In a surreal event probably designed to respond to a extreme right wing MAGA challenge from State Treasurer Kimberly Yee, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, accompanied by Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan, President of the Maricopa County Colleges Police Association/concerned parent Jim Hill and concerned parent Karen Martinson, announced that he would be notifying the United States Department of Education that the Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board was in violation of the Trump Discriminatory Policies on not allowing D.E.I. in public school instruction and lying on a sworn declaration to the Department.
D.E.I. stands for Diversity, Equity, and Instruction.
The Trump proposed D.E.I. changes are currently being blocked in court challenges.
The bone of contention according to Superintendent Horne is five pages spaced out over two text Social Studies textbooks: US History Interactive and Human Geography: A Spatial Perspective.
Five pages out of hundreds.
Do the words witch hunt come to mind?
Horne cited these pages in this presentation, admitting he had not read him. His staff pointed them out. His office also cited some of them in a post event press statement. Please see below.
“At page 1033: “ many people, including Black Lives Matter activists argued that these separate events as Well, as well as the death of many Black people in earlier years was the result of deeply embedded racism.” Nothing was said about what other people may be saying. Other people do not believe that racism is deeply embedded in the United States.
On the same page referring to the 2020 riots: protest marches were generally peaceful“ Horne pointed out that “we’ve all seen the video on television of a reporter saying that surrounded by burning buildings and attacks on police cars.”
At page 1025, referring to the incident at Ferguson: “one witness claimed that before being shot, Brown had raised his hands and said “don’t shoot!“ Horne pointed out:
“To his everlasting credit, Eric Holder, the first African American United States Attorney General in history, conducted an objective investigation, and concluded that officer Wilson shot Ferguson in self-defense. Limiting the discussion to what one witness said was extremely misleading.“
At page 1026: “a basic tenet of democracy is that power should belong to the people. But what can people try if they feel they’re not being heard or if they live under an authoritarian system? Civil resistance, encompasses a broad range of lawful and nonviolent action aimed at returning power to the people. Use this video as a brief introduction.“
Horne pointed out: “the United States is a Democratic Republic. We do not have a monarch. Officials are elected by a vote of the people. This gives everyone the opportunity, if they disagree with what the government is doing, to campaign for the election of someone else. That is the solution to disagree with government policy. Students are being encouraged by the video to engage in civil resistance to a democratically elected government. The suggestion in this quotation that the United States is an authority system is a woke lie.“
From Page 167: “renovations and improvements conforming to middle-class preferences has driven up the demand for housing and the cost of living in these neighborhoods, making it difficult for less affluent more vulnerable LGBTQUI plus populations to live there”.
Horne replied: I will not comment on what QUIA plus means, but the suggestion that LGBT people are financially oppressed is extremely misleading. Many LGBT People are quite prosperous. The median income for men in same-sex marriages is $149,900. The median income for men in opposite sex married couples is $124,900.
- From a human geography book also used by the Scottsdale USD: APHUG 5: Human Geography: A Spatial Perspective, Bednarz et al., Cengage, 2022
Republican lawmakers in some states have packed African-American voters into a single district or small number of districts there by creating majority Republican districts in the rest of the state.”
Horne responded: this was a civil rights project of the Democratic Party. The goal was to assure minority representation in Congress. The Republican Party had nothing to do with it.”
Horne, in his remarks, accused the Scottsdale Board members that voted for adopting these textbooks of promoting a one sided “woke” view of history.
It should be concerning that Mr. Horne appears to take the position that peaceful protests have no place in society after the election is over. That flys in the face of over 250 years of tradition in this and other nations. With that attitude, there would have been no Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Civil Rights Movement.
He also displayed current event ignorance over racial congressional gerrymandering in states like Alabama. When asked about this, the Arizona Department of Education did not respond.
Horne also showed his hypocrisy in his reference, not covered in the press release, when discussing the Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman case, saying Zimmerman was right to defend himself against Martin beating on him.
However, Horne omitted the part of the case where Zimmerman was told by a 911 dispatcher not to follow and engage with Martin.
Seems one sided is okay with the Superintendent when he is trying to frame his own arguments.
What should also be chilling is Mr. Horne bringing in two law enforcement individuals, Sheridan and Hill. The fact that the video transmission of only their comments encountered technical difficulties may be telling. The fact that Sheridan is a known fringe official who has been under investigation, has said he will ignore a judges order if he thinks it is a bad ruling, and feels the sheriff is “the ultimate power in the county” should be scary as well. When this writer asked, in two emails for a transcript detailing their remarks, it was not provided.
