by Mike Bengert | May 30, 2024 | Opinion
By Mike Bengert |
In a recent opinion piece, Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) Superintendent Scott Menzel highlights what he considers a long list of accomplishments. According to Superintendent Menzel, the “2023-2024 school year has been marked by significant progress and achievements as we continue to implement initiatives aligned with our Strategic Plan to improve academic achievement and outcomes and prepare students for real-world opportunities in an ever-evolving landscape.”
Let’s delve into the statistics.
Nearly 1,800 seniors graduated from SUSD on May 23rd. During the May 14th Governing Board meeting, 11 seniors were recognized for their academic excellence. In his column, Dr. Menzel highlighted that 51 graduates had received math and science diplomas. While these acknowledged students have rightfully earned praise for their hard work and accomplishments, including receiving various scholarships, what about the remaining 1,800 graduates? How have they fared after receiving a purportedly “world-class, future-focused” education from SUSD?
According to the Arizona Department of Education’s comprehensive school report card system, the overall performance isn’t encouraging. In 2023, when these graduating seniors were juniors, their proficiency levels were assessed, yielding the following results:
- Only 63% demonstrated proficiency in English Language Arts (ELA), leaving 37% (or 666) lacking proficiency.
- Math proficiency was even lower at 55%, indicating that 45% (or 810) were not proficient.
- Science proficiency was the lowest, with a mere 25% demonstrating proficiency, leaving 75% (or 1,350) lacking in this area.
On average, only 48% (or 858 students) of the 1,800 graduates were proficient across all three academic subjects.
Given these outcomes, it seems apt to reconsider the SUSD slogan “Because kids,” as it appears the district may not adequately prioritize the needs of all students. Perhaps it should be restated as “Because some kids.” A school district’s quality should be judged by how well it supports its lowest-performing students.
Yet, despite this concerning academic record, three outgoing members of the current governing board decided, without public input or feedback from district stakeholders, to extend Superintendent Menzel’s contract by two years and grant him a 4% raise.
Dr. Menzel’s emphasis on using class time for destructive “Social Emotional Learning,” “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion,” and gender identity at the expense of teaching academics appears to be falling short for SUSD students, parents, and taxpayers. It’s perhaps unsurprising that parents are increasingly withdrawing their children from SUSD, and staff turnover, including principals, is at an all-time high.
If you share my frustration with the Governing Board’s apparent rubber-stamping of Dr. Menzel’s failing agenda and believe our children deserve better, I urge you to vote for change this November.
Mike Bengert is a husband, father, grandfather, and Scottsdale resident advocating for quality education in SUSD for over 30 years.
by Tamra Farah | May 25, 2024 | Opinion
By Tamra Farah |
Progressive educators have dressed up nonacademic social training in different outfits for decades. Still, the goal remains: to use public education to dictate the next generation’s norms and behaviors. This may seem innocent enough, but it’s not.
Early 20th-century education reformers like Edward Thorndike of Columbia Teachers College and John Dewey, the father of American progressive education, set out to refashion public education to diminish individuality and family influence in children. They aimed to replace these influences with a collectivist mindset prepared for the workforce. By doing so, they could capture the minds and hearts of children in the classroom and substitute “the state for the home and faith.”
Their socialist behaviorist model was effectively the first version of what we now know as social-emotional learning (SEL), which was most recently repackaged as the Whole Child educational framework.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In the 1960s, Dr. James Comer of the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center set out to prove the effectiveness of behavior versus academic focus for student success. He tested his theory in 650 low-income schools, admitting thirty years later that it was a failure. Still, his method served as the foundation for today’s SEL in schools.
In the 1980s, Psychology Professor Roger Weissberg aimed to help students “develop positive self-concepts” and hone skills in “self-monitoring” and “values such as personal responsibility and respect for self and others.” These seem like loaded phrases subject to interpretation, but his approach was acceptable enough to keep the behaviorist model train running on its tracks.
By the 1990s, National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE) president Marc Tucker helped pass the Goals 2000 Educate America Act during the Clinton administration, echoing Thorndike’s goals to advance a socialist workforce development mindset in K-12 education. This was followed by the controversial Outcomes Based Education (OBE) model, which debuted when my kids were school age.
Thankfully, parental backlash in the 1990s squashed OBE, yet it morphed and reappeared through CASEL, the Collaborative to Advance Social and Emotional Learning. CASEL took time to stake its claim by hosting conferences and sponsoring research, presumably to build a support base. CASEL’s champion, Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford Graduate School of Education, was a known progressive who advocated for educational equity. The push for so-called equity, versus the much-respected American concept of equal opportunity, hit schools long before COVID.
