The federal takeover of your kids’ classroom and their minds through the Common Core, ushered through the gates of our state by Governor Brewer and Superintendent of Public Instruction Huppenthal, is entering its final stages. But parents have the chance to reclaim sovereignty over their kids’ education and minds by voting for Huppenthal’s GOP challenger, Common Core slayer Diane Douglas, this coming Tuesday, August 26th.
While many voters focus on the top of the ballot offices like governor, the Superintendent of Public Instruction has a tremendous impact on your child’s and your life in the role of Arizona’s “chief educator”.
As the head of the Department of Education, the Superintendent of Public Instruction oversees the disbursement of nearly $6 billion and the implementation of our state’s education policies in over 2000 public schools, attended by over 1,000,000 students, taught by over 60,000 teachers.
The state Superintendent also holds an important leadership position influencing education policy as they serve on all statewide education boards including the Board of Education, which adopts our public school’s learning standards and our state test, and the Board of Regents which governs our public universities.
Governor Brewer covertly adopted the Common Core standards for our state by using her appointed members of the AZ State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction rather than putting it before the people through a legislative vote in 2010. A true principled, conservative state Superintendent would have opposed the Governor and the implementation of the Common Core in our state. Sadly, Huppenthal did neither.
Truly the opposite has happened as Superintendent Huppenthal has been the Common Core’s biggest advocate ever since taking office and was even slated to receive an award by the AZ Chamber of Commerce for his efforts until it was revealed that he was staying up late into the night anonymously posting racist remarks on blogs and covertly attacking his political enemies.
The influence and power of the position demands that the Superintendent of Public Instruction must be a role model for teachers, parents, and students alike in their personal and professional lives. In other words, they must maintain a level of integrity and character that the current holder of this office has demonstrated he does not have.
Current Superintendent Huppenthal is the exact opposite of what is required for the office of state Superintendent and has been a statewide and national embarrassment over the last several years instead.
My first experience with Huppenthal was at a Common Core forum back in March in Tucson where I went to seek his help in stopping harassing phone calls by one of his high ranking employees at the Department of Education after I penned an op-ed opposing the Common Core standards.
After the forum, where Huppenthal pledged his absolute support of the Common Core, he looked me in the eye and pledged to me that he would absolutely take care of the harassment perpetrated against me and “make it right”.
Looking back, I realize how very naïve I was at the time as I actually believed him and took him at his word. Experience, and a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request where I was able to see the internal emails of Huppenthal and other top officials at the Department of Education, has revealed that we have a serial liar as our “chief educator” and a Department of Education bureaucracy that mimics Huppenthal’s deception and lack of integrity.
It was with sadness that I witnessed Huppenthal savage his very principled primary challenger, Diane Douglas, with a litany of lies put forth week after week through his campaign ads. Huppenthal, reading the tea leaves which revealed a growing opposition to his precious Common Core, even began claiming he was now against the Common Core.
The lies were not only limited to Diane Douglas, who has maintained her dignity and poise throughout, he also attacked me publicly, a public elementary school teacher under his command. At a recent debate Diane Douglas mentioned me by name and also detailed the abuse projected upon me by Huppenthal’s Department of Education. Rather than defending me, my boss’s, boss’s, boss (Huppenthal) defended his bureaucrats at the Dept of Education and publicly impugned my character and my professionalism instead. I was absolutely sickened.
Our current Superintendent of Public Instruction is not worthy of our kids’ admiration or our parents and teachers’ trust. He has demonstrated a pathological need to stay in power at any cost, even if the cost is the loss of parent and state sovereignty over the education of our children and therefore the loss of sovereignty over our children’s minds. Huppenthal has demonstrated that he, at long last, has no shame, if he had any at all to begin with that is.
Arizona deserves a Superintendent of Public Instruction that our teachers, our parents, and our children can look up to again as a role model of character and integrity. Arizona deserves better than the current holder of this office.
We have the chance to make it right with our kids again, Arizona. Arizona deserves better, and thankfully we have a choice in the GOP primary for Superintendent of Public Instruction with Diane Douglas. Arizonans, you will get what you deserve in the next election. Arizona deserves Diane Douglas at long last.
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