AZ teachers deserve lumps of coal, not 20% pay hike

Students continue to fail basic AzMERIT tests; ADE’s solution? Change its name to AzM2!

AzMERIT is the educrats’ highly touted program that measures what should be proficiency in student ability to comprehend basic math and reading skills. The recently released scores illuminate the abysmal failures being turned out by Arizona public schools that continually ask for bond overrides and increased school spending.

The Arizona Department of Education appears to go to great lengths to derail active searches of overall scores and those of individual schools. Navigating the 37-page AzMERIT Reporting Guide requires more skills than renowned voyager Magellan likely possessed. We suggest you start here, but make no promises.

The bottom line is that Arizona students are doing even worse on tests than their previously low scores. More than half the students who took the tests failed — for the FIFTH year in a row!

This marks the first year high schools were given the ability to opt out of participating in this specific assessment, which no doubt thrilled the school administrators.

 Since school funding is based in part on student proficiency in basic skills, some schools are resorting to trickery to boost scores, giving those who earn a “B,” for example, a bright shiny “A,” if they were deemed “proficient.” These shortchanged students will be in for a rude awakening when they have to survive in the real world, where they will be expected to perform based on actual ability, a broad range of knowledge, creative thinking aptitudes and effective communication skills.

The Federalist reports schools now have social agendas that have nothing to do with education. Illinois, for example, recently passed a law requiring children as young as preschoolers to be taught LGBT history. Districts can only purchase textbooks that include positive contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in their history curriculum.

NPR affiliate Illinois Public Radio labeled Christian and conservative opposition to this law while it was being considered as stemming from “hate groups.”

In 2018 Seeing Red AZ wrote, #REDS for ED: Union thugs demand more $ for less. It’s chock full of facts and worth your time to review.

Advertisements

September 11, 2001: US Schools ignore facts

Eighteen years ago today, 2,973 people were murdered by 19 Muslim fundamentalist Al-Qaeda terrorists who commandeered commercial airliners and flew two of them into the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City and another into the Pentagon — transforming passenger jets loaded with fuel for transcontinental flights from the east to west coasts, into guided missiles. The death toll includes 40 passengers and crew members aboard the fourth hijacked plane, United 93, which crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, as courageous passengers rushed the cockpit in an attempt to wrest control from the terrorists.

Along with our American citizens, people from 90 other countries were killed in the attacks perpetrated against non-combatants by Islamo-fascist extremists. Many of the murderers, who boarded the flights armed with box cutters and knives, were in the U.S. on expired student visas and had taken commercial flying lessons, some in Arizona flight schools.

On the anniversary of this previously unimaginable atrocity perpetrated against America on our own soil, we can no longer repeat the words, “We will never forget.”

Why?

American schools have deemed the facts concerning the raw evil too politically incorrect, devoting scant time to teaching the truth. American youth can’t forget, because they have little to no knowledge regarding the carnage. As far back as 2011, just ten years after the worst mass murder and destruction on our nation, Education Week, a publication for the teaching establishment, headlined its top story, “Majority of States’ Standards Don’t Mention 9/11.”

Salon, the radically left-wing site takes this view: “We’ve learned, for instance, about the attack’s mechanics — we know which particular terrorists orchestrated it and how many lives those mass murderers tragically destroyed. We also know about 9/11’s long-term legacy — we have healthcare data showing that it created a kind of mass post-traumatic stress disorder, and we have evidence that it generated a significant rise in anti-Muslim bigotry. And, of course, we’ve learned that our government can turn catastrophes like 9/11 into political weapons that successfully coerce America into supporting wars and relinquishing civil liberties.”

Imagine that perspective prevailing after the December 7, 1941 unprovoked Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, which decimated the US Pacific Fleet.

More than 2,400 Americans were killed and nearly 1,180 injured when stealth Japanese fighters bombed and sank 12 naval vessels and heavily damaged nine others.

The vicious attack is rightfully still commemorated. Pres. Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, referred to the sneak attack as, “A date which will live in infamy,” as he addressed congress regarding the declaration of war.

Philosopher George Santayana is renown for saying, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat It.” He also said, “A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.” His words are more true than ever in the current political climate where the teaching establishment is run by leftist unions, whose members admittedly engage in propagandizing rather than teaching.

Anti-police coverage dominates, predatory teachers are routine

The Hillary-endorsing, newly acquired, failing local newspaper, which gives front page prominence to what it calls “bad officer behavior” and use of “excessive force,” when police are in encounters with an increasingly hostile criminal element, is stupefyingly lax when it comes to sexual predatory teachers in our schools.

