by Kurt Rohrs | Oct 13, 2022 | Opinion
By Kurt Rohrs |
Several statutes that were passed by the Arizona legislature to reinforce parental rights in schools recently went into effect. The Chandler Unified School District Board (CUSD) was asked to vote on updates to their policies to conform to these state law changes.
Here are some of the new state laws that needed to be incorporated in district policies:
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- HB 2498 – Prohibits vaccination requirements for staff in order to work
- HB 2453 – Prohibits masking requirements for staff in order to work
- HB 2371 – Prohibits vaccination requirements for students in order to attend school
- HB 2616 – Prohibits masking requirements for students in order to attend school
- HB 2439 – Provides for parent’s access to a list of school library materials and a list of materials borrowed by their children. However, this law exempts libraries that are run jointly by school and municipal entities.
- HB 2495 – Prohibits the referral of sexually explicit materials to students
- HB 2161 –Provides for parent access to records that relate to their child and gives parents the right to file suit if the fundamental rights to raise their children are usurped
- SB 1165 – Requires participation in school sports to be based on biological sex of the student and gives parents the right to file suit for injunctive relief
- HB 2632 – Raises the passing grade requirement on the required civics exam from 60% to 70%, making it similar to the citizenship exam given to naturalized citizens.
- HB 2325 – Provides for school time for remembrance of the September 11 terrorist attacks on or around that anniversary.
What happened during the board member comments section of the meeting was a stunning display of contempt for parents’ rights and for these legislative actions.
Board member Lindsay Love, who is unmarried and has no children, voted against complying with these state laws as a “conscientious objector.” This is an apparent contradiction to her oath of office to “… support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and Laws of the State of Arizona.” She then went on to imply that some recent student suicides are the fault of parents and that the district must somehow step in and save students from their parents’ cruel behavior. Ms. Love is not running for re-election.
Board member Lara Bruner, who is running for re-election, stated that “It is truly disheartening that some of the representatives in our legislature have decided to increase their control from the top,” seemingly oblivious to the fact that these legislative actions were made to address the concerns of parents.
Board member Joel Wirth expressed that he was “very disappointed in the legislature in its efforts to micromanage school districts and force their political beliefs on the district,” apparently dismissing parental concerns as irrelevant.
Board Member Jason Olive concurred and called the recent legislation “garbage” in evident contempt of the Arizona legislature that provides the funding for his school district.
Board President Barbara Mozdzen refrained from comment.
Whose Children Are they?
Does the CUSD Board really support parents’ rights as protected by state law?
Not one board member stepped forward to defend the stated policy that “parents ultimately direct the upbringing, education, health care and mental health of their children.” This is the long-standing policy of the State of Arizona as codified into law in A.R.S. 1-601 and A.R.S. 1-602.
It is unclear why CUSD Board members are so dismissive of parents and their concerns, and of the direction from the Arizona legislature. This appears to be the attitude of several school districts around the valley where a parent’s rights to raise their own children are routinely suppressed in violation of several statutes described in the Arizona Department of Education’s Parental Rights Handbook.
New School Board Leadership Needed
That’s why it is time for new, more responsive, leadership on school boards throughout the state. Please vote on November 8 for new school board members that truly respect parents and their rights to raise their own children.
Kurt Rohrs is a candidate for the Chandler Unified School District Governing Board. You can find out more about his campaign here.
by Michele Hamer | Sep 30, 2022 | Opinion
By Michele Hamer |
If you’re confused about the Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program expansion to all Arizona K-12 students, you’re not alone. The recent passing of HB 2853, gives parents and guardians who opt out of the public-school option, a portion of taxpayer funds to use for tutoring, private school tuition, home schooling, and special-needs therapies. Much of the confusion comes from advocates for and against this expansion by complicating the issue with opposing scenarios.
I believe both sides of the debate must begin under the auspices of Arizona law. Specifically, the Parents’ Bill of Rights, which states: “All parental rights are reserved to a parent of a minor child without obstruction or interference from this state, including the right to direct the education, upbringing, moral or religious training and make all health care decisions for their minor child.”
