By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings
This was published previously in the Peoria Times and the Arizona Republic’s West Valley section.
It is printed here with the permission of the authors (h/t to ProgressNow Arizona) –
To every single voter in Arizona:
As long-time education advocates in Peoria and Cofounders of Peoria United Parent Council in 2004, we have had long-term first-hand experience with Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate Diane Douglas.
We want to make this warning crystal-clear to voters: Diane Douglas does not even remotely have the skills to do the job.
Several years ago, before she ran for the Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) Governing Board, Diane was a member of our parent group. At the time, she seemed to be willing and able to make reasoned decisions and prepared to review all sides of an issue.
However, much to our chagrin and dismay, once she was elected to the PUSD Governing Board, an astonishing Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation took place. Her dangerous extremism, and overwhelming anti-public-education, anti-teacher agenda came rushing to the forefront. Her micromanaging of educators and overwhelming partisanship — in a non-partisan position — was so volatile and divisive that it became nearly impossible to get even the most mundane day-to-day business of the district done, let alone provide additional support to kids and teachers.
Diane is an anti-everything candidate. She repeatedly scorns the benefits of higher education. She opposed every effort to provide adequate funding for our district. While she was a PUSD Governing Board member, she lead the opposition against Prop. 100, the temporary statewide one cent sales tax initiative intended to provide a modicum of additional support to education. Fortunately, Prop. 100 was overwhelmingly approved by voters and supported by our Republican Governor, Jan Brewer.
Diane’s ONLY “experience” in the classroom is second-guessing thousands of highly educated, hard-working, overwhelmingly competent professional teachers in the district on a daily basis. And, no, teaching people how to make stained glass does not count. Yes folks, this esteemed candidate for the most powerful education position in Arizona most recently worked as an instructor at the local strip mall’s stained glass shop. An honest job, but hardly the background required for providing high-level educational leadership and policy direction for the state.
Please listen to the people who know her best. Don’t put Diane Douglas, who is scarily unqualified for this important state-level position, in charge of the future of our children’s and grandchildren’s education, and hence the future economy of Arizona. By any measure – professionalism, cooperativeness, experience and so much more — David Garcia is the far more qualified candidate to lead our schools.
The above accurately describes our eight plus year experience with Diane Douglas, however, we are no longer spokespersons for PUPC.
Jan Wilson and Kim Price Olsen, Peoria Parent and Grandparent
Holy wingnuts, Steve! Arizona voters are stupid? What an outrageous charge! Are you kidding? This is too easy. How many states have a journalist from a Republican mouthpiece newspaper start a project to “Dekook the legislature”?
http://archive.azcentral.com/projects/news/politics/dekook/
Yes, I call it stupidity to vote for these people. As for the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, for years Arizona voters have endorsed people with no meaningful experience in educational leadership. It has been an office for political hacks. (In fact, after Tom Horne won the PRIMARY for Supt., he told David Garcia that one day he would be governor.) But Arizona voters were stupid enough to fall for them and the lack of educational credentials mattered little. So, yes, I think Arizona voters are stupid for voting for people who think Obama was born in Kenya. There is no opportunity to “educate” those voters. There’s not enough between the ears. On the other hand, I don’t call people who favor a regressive flat income tax stupid because we disagree. We just have different values.
I was going to do some research to rebut your contention that Arizona voters are stupid and all I did was depress myself. There IS a significant percentage of Arizona voters who remain willfully ignorant about the candidates for whom they vote. Whether they are simply devoted to the “D” or the “R” after the name, or they wait to be influenced by a stupid TV ad, their vote is an utter waste.
But what depressed me the most is that Arizona doesn’t really offer them much for which to vote. Take our Governor’s race: we have a choice between a disgraced business man and a former lobbyist who represented several unsavory clients. If you look closely at nearly all the candidates, you will find serious flaws to question their integrity, honesty and/or judgment. I won’t waste time dragging all their flaws out for view, but how can an informed voter justify voting for these scalawags? And if we do vote for them, knowing what we know, are we not just as stupid as the uninformed voter?
Anyway, you are correct about stupid Arizona voters, but I think it may be worse than you suggest.
Patricia, I truly hope you are right. But the capacity for stupidity shown by Arizona voters knows no bounds. If I start thinking of all the examples, my head will explode.
The only reason you are calling Arizona voters “stupid” is because they don’t vote the way you want them to vote. I suspect they think you are equally stupid for voting the way that you vote.
How can you expect to “educate” these “stupid” voters by calling them names? Don’t you think you would do better by showing them the logic of how you vote so they can learn for themselves how they should vote?
Just a thought…
In deciding whether or not to vote for Diane Douglas, I will take information from a variety of sources. That is one of the reasons I peruse these pages. But when it comes to School Board activities, I look at the information coming out of them with a skeptical eye.
I served on two different School Boards over the years, and my Wife served on two, as well. The concensus we formed was there is no more gossipy, back stabbing and splintered group of meglomaniacs on this earth than certain members of your average School Board. Not everyone, mind you, but enough to make dealing with them a real nightmare. I don’t know that the people who wrote this Op-Ed are some of that kind, but I would not base my vote on them on the chance they are. If she is really as bad they say, I should be able to find that out from other sources rather easily.
The article was written by parents in the school district, not Board members. I would think they have a pretty good take on her stewardship. We have had 12 disastrous years of terrible education policies under Tom Horne and John Huppenthal. Neither had education credentials for the job. Neither fought for public education. Diane Douglas doesn’t stand a chance in this race, because people are fed up with lack of support for public education.
Patricia, I stand corrected. Thank you for pointing out my error. In that case, forget everything I said.