Beginning in 2009 Seeing Red AZ began covering predatory teachers, with, “The Endless Parade,” predicting in that year, “Nothing wrong with these teachers a good raise in salary couldn’t fix.”

Fast forward to April 2018 where we proved to be ‘right on the money,’ with, “Teachers behaving badly demand 20% raises,” which gives the background on money that has been specifically earmarked for schools through passage of ballot propositions — 301 in 2000 increasing the state sales tax and 123 in 2016 a grab from the state land trust — guaranteeing more money for education, which apparently is never enough.

A major premise of passing the Arizona Lottery in 1980 was that money from ticket purchases would make its way to schools.

Teachers protest and school districts hold budget overrides and bond elections to “get more money into the classroom” —- eduspeak for bolstering teacher’s salaries. And just like clockwork, signs in support of bond overrides are popping up on Valley roadways, once again.

The Goldwater Institute’s VP for Litigation advised school districts the teacher’s strike and school closures were illegal, depriving more than 840,000 Arizona students of their constitutional right to an education. Still Gov. Ducey capitulated, yielding to their demands. Ducey recently applauded gifting lower in-state tuition rates for illegal aliens.

Meanwhile sexual predators with teaching credentials continue to populate our schools, betraying the trust placed in them by parents as they prey on young students. Yet the unfailingly negative focus of the leftist Arizona Republic newspaper continues to be police officers, who increasingly are in life or death situations where split second decisions must be made.

Some of our early coverage of sexual predator teachers can be seen here.

Educrats reveal full-blown Socialist creds

These are the people influencing American students

Unionist teachers are the ones who left pupils in the lurch, abandoning more than 840,000 Arizona students for over a week in 2018 as they protested for 20% pay increases for their part-time jobs. It was not by happenstance were led on their escapade by a 24-year-old, self-described Socialist, uncredentialed hip-hop music teacher.

Recently, the Chicago Tribune reported on a delegation of Chicago teachers who traveled to Socialist-led Venezuela in solidarity with the United Socialist Party government of Nicolas Maduro. The New York Post also regarded this lunacy as newsworthy. Breitbart News gave it prominence. The leftist Arizona Republic didn’t regard it as worthy of coverage. 

The fact that the citizens of Venezuela are enduring devastating hardships resulting from a hyperinflationary economic collapse is of no consequence to these teachers, who funded their trips by begging on a Go Fund Me page.

The harsh realities of Socialism describes the unimaginable conditions the people in the oil rich nation are enduring under the repressive regime.

The brainless Chicago teachers traveled to the ravaged South American nation seeking “inspiration,” while bashing the U.S. government and heaping praise on the repressive Marxist boot on the collective neck of Venezuelans.

These particular teachers are Chicago residents, but their counterparts teach in Arizona and every other state across our nation. They overtly influence American students from kindergarten through college.

The Washington Times reports on a study showing Democrat professors at leading U.S. colleges outnumber Republicans 10 to I. This is the result:

 

 

Shazam! AZ Regents gift illegals college tuition break & Update featuring Ducey response

Chicanery on display as ABOR manipulate tuition, disregard law

The Arizona Board of Regents is an assemblage boasting an august moniker and eight-year terms — longer than any elected official — including the President of the United States.

Working sub-rosa, they take their grandiose title seriously, using it to magically reconfigure illegals into “non-residents.”

With a bit of “Abracadabra” dust sprinkled over our tax dollars, the Regents just pulled a new rabbit out of its collective hat. They unanimously voted Thursday that the three Arizona universities (ASU, UofA and NAU) will charge illegal alien students a non-resident tuition rate that is less expensive than the out-of-state rate they previously were expected to pay.

Notice the coy language used to describe the illegals:

“A student who graduated from an Arizona high school, but who is not otherwise eligible for resident tuition status….”

Even Merlin would have trouble figuring that jargon out, but it’s perfectly coherent to the mystical Regents.

Bottom line? What the Regents voted to approve gives significant tuition breaks to illegal aliens. Your Arizona-born niece who was raised in California but will be attending ASU will have to pay considerably more than an illegal invader.

It also flies in the face of Proposition 300, overwhelmingly passed by Arizona citizens in 2006 — by a vote of 71.4% to 28.6% — and clearly defines, “a state university or community college student who is not a United States citizen and who does not otherwise possess lawful immigration status in this country is not entitled to waivers, grants or any other financial assistance paid in whole or part with state funds.”

Previous to the Regents’ action, illegal aliens attending our state schools had to pay about $30,000, the out-of-state tuition rate. Now with the Regent’s sleight of hand chicanery, they will only pay about half that amount, approximately $16,000.  That’s only $5,000 more than the in-state, American citizen student base rate of $11,000.