CASEL’s goals for students include providing “the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.” This sounds innocuous until you realize their specific definitions for each element may be a far cry from what you might think.
For example, CASEL definitively overplays the role of schools in a child’s life when it asserts that “schools have an important role to play in raising healthy children by fostering not only their cognitive development but also their social and emotional development.” (Emphasis is mine.) This is a tremendous assumption of power over your children in the classroom and is tantamount to brainwashing, not promoting basic good behavior.
CASEL defends its emphasis on social and emotional learning via research that leaves something to be desired. First, there are no recent U.S.-based studies; instead, they cite a 2006 study that asked a national sample of 148,189 sixth through twelfth-grade students if they thought they had social competencies such as empathy, decision-making, and conflict-resolution skills. The results? Only 29% indicated that their school provided a caring, encouraging environment. And how accurate are the results when parents were not consulted on the answers, given the relative immaturity of kids to answer these questions competently?
The latest version of SEL, dubbed Whole Child, stems from The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. It includes expansive elements in its list of critical areas for schools to deliver to students: mental health, cognitive development, social-emotional development, identity development, academic development, and physical health. This resembles a giant leap toward Thorndike and Dewey’s early progressive education agenda.
According to research from the Massachusetts-based think tank Pioneer, Thorndike equated “learning with training” and believed in learning by conditioning. Like Pavlov’s dogs, children could be conditioned to exhibit the desired behaviors by a system of positive or negative consequences linked to actions. John Dewey, the dean of American progressive education, was equally enthusiastic about manipulating the psychological aspects of learning to manipulate the child.
Remember, Dewey favored the “educational potential of social behaviorism used in totalitarian societies” since those societies “required a collective and cooperative mentality.”
Pioneer’s conclusion? “Carried to its logical conclusion, SEL can replace parental influence with the ultimate nanny state.” Progressives have dressed up the nonacademic paradigm of social-emotional style learning in different outfits for decades. They have planned to substitute “the state for the home and faith” and replace individual liberty with a collectivist mindset readied for the “workforce.”
Social Emotional Learning, in its “transformative” form, promotes “justice-oriented civic engagement” to make your kids into activists or “social justice warriors.” Black Lives Matter has often invited schools over the last few years to engage in that process.
A hallmark of SEL’s manipulative approach is the use of student surveys. The surveys are sent to kids’ email inboxes, often asking questions of students that require parental consent according to federal law. SEL puts teachers in a mindset to pry into the lives of students and families. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said social and emotional learning programs shift “the role of teachers from educators to therapists.”
SEL is also big business. According to Education Week, nationwide sales of social and emotional learning materials shot up 45% in a year and a half to $765 million in 2021. Soon after, Attorney General Merrick Garland asked the FBI to investigate parents protesting social and emotional learning issues at SB meetings. It just so happens that Garland’s son-in-law co-founded Panorama Education, a company raking in millions selling social and emotional learning materials to school districts.
Don’t be fooled by social-emotional learning as your child’s education framework. It is not founded on academics and pushes your kids toward an activist mindset that may not align with your family’s values. The Scottsdale Unified School District’s governing board recently approved a new social-emotional learning curriculum called Second Step. For help discovering SEL’s impact on your kids at school, contact education@azwomenofaction.com for information and steps you can take.
Tamra Farah has a twenty-year career in public policy and politics. Her role as director and senior advisor at Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and Arizona Women of Action and her expertise in PR and communications demonstrate her ability to create engagement and transformation in her efforts. Tamra has appeared on Fox News, America’s Voice, Newsmax, and Victory Channel and quoted in major publications like The New York Times and Washington Post.
by Elizabeth Troutman | Mar 2, 2024 | Education, News
By Elizabeth Troutman |
More than 900 Arizona schools declined to answer if they teach Critical Race Theory.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne released figures showing that 900 schools would not answer five academic focus questions related to matters such as ensuring schools do not inappropriately expose students to explicit content and avoiding instruction that promotes racial division such as Critical Race Theory.
Of Arizona’s 2,467 district and charter schools, as of Feb. 29, 1,565 have affirmed that they are following these guidelines, but 902 have not.
Other questions attempt to ensure that any sexual content is developmentally appropriate, administrators fully support teacher discipline, and schools avoid excessive distractions such as Social Emotional Learning.