Opponents to Arizona’s ESA program expansion, like Save Our Schools and teachers’ unions, who have tried and failed to get enough signatures to stop HB 2853, feel parents are unqualified and can’t be trusted with these taxpayer funds to direct the education of their children. The Democrats of Greater Tucson take that mistrust of parents to a heinous level in a recent post. They write “With no accountability protocols, this creates an opportunity for extremist-xenophobic-homophobic-white nationalist-MAGA groups to develop their own little Hitler Youth Academies to indoctrinate impressionable minors.” The four false cheering points of the anti-ESA crowd can be easily debunked with facts:
- ESAs don’t siphon funds away from public schools: The inconvenient truth as explained by the Goldwater Institute is the “ESA program now gives back nearly $1,000 per child to the public school system each time a student switches to an ESA from a public school. This is because ESA students forfeit their funding from several pots of state taxpayer funded money (such as the ‘Classroom Site Fund’ and ‘Prop 123’ add-on revenues) when they leave their district or charter school, and all of that money gets redistributed back to the public school system instead. (For instance, for the 2022-2023 school year alone, the Classroom Site Fund raised $945 million dollars, with every one of Arizona’s 1.1 million public school students getting almost $900 each from it. ESA students, on the other hand, completely give up their claim to those dollars and instead send them back to their public-school peers, who end up with more money per pupil than they had before.” Read more here.
- ESAs do have monetary accountability and transparency: According to the Arizona Department of Education’s 2022/2023 ESA Handbook, when an Account Holder enters into an ESA contract with the Department, the Account Holder is required to report all expenses made with ESA funds. To maintain ESA program eligibility, debit card receipts must be submitted in the quarter that the transaction occurred. Complete invoices or receipts must be included when submitting expenses or making payments in the “Class Wallet” platform. All required credentials must be included when submitting debit card receipts or reimbursements.
- Parents can’t spend the ESA money on anything they want: The Arizona Department of Education’s 2022/2023 ESA Handbook is quite clear on their “Spending and Program Requirements” in Chapter 2. There are twenty-one out of seventy pages in this handbook explaining what is approved and unapproved spending. For instance, if your child needs a computer for online classes, you would think that is an approved expenditure, but it’s not.
- ESAs have academic accountability and transparency: I find the teachers’ union claim to the contrary laughable after the Arizona Department of Education’s recent release of the state’s assessment data. Overall, only 41% of students passed the English component, and a mere 33% passed the math portion. Where is the accountability for this disaster?
The biggest inconvenient truth is that home-schooled and private school students outperform public school students on state standardized tests and college entrance exams. As the number of homeschooled children in the United States grows, the statistics of student outcome cannot be ignored. According to Think Impact, homeschooled students score between 80% and 90% regardless of their parents’ level of education. On average, homeschooling one child costs the parent(s) between $700 and $1,800.
Business Wire, a Berkshire Hathaway company, reports a Back to School Survey shows 47% of parents are considering dropping school and going to homeschooling. Results from the EdChoice survey in 2020 showed that the top reasons parents had considered homeschooling before the COVID-19 shut down included freedom in exploring their child’s interests; safety concerns about schools; schools did not meet the needs of the children; and parents wanted to mold their children as per their own practices and beliefs.
Private schools have a long history of superior academic outcomes to public schools according to the National Center of Educational Assessment, but here’s another inconvenient truth the opponents of school choice via ESAs aren’t telling you; private schools deliver better family life outcomes than students who attend public schools. (See Figure 1)
Our education system has become a bloated, bureaucratic mess that is desperately trying to hang on to power over our children that is not legally theirs to have. Schools have one job, and that is to give our children a great academic education and they are failing. Compared to other nations, the United States fell to 24th in high school literacy in 2012 and continues to decline.
Parents, guardians, and concerned citizens are on the front lines, exposing the inconvenient truths regarding problems in our schools. We need to give them our support. I don’t believe the teachers’ unions, Save Our Schools, and their media cohorts are going to give up after their first defeat to stop ESA expansion.
Please contact your state representatives and tell them to uphold Arizona law which gives our parents the right to direct the education of their children.
Michele Hamer is a candidate for the Prescott Unified School District Governing Board. You can find out more about her campaign here.
by Corinne Murdock | Apr 18, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Monday, the Arizona Senate passed HB2161, a bill prohibiting state employees, political subdivisions, governmental entities, or any other institution from withholding a minor’s records from parents. Parents may sue any entity or institution that withholds their child’s records in violation of the legislation. It’s likely that HB2161 will most heavily impact school districts.
The bill passed along party lines. State Representative Steve Kaiser (R-Phoenix), the bill sponsor, explained that the legislation would ensure recourse for parents whose rights had been violated.
The bill was transmitted to the State House for review of the amendments made in the Senate. If approved, the version passed on Monday will head to Governor Doug Ducey for his signature.
Democrats’ opposition to the bill focused on the impact on educators. One of the main arguments concerned the fact that educators wouldn’t be able to withhold the sexuality or gender identity of LGBTQ+ minors from their parents.