Who do you think makes up the difference? 

SRAZ’s April 2019 post, “Scandal rocks AZ State University, Pres. Michael Crow slides,” provides additional information about ASU President Michael Crow, the nation’s highest paid public university president. Although not mentioned by the generous Regents, he has been an unwavering advocate for elevating illegals over Arizona’s citizen students.

Waiting a week to address this preposterous gifting of our tax dollars to fund tuition discounts to illegal aliens, Arizona’s lame duck Gov. Doug Ducey emerges to applaud the Regent’s generosity. Channeling his political mentor, John McCain, Ducey warmly states, “Somebody who graduates from an Arizona high school is an Arizona kid.”

Remember that when he seeks higher office.

Drag Queen Story Hour: Libraries dedicated to corruption of our kids

Perversion being taught as the new normal to America’s children

Remember when libraries were havens for learning and study? In school we learned the Dewey Decimal System of cataloging, to read for pleasure and to expand our base of knowledge. Libraries, whether city owned or housed in our schools, provided a window to the world.

Today that window reeks of lunacy and is steeped in perversion. The American Library Association (ALA) through its Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) division, including the Intellectual Freedom Committee, promotes “continuing education programs” for children. The ALA provides guidelines on promoting this depraved agenda.

This American Library Association link and quote is today’s new reality:

“Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) is just what it sounds like—drag queens reading stories to children in libraries, schools, and bookstores. DQSH captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions…”

That paragraph is an example from the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) self identified as “a network of more than 4,000 children’s and youth librarians, children’s literature experts, publishers, education and library school faculty members, and other adults committed to improving and ensuring the future of the nation through exemplary library service to children.”

Interested in bringing Drag Queen Story Time to your library? At its annual convention, ALSC committee members “received tips for optimizing success from library pioneers who have already done it. We also had the chance to meet a Drag Queen who talked about the value of offering this program, including fostering empathy, tolerance, creativity, imagination and fun.”

This video features very young children being indoctrinated by a man dressed as a woman, teaching them about “gender fluidity.” The children, not more than toddlers, come away from the indoctrination thinking that the story was about “being nice to other people.”

Parents and grandparents must pay attention. This is not the world in which we grew up. Leftism carries a disturbed agenda that includes more than radical politics.

‘Arizona Wins’ is a leftist, taxpayer-funded scam

Swathed in Identity politics, feigned oppression and using tax dollars to forward a far left agenda

The Daily Caller headline, “FCC Dings Left-Wing Nonprofits For Using Federal Program To Finance Pet Projects,” definitely qualifies as an attention getter.

It begins with these words:

A commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission wants to know why two liberal nonprofit groups are using revenue from a federal program designed to give poor children internet access on various progressive pet projects.

Organizations involved in a FCC-program dolling out broadband internet for kids might be siphoning off millions of dollars for their own purposes, according to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr.  The Educational Broadcast Service (EBS) licenses are intended to help schools, but Carr believes revenue from the program is going to political causes.

Carr sent letters to the three groups: Voqal, North American Catholic Educational Programming Founding (NACEPF) and Rockne Educational TV, who he believes are the most responsible for the ruse.

“In your latest annual report, you highlight a number of donations you have made to political and advocacy groups. Organizations by the same name as two of your grantees — Arizona WINS and WIN Minnesota — appear to expressly advocate for the defeat of political candidates,” he noted in one letter to Voqal President John Schwartz.

Obviously the words, “Arizona WINS,” flash like a lighthouse beacon. What we found is anything but benign. Its concept of winning encompasses extreme leftism, as we see in SOMETHING’S HAPPENING IN AZ. #ANEWDAY:

“Join us for our launch party! You’ll meet the 2019 Monzon Fellows in person while learning more about this exciting new organization that will be working to build the political power of voters of color and low-income communities in Arizona! RSVP using the form to the right.”

As you check out the biased bios of the principals, focus on Monica Nowakowski. She is the daughter of Phoenix City Councilman Michael Nowakowski, who has joined in the loathsome trend of bashing Phoenix Police. Their Polish surname is a relic from a family member of a previous generation. Monica’s dad is Executive Vice President of La Campesina Radio Network — part of Entravision Communications, a network of 48 Spanish-language radio stations in eleven states, also broadcasting into Mexico — in conjunction the far left Cesar Chavez Foundation. Monica was employed in sales and PR.

The concept of Americans coming together to accomplish things that benefit us all has no relevancy when radical leftists are involved. It’s all about identity politics, feigned oppression and using tax dollars to forward a far left political agenda. Stay alert. This will only intensify as we approach the 2020 election.