Social Emotional Learning claims to equip children with the ability to manage emotions, feel empathy for others, and maintain positive relationships, but it integrates Critical Race Theory in the education system.
“It is scandalous to see that more than 900 schools have declined to be transparent with parents who entrust their children to be educated by these schools,” Horne said. “Parents have the right to be fully informed about what their neighborhood schools value and how instructional time is used.”
The media claims public schools don’t teach CRT, Horne said. The superintendent said this is false, as the Balsz Elementary District on the east side of Phoenix explicitly and publicly teaches CRT.
“The fact that more than 900 districts and charter schools did not answer the question proves that the problem is widespread and distractions from academics are contributing to low test scores,” he said.
“Every instructional minute is precious, and every minute should be devoted to academics, not unnecessary distractions, lessons that divide people by race, or exposing students to subject matter that is not developmentally appropriate,” Horne continued.
The schools that declined to answer the questions will have that information on their school report card provided on the department’s website. If schools eventually choose to respond, their report card will be updated with that information.
Early next week, the department will finish compiling and releasing information on whether schools are following state law that requires instruction on the Holocaust and other genocides.
“Schools have a responsibility to teach to the state standards and graduating students who are academically proficient,” Horne said. “This is simple common sense and easily achievable by every school in the state.”
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
by Corinne Murdock | Jun 8, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) removed a social-emotional learning (SEL) hurdle for low-income schools seeking access to federal funding.
ADE slimmed down the Comprehensive Needs Assessment, which schools must complete and submit in order to receive Title I funding designated for low-income schools. Superintendent Tom Horne directed the assessment to remove questions related to SEL, reducing the assessment questions from 168 to 20.
Horne justified the move in a press release, saying that the SEL questions unnecessarily and disproportionately weighed down the assessment, creating a significant administrative hurdle for schools requiring federal assistance.
“The previous Comprehensive Needs Assessment was weighed down with absurd measurements regarding Social Emotional Learning (SEL), which many teachers have complained is just a series of games that detract from teaching reading and math,” said Horne. “The prior emphasis on SEL issues meant the report grew to an unmanageable 80 pages with 168 questions. Now there are 20 questions on six pages, all devoted to improving core academics.”
In addition to removing the SEL barrier, ADE is updating its annual Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA) program. ADE projected that the pilot program will reduce administrative workload by 80 percent time-wise.
Horne represents a 180 from his predecessor, Kathy Hoffman, who was an advocate for SEL.
In other moves signaling a complete turnaround from Hoffman, Horne has also removed the controversial online sexuality-focused chat spaces for minors from the department website, as well as abolished the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Department.
Horne has also been defending the upkeep of universal school choice, the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program. The superintendent defends the program as not only beneficial for parents desiring a more tailored education, but as a cost-saving measure to the state.
This puts the superintendent in conflict with Gov. Katie Hobbs, who claimed universal school choice wasn’t sustainable from a fiscal standpoint.
Horne is also defending state law banning males from female sports — also running counter to the stance held by Hobbs, as well as the Biden administration.
In April, the parents of two boys identifying as girls sued the state over the ban. The lawsuit claimed that transgenderism was a “sex-based trait.”
“There is a medical consensus that a person’s gender identity is not subject to voluntary change and a significant biological foundation,” stated the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also claimed that all individuals have a gender identity — a perception of one’s gender in addition to their biological reality — and that the only proper treatment for those with gender dysphoria was to allow the full exercise of the dysphoric feelings.
“Under the medical standards of care for the treatment of gender dysphoria in adolescents, the only safe and effective treatment for gender dysphoria is to permit transgender adolescents to live consistent with their gender identity in all aspects of their lives,” stated the lawsuit.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Feb 4, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
It’s always a good day when an elected official holds to his campaign promises. And as the newly elected Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne has done just that. During his campaign, Tom said he would make it a priority to stop indoctrination like Critical Race Theory while fighting back against cancel culture and improving student performance. Last week, he took important steps to make this a reality.
Under Tom’s direction, the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) has eliminated social-emotional learning (SEL) from its administration. Among his first moves, Tom has not only removed references to SEL, but he has gotten rid of other leftist initiatives from former Superintendent Kathy Hoffman like the division of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion along with sex chat rooms for minors like “Queer Chat.”
But while Tom is working hard to end the woke indoctrination of our students, he’s not stopping there…
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