Arizona State Senator Linda Gray told supporters that she was afraid of what the unions would do to her if she voted for SB1202. As a result, only those Arizona K-12 public school children who are targeted for their ethnicity are protected by political predators and that is the way Senator Steve Gallardo needs it to be.
Gray was one of four republican senators who voted against the legislation, introduced by Senator Lori Klein at the request of democrats, independents, and republicans, that prevented teachers from indoctrinating students in their classrooms and using children as props in political shows.
The teacher’s union fought the legislation and won the battle. They also fought against a bill that would require school districts from posting their curricula online for parents to see what their kids are learning.
Currently the only Arizona law that protects children from ideological indoctrination is HB2281. That law focuses only on those “educators” and curriculum geared toward ethnicity. SB 1202 was based on current Arizona law which prevents sectarian instruction.
Extremist ideologues on the right and left took exception to the law saying that it was too hard to determine what partisan instruction was. One educator argued “I have Judeo-Christian values and I will be prevented from teaching those.” To which I replied, “I wasn’t aware that Judeo Christian values were held only by conservatives, I am pretty sure that liberals value them too.”
SB 1202 was designed to address pedagogy; extremists’ pedagogy. The pedagogy intended not to inform, but to incite.
Despite the fact that legislators were swamped yesterday morning with bi-partisan calls in support of the legislation, legislators listened only to the one call that mattered; the call from the AEA.
Loretta Hunnicutt is the co-founder of TU4SD, a public school advocacy organization. She has worked in the area of equal access for over 25 years.