People should wonder why it was necessary to bring two law enforcement officials to the event in the first place. The imagery gives off the ominous Orwellian stench of promoting thought police.
The other parent who lodged a complaint, Ms. Martinson, did not make the cut in the press release. Perhaps that is because she went all Sunday School in her initial remarks, saying that the school district was “indoctrinating” children by not talking about Jesus Christ’s resurrection and “the historical accuracy of the stories in the Bible is questionable.”
There was no reply when this writer asked the Arizona Department of Education, what Ms. Martinson’s qualifications were for ascertaining State Social Studies standards.
After the event, the Superintendent did not have a good answer on why he was signaling out Scottsdale while several other traditional and charter public school districts, including Peoria Unified, was using the same material. Mr. Horne did say that Peoria had asked the textbook company to change the cited pages for them but had no answer on the others.
When asked if he had spoken with the members of the Scottsdale Governing Board, he said he had not and that he only tried to reach the two conservatives who voted against the textbooks. Talk about lack of due diligence.
There was no reply to this writers question to the Department on “Why has the Superintendent not contacted the Scottsdale board members he has concerns about? How can he accuse them of being untruthful if he has not spoken with them?”
The Department also did not respond to the question: “The Superintendent has been an outspoken opponent of DEI. What does he have against the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion? It would seem that educators would want to promote the richness of our differences, that we should all be treated equally, and the joys of including everyone in community. Please advise.”
The Scottsdale Unified District released a statement, responding to Horne’s assertions, offering:
“We reject the baseless accusations made during today’s press conference by State Superintendent Tom Horne. His claims of indoctrination and a so-called ‘leftist curriculum being imposed’ on students are simply untrue and unsupported by fact. Curriculum decisions in SUSD are made through a transparent, collaborative, and non-partisan process, guided by a curriculum adoption committee and aligned with Arizona state standards, standards for which Mr. Horne and the State Board are ultimately responsible. Our duly elected, non-partisan Governing Board, approved the social studies curriculum following months of review and community input. To single out SUSD while other districts, including Peoria Unified and charter schools like Legacy and American Leadership Academy adopted the same curriculum materials is disingenuous and politically motivated. SUSD remains committed to providing world-class, future-focused education. Our mission is to cultivate critical thinking, not to promote any ideology. This type of inflammatory rhetoric distracts from the real issues facing Arizona schools, most notably, the need to raise student achievement in math, science, reading, and writing. That is where our focus lies heading into the 2025-26 school year.”
Commenting on Horne’s witch hunt, Arizona Assistant Democratic House Leader Nancy Gutierrez posted:
“Tattletale Horne is going to “tell the Feds” about a book that a district is using to teach history. Guess what! That’s what schools do. He’s trying to out MAGA his MAGA opponent.”
Later, at a House Democratic presser condemning the House Republican Budget Framework, Representative Gutierrez commented to Blog for Arizona:
“It’s just interesting to see him bashing a Superintendent of a great school district because they have history books, and he’s trying to out MAGA the MAGAS in order to save his primary. It’s sad, but he’s always been against DEI. But history isn’t DEI. History is what our public schools are supposed to be teaching. So him, he’s actually being against real curriculum. And that is pathetic, and the fact that he hasn’t gone out after, I guess, it’s maybe a dozen other districts that have the same curriculum. Interesting that he has something against Scottsdale School District. He also has something against Tucson Unified School District. I mean, he picks and chooses what I guess you would consider the most woke districts, which his definition of that is laughable.”
The Arizona Education Association President, Marisol Garcia was at the same House Democratic Event and said of Horne’s action toward the Scottsdale district:
“It was a perfect kind of don’t look at what’s really happening and let me call out something that is not a priority to parents and across the state. What really is a priority is that we’re continuing to underfund public education, and and he’s dealing with a huge problem and that is Esa voucher families are upset about a handbook that’s about to come out next week. And Teachers across Arizona are going to teach honest curriculum. They’re going to teach what happened in history. It’s our primary objective. We use primary sources and more holistically, we teach critical thinking skills. We want students to be able to look at something that happened, try to gather evidence about what it looks like is happening, and then be able to take a position and be able to speak to others about it. That’s the goal of our work. So, When I watch the press conference, I thought he doesn’t know what it’s like to be an educator and what curriculum is. Mr Horne has always told me he wanted to be a social studies teacher, so we would welcome him in our classroom for a while to see what it’s actually like.”
On the law enforcement representatives being there, President Garcia said:
“Having police walk into classrooms and monitor books and and monitor what people are saying and I honestly think it was just a magic trick. Don’t look at the problems over here, and I’m going to try to manufacture issues over here, and I didn’t see this.”
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