Those arguments echo incidents making headlines nationally, in which parents discover that educators or school counselors coached their children into adopting a deviant sexuality or gender identity. Just this past week, it was discovered that a Massachusetts public middle school promoted the gender transitions of a pair of siblings without their parents’ knowledge.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Jan 25, 2022 | Education, News
By Corinne Murdock |
In response to the House Education Committee hearing on a bill to enhance parental rights, State Representative Daniel Hernandez (D-Tucson) implied that the fault lied with parents, not with the schools. He said that the legislature should maintain a limited government approach and not create more burdens for schools.
“We [should] encourage parents to be more involved in their children’s education,” said Hernandez. “The vast majority of parents aren’t as engaged as they should be.”
The bill in question, HB2161, was introduced by State Representative Steve Kaiser (R-Phoenix). It would prohibit any employee of the state or its political subdivisions, entities, or institutions from: withholding information from parents related to their child’s physical, emotional, or mental health; interfering in parents’ control over their child’s upbringing, education, health care, and mental health; denying or inhibiting parents’ rights to access any of their child’s written or electronic medical records, attendance scores, test scores, grades, extracurricular activities, club participation, disciplinary or psychological records, admission applications, health and immunization information, teacher and counselor evaluations and behavioral pattern reports, email accounts, and online or virtual accounts and data. Government entities or officials may only invoke control over a child’s upbringing, education, health care, and mental health if there’s a compelling government interest demonstrated.
The bill also included provisions specific to schools, such as prohibiting school districts or their employees from withholding information from parents related to purported gender identity or requested gender transitions. It also required schools to obtain written informed consent from parents prior to administering any survey soliciting personal information, as well as share a copy of the survey in question seven days prior to administering it.
Violations of the bill could result in disciplinary action to the offending employee, a $500 fine for school districts, and lawsuits against the governmental entity or official from the parents.
The bill passed the House Education Committee by a bare majority, 6-5.
State Representatives Walt Blackman (R-Snowflake), Lupe Diaz (R-Hereford), John Fillmore (R-Apache Junction), Quang Nguyen (R-Prescott), Michelle Udall (R-Mesa), and Beverly Pingerelli (R-Peoria) voted for the bill. Those who voted against the bill were State Representatives Daniel Hernandez Jr. (D-Tucson), Joel John (R-Arlington), Judy Schweibert (D-Phoenix), Myron Tsosie (D-Chinle), and Jennifer Pawlik (D-Chandler).
During conversations of the bill, several school-related issues reported by AZ Free News were brought up: the encouragement of students to identify their given names as deadnames and instead identify by their preferred names on identification, the formation of K-12 LGBTQ clubs through an organization called GLSEN whose content focuses on the sexualization of children, the pornographic and explicit book assigned even after promised revocation at Horizon High School, and surveys that encourage students to disclose private information about their home life.
Kaiser said he would “absolutely” consider increasing the penalty to schools from $500, which Fillmore said might be too low because that amount was paltry for school districts.
Schwiebert expressed concern that forced exposure of private, more emotional conversations between a teacher and student would result in hardships for the student. Kaiser asserted that it wasn’t the teacher’s role to serve as a support system. He said he hoped he’d get a call from a teacher if his child was struggling with something, and would be horrified if they didn’t because it’s not their job.
“Their job is to teach my son reading, writing and math, their job is not to console my son. Their job is to let me know,” said Kaiser.
John then asked if there was any time where a student could tell a teacher something in confidence that wouldn’t be shared with parents, exempting information involving something illegal. Kaiser said no.
In response, Udall shared that she had several teenage students in the past approach her about their underage pregnancies. Kaiser said that he didn’t have an answer for that specific situation; Udall advised that Kaiser should consider situations which would allow teachers to leave it to the children to tell their parents.
Fillmore chimed in to ask Udall if there wasn’t a duty to report teenage pregnancies; Udall didn’t have an exact answer, saying that she believed that only incidents related to abuse were those teachers were required to report.
Community members who spoke in opposition of the bill said that it violated the rights of youth, mainly an alleged right to privacy. One example came from ACLU of Arizona spokesman Jeff Esposito who said that the bill was unnecessary at best and dangerous at worst. Nguyen retorted that Esposito and his ilk were driving a wedge between parents and their children by allowing educators to decide what information parents may know.
“You’re, in a way, making a decision for me [as a parent],” said Nguyen.
Fillmore then asked Esposito if his only contention with the bill was the outing of a child’s sexuality. Esposito said no, but then repeated that sexuality and its impact on mental health were of paramount concern.
“What I’m saying is a student may make a choice to reveal private information to a trusted adult and then that trusted adult may make that choice to reveal that information to parents,” said Esposito. “But to jump that line and make that information known to parents before the student is ready […] sometimes those students need a trusted adult to go to and their rights to privacy should be respected.”
Fillmore challenged the notion that children had authority to do what they’d like that suits them best without parental knowledge or oversight.
