequalities are oftentimes rooted in cultural differences and behavioral tendencies that are not all traceable to slavery or Jim Crow, and cannot all be solved by purging the vague category of “structural racism.”
