Ed Supe Kathy Hoffman proves too much is never enough

Hoffman’s ‘State of Education’ speech demands additional teacher’s salary increases, as she thumbs her nose at 20% raises

It was easy enough to miss — but Democrat Kathy Hoffman, Arizona’s newly elected Superintendent of Public Instruction, delivered her fledgling State of Education speech.

A committed leftist, her campaign of smoke and mirrors promised a sound education benefiting Arizona’s school children, many of whom are in ESL classes and not up to speed in the basics. Yet Hoffman regards sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, including clear policies, support groups, and activities for LGBTQ students on the top of her list.  Her campaign website stated, “Welcoming family diversity promotes exclusivity and must be a priority for our state.”

Hoffman’s intransigent opposition to charter schools is abundantly clear, with these irrational words addressing her fears, “I do not support the expansion of ESA vouchers and will be voting NO on Prop 305 come November. If passed, Prop 305 would further defund our public schools. This is terrifying.”

The proposition was ultimately defeated by the public school teachers’ union activists* who couldn’t compete with the proliferation of excellent Charter Schools and want to deny parents choice in the education of their own children. While public school teachers went out on strike, none of the charter or parochial school teachers joined their Socialist-led parade.

Paid month’s long maternity and paternity leave is another of the policies Hoffman advocates, saying such plans would help retain teachers. Apparently working a part-time job, with lengthy holiday vacation days and summer’s off isn’t enough of an enticement.

Kathy Hoffman notes she “proudly voted to walk out” with her fellow #REDSforEd striking teachers who abandoned a reported 840,000 Arizona students for over a week in violation of their contractual agreements as they followed Socialist Pied Piper Noah Karvelis a 24-year-old hip hop music teacher and avowed Socialist. She says she was “inspired by unity within the movement.”

Lacking any leadership experience, Hoffman has spent more time as a student than as a teacher, having taught preschool for two years and two additional years as a years as a speech therapist.

After initially rejecting the outrageous demands for a 20% pay increase for their part-time jobs, Gov. Doug Ducey caved in to their threats while lying about the lack of a tax increase, using inventive language to deceive Arizona taxpayers.

We’ve been had…by politicians of both parties.

* Center for Responsive Politics

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Brittany Zamora: Another sexual predator teacher

Had this sexual predator teacher not been caught, she would be receiving the 20% raise gifted by vacillating Gov. Ducey, who ultimately caved to the demands of the striking unionist teachers who abandoned 800,000 AZ students for a week. His move only embolden them to hold taxpayers hostage at their whim.

For years Seeing Red AZ exposed the sexual predators in Arizona’s schools.  These were not people scaling fences to illegally enter the grