by David Safier
Welcome to Ed Supe John Huppenthal's world, which he shares with other conservative Republican candidates across the country who aren't quite wingnut enough to satisfy the truly addled wingnuts. Hupp is being attacked by Diane Douglas, a primary challenger from the right. How will he respond? That'll depend on how seriously he takes her challenge.
To find out what's wrong-headed left-headed about our current Ed Supe, there's no better place to look than Seeing AZ Red. According to a post, Hupp's main sin is his embrace of the Common Core. The often gullible right hasn't been gulled by Hupp's changing the name to Arizona College and Career Ready Standards. They know it's still the Common Core.
It has also become difficult to sell the [Common Core's] leftist standards — long in multiculturalism, self esteem and social justice and short on actual education — to the groups he is addressing. “Unwavering“ in his commitment to Common Core, Huppenthal admits outside of the rebranding, nothing will actually change in his Obama-influenced vision for Arizona classrooms.
[snip]
FrontPage Mag exposes the shocking Common Core ‘Exemplars’ and the Daily Caller reveals graphic sex and the praising of Communist Castro.
Hupp's challenger, Diane Douglas, embraces Conservative Values and Proven Leadership. I know this because it's a big, bold headline on her website. I also know she's a tenther because she writes near the bottom of her home page,
When elected with your help, I will use every power of that office to ensure the AZ Dept & our State Board of Education protect and defend our 10th Amendment right to direct and control the education of our children.
I learned from Douglas that Common Core is really ObamaED, and one of its goals is "to rewrite the story of American pre-eminence in the world."
Funny thing is, Douglas and I both oppose the Common Core, though for very different reasons, and we're both concerned with the collection of data about our children, though she calls it "massive federally mandated data collection" when the private sector and the states are far more involved in the process than the feds. Not much chance I'll be voting for her though.
If Hupp thinks he can brush Nancy Douglas aside, he'll remain his same old conservative self, making a few token concessions to the conservative wing of the conservative party while he bashes his favorite target, TUSD. But if Douglas gets a wind at her back, watch out. Her kind of Republicans vote more than his kind of Republicans. Things could get very interesting if Hupp sees Douglas growing bigger in his rearview mirror. And if she wins the primary, should I be happy that it will move centrist voters toward David Garcia, the Democratic candidate, or should I worry that any Republican can beat any Democrat in a statewide race?
Mastering multiplicatiom in fourth grade doesn’t cut it. It is just out of place when you consider our objectives should challenge students and teachers. Most students are well through their multiplication tables by third grade. Its a stretch but not unreasonable. Half of our students are doing double digit multiplication by the end of fourth grade, successfully.
The US’s lagging international standard attainment is a 30 year myth propagated by the privitizers. Take out the scores of those in poverty and the US’s scores are at or near the top. There’s lots of data on this.
As for Common Core standards, the group that put these together had no K-12 teacher input. As a result, some K and First grade standards are simply developmentally inappropriate for 5 and 6 yr olds. Additionally, pushing skill attainment down to a lower grade, such as mastering multiplication in 3rd grade rather than 4th grade, does not a smarter populace make.
Just like Huppenthal is not an educator, neither is Arne Duncan. Who suspected that public education policy would take such a terrible turn under a Democratic president. with the terrible choice of Arnie Duncan as Ed. Secretary, instead of Linda Darling Hammond?
Of course David Garcia is way, way overqualified for this job. But in this State the lunatic wing nut often wins, over competence, because they appeal to some non existent problem only they can solve. That is how we got Horne, Brewer and Huppster in the first place. Douglas is so out of touch, she even lost the election for the Glendale City council, and thankfully is off the Peoria School Board. Cant this State ever rise out of the muck of its own neanderthal reputation?