Invest in Arizona – a referendum to reverse the tax cuts passed recently by the Arizona legislature that would negate Prop 208 – reported several million in out-of-state funds in their latest campaign finance report. The National Education Association (NEA) donated over $2.4 million, $30,000 of which Invest in Arizona refunded.
The second-largest source of funds, nearly $2.4 million, came from Stand for Children Arizona, the local chapter of the national education advocacy group, Stand for Children. Stand for Children’s Arizona chapter hasn’t always donated to Invest in Arizona. Up until last July, their national organization headquartered in Portland, Oregon was responsible for those million-dollar donations.
Together, the NEA and Stand for Children Arizona comprised the vast majority of Invest in Arizona’s funds. Individual contributions amounted to just over $16,600, while total funds were reported to be over $4.7 million.
AZ Free News inquired with Stand for Children Arizona about these recent donation patterns: specifically, whether these donations were furnished from their national organization to their local chapter. This was their response:
“Thank you for reaching out! Stand for Children Arizona has a long history supporting families in AZ,” stated Stand for Children Arizona spokesperson Carlos Alfaro. “Our support of Invest in AZ is one piece of that, as indicated by the donation of our 501c4 organization Stand for Children, Inc.”
A majority of the over-$4 million that Invest in Arizona raised went toward operating expenses – signature gathering to submit their two referendums. The top recipients, in order, were: Fieldworks LLC with nearly $4 million alone, Save Our Schools Arizona with $115,000, Arizona Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander for Equity (AZ AANHPI For Equity) Coalition with $10,000, Fieldcorps LLC with $75,500, La Machine with $65,000, and Valley Interfaith Project with $29,000.
Invest in Arizona also spent $48,000 in polling from Lake Research, $5,000 for campaign consultancy from Strategies 360, and gave Valley Interfaith Project an additional $49,000 for text messaging outreach, field organizers and coordinators, outreach captains, and travel expenses.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The Goldwater Institute announced Thursday that it will represent a mother sued by the National Education Association (NEA) for daring to look into her school’s curriculum. The NEA is the largest teachers unions in the nation, with over $300 million to spend.
The Rhode Island mother, Nicole Solas, was slapped with the lawsuit on Monday. The NEA requested that the court prohibit the release of the records Solas sought. They alleged in their lawsuit that those records would cause teachers to be targeted and harassed by conservatives. Solas sought records pertaining to the teaching of critical race theory and gender theory, among other controversial topics.
“It is anticipated that teacher records will be produced that will be of a personal nature and will contain the identities of the teachers engaged in the personal communication as well as other communications that relate to the personal issues, disciplinary issues, performance issues, medical issues and issues not related to the official business of the School Department,” wrote the NEA. “[T]eacher emails will be produced that may or will continue discussion about critical race theory curriculum or other issues of ‘interest’ to the requestors that will contain individual teachers’ names and personally identifying information. Given the circumstances of the requests, it is likely that any teachers who are identifiable and have engaged in discussion about things like critical race theory will then be the subject of teacher harassment by national conservative groups opposed to critical race theory.”
Further, the NEA argued that not all records kept by public bodies were public record. It added that redaction of those records wasn’t always sufficient to ensure privacy.
In a press release, Goldwater Institute National Litigation Director Jon Riches assessed that this lawsuit is contrary to Solas’s rights as a parent and citizen.
“This brazen and unprecedented act of intimidation by the NEA will not stand,” said Riches. “Nicole Solas is entitled to know what her daughter’s school is teaching in the classroom. She’s entitled to ask questions. And she does not deserve to face legal action just for asking questions any concerned parent would ask.”
The debacle began when Solas submitted open records requests to her district this spring about the curriculum exposed to her daughter, as well as teacher correspondence
Ultimately, the district said it would cost Solas $74,000 to obtain the records. District policy states that they may charge 15 cents per page, and/or $15 per hour after the first hour of records retrieval. If the district was charging by the hour alone, it would take them a little over 4,900 hours, or 548 days (estimated based on 9 hour work days).
The lawsuit noted that the district released 6,500 pages of documents. That would cost about $975.
Solas hasn’t been discouraged by the lawsuit. Rather, she said that this would only help to further her cause for transparency.
“The NEA is so determined to push its political agenda that they are willing to expose themselves in a court of law for who they really are: an association of bullies eager to challenge a stay-at-home mom who simply wanted to know what her daughter would be taught,” said Solas. “This lawsuit won’t deter me from asking questions, and I encourage all parents to do the same, so that they are empowered to make informed decisions regarding their children’s education.”
The local NEA chapters, the National Education Association of Rhode Island (NEARI) and the National Education Association South Kingstown (NEASK), filed the lawsuit.
NEARI Deputy Executive Director Jennifer Azevedo said that NEA supports open records but believes that the interests of privacy outweigh the public interest in this case.
“We are asking the Court to conduct a balancing test to determine whether our members’ privacy rights outweigh the public interest,” said Azevedo. “We believe they do, and those records should either not be disclosed or should be redacted accordingly.
The NEA also named the school committee of Solas’s district, South Kingstown School District, as a defendant in the lawsuit.
