Douglas Listens, Ducey Orders Eegee’s

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas conveniently held a last minute session of her “We Are Listening Tour” last night  at the El Conquistador Hotel after the education leadership conference she hosted for administrators earlier in the day.

While the chambers of commerce have packed many of the venues across the state in an effort to protect her flip flop on Common Core, Oro Valley was packed with education activists and parents encouraging opposition to the federal standards, the distribution of students’ personally identifiable information (PII), and excessive testing.

Although there were a few teachers who offered faint praise for Common Core, it was oftentimes followed with a statement of fear of going through the changes again should Arizona adopt standards developed by Arizonans.

Most of the parents and teachers expressed grave concern over the fact that the State was abdicating responsibility for education through local control to the Federal Government and distributing personal information to whomever requested it without parental consent.

One parent shared a recent experience she had with the Arizona Department of Education. She inquired as to how she might go about opting her children out of some of the testing, and the response she received was that “parents forfeit their rights at the classroom door.” The crowd of about 130 people bristled as she told of her experience.

Outside of the concerns mentioned above, a common thread among attendees was displeasure with the State of Arizona’s education funding and the resulting ballooning class sizes, (40) which they say results in inferior performance.

Governor Doug Ducey was invited to be the keynote speaker. However, the only thing worthy of note, according to the Governor was his visit to Eegee’s.