Governor Doug Ducey made five appointments to the Arizona State Board of Education on Friday. Ducey filled the three public member seats, as well as the seat reserved for a county school superintendent and a university president.
Ducey’s selections are mostly pro-Common Core candidates, with only one opponent of the federal standards in the mix:
Jared Taylor, the lone anti-Common Core selection has served as a councilmember for the town of Gilbert since 2012. Prior to his election, Taylor served on various citizen budget committees, as a precinct committeeman and vice chairman in his legislative district, on the board for Constitution Week USA and is an active advocate for Arizonans Against Common Core. He also has 10 years of private sector experience in various corporate human resources roles.
Tim Carter, staunch Common Core proponent, who claims to have been involved in the development of the Common Core standards, is the current Yavapai County School Superintendent. Previously Carter worked at Prescott High School as the assistant principal for student learning, and later as principal until his retirement in 2003.
Michael Crow, the 16th president of Arizona State University, in February emailed alumni and students saying that Ducey’s proposed budget for universities “signals to the state and the nation that higher education is a low priority in Arizona. Crow previously was executive vice provost of Columbia University, where he also served as a professor of science and technology policy. He is also the author of the recently released book, “Designing the New American University.” Under Crow’s leadership, Biology, microbiology, and plant, molecular, and cell biology merged to become the School of Life Sciences, and the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, School of Earth and Space Exploration, School of Social and Family Dynamics, and the School of Social Transformation were added.
Chuck Schmidt, has worked for the Arizona Interscholastic Association (AIA) since 2000, when he was hired as a community relations and marketing coordinator, according to the Arizona Republic. He was promoted to assistant executive director in 2002 and became chief operating officer in 2006. He is currently the Associate Executive Director for the AIA. Carter taught high school social studies at Valley Lutheran High School and was an assistant baseball coach at Valparaiso University.
Chris Deschene, former Democrat state representative from Navajo Nation. Deschene is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in the U.S. Marine Corps. While in the Marines, he served as an infantry and reconnaissance officer with two tours in the Persian Gulf. He went on to graduate school at Arizona State University to earn a master’s degree in engineering and a juris doctorate in law.
Ducey is quietly overhauling the Board though appointments and legislation designed to pull control of education under his office and away from the Arizona Department of Education.
He had sent word of the pending move to lawmakers last week. He reportedly claimed that they would be pleased with his choices after he had convinced them to fund the State Board of Education as a separate department during a midnight session in which legislators passed Ducey’s proposed budget.
According to the Yellow Sheet, “State Board of Education President Greg Miller said he’s pleased that the Board of Ed will become its own, separate agency, the result of a provision in the FY16 budget. “It’s unfortunate that we need to do that…” Miller described the move to make the Board a separate agency as “the appropriate thing to do,” reported the Yellow Sheet.
Political observers were as surprised by Ducey’s selections for the Board, as lawmaker were that the separate funding of the Board was characterized as making the Board a separate agency.
“I look forward to working with the Board of Education to improve results in the classroom and to ensure all Arizona students have access to a great education,” said Governor Ducey.