In closing remarks, Blackman said that schools have no right to subvert parents’ wills or act as a parent would in certain situations. He criticized the implication that preventing government employees from serving as middlemen between parents and children would result in children facing hardships such as homelessness and drug addiction.
“When she’s going to bed at night, she’s going to my house. Not at the counselors’ house and not at the teachers house,” asserted Blackman. “Schools are trying to get in the middle where the parents should be to comfort that child, to teach that child. And all I hear is, ‘the parent has no rights.’ If the parent has no rights for those medical records, is the school going to pay that medical bill? You’re not going to do that. As a parent I have a right to know every single thing that’s going on with my child.”
Diaz added that parents are divinely ordained by God to care for their children — not schools. Diaz said he discerned from parent testimonies that a variety of God-given rights were violated by schools, including the First and Fourth Amendments.
“God created the parents to be the responsible entity for the children,” said Diaz. “Our man’s laws should be a reflection of divine law. Every parent is going to stand before God and answer for their children. And I respect you parents who have come here and have stood for your own parental rights and for your children.”
Watch the hearing here:
https://www.facebook.com/azfreenews/videos/929578277919829
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Dr. Thomas Patterson | Dec 9, 2021 | Opinion
By Dr. Thomas Patterson |
Teachers’ unions appear to have run into a buzz saw. On October 25, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten tweeted enthusiastic support for a Washington Post article titled “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t.”
By November 6, her message had drastically changed. “Parents have to be involved in their kids’ education. They must have a voice. At the same time, we have to teach kids how to—not what to—think.” Sure, Randi.
In the interval, there had been a reality shock: the Virginia governor’s election, this time with an electorate that had wised up. Parents had been appalled when they remotely observed the overtly racist curriculum their children were being taught and then shocked at the blowback, including being charged with “white supremacy,” when they protested.
Moreover, they now realized the unions were responsible for the damaging school COVID shutdowns. Weingarten herself pressured legislatures and school districts into closures. Unions influenced the Biden CDC into adding new and impossible conditions for reopening. They threatened outright strikes if school districts tried to reopen for the 2020-2021 school year.
Voters were not amused. When Terry McAuliffe vowed, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” the damage was done. Polls showed challenger Glenn Youngkin gaining 15-17 points among parents in the last weeks of the campaign. Education-oriented voters swung from favoring McAuliffe by 33 points to a nine-point Youngkin advantage.
Weingarten’s response was that the reports had all been a massive misunderstanding, that it was actually the teachers’ unions that had tried to reopen the schools. Her pathetic gaslighting attempts were ignored.
The longtime symbiotic relationship between the teachers’ unions and the Democrats may be fraying. They both earn the other’s loyalty. According to OpenSecrets, 99.72% of the AFT contributions in 2020 went to Democrats. Fully 97% of AFT donations have gone to Democrats since 1990.
In Virginia, McAuliffe bagged $1 million from the unions. AFT ran ads for McAuliffe, and Weingarten personally stumped for him.
Their money isn’t wasted. As governor, McAuliffe had vetoed nine school choice bills. This year, he affirmed on CNN, “I will never allow [school choice] as governor.” Nationwide, Democrats have been able to stymie the movement for universal school choice in spite of growing majorities in favor.
The Democrats are in a sticky situation now. According to RealClearOpinion research, voters’ support for school choice surged from 64% to 74% in just the last year. Another poll showed 78% approve of Education Savings Accounts, the most comprehensive method for funding parental choice directly.
Voters have expressed particular contempt for politicians (and educators) who send their own children to private schools but deny the same privilege to less fortunate children. 62% of voters said they would be less likely to vote for such a hypocrite.
Terry McAuliffe, for one, got the message. The veto king sent his five children to private schools. When asked about it on NBC this year, his verbatim quote was “Chuck, we have a great school system in Virginia. Dorothy and I have raised our five children.” You’ve gotta love it.
Democrats are stuck with a policy that is not only morally and educationally wrong but is a political loser. Advocates for children and parents should seize the opportunity to not only win some elections but to fundamentally reform the structure of education in America into a system that serves students and parents, not bureaucracies.
Teachers’ unions must be publicly held accountable. These organizations which relentlessly pound a “for the children” theme have a wretched record of not promoting their educational interests.
In the 1960s, when the unions first rose to influence, about $3,000 (inflation-adjusted) dollars were spent per student. Today, that number is over $13,000. Yet academic achievement and the ethnic gap have stubbornly failed to improve.
Not all of the spending increase has gone to teacher salaries, and not all of the fault for academic failure is theirs. But as the dominant influence in education policy for the last half-century, unions must bear major responsibility for the dismal outcomes.
Parents’ rights advocates: take heart. This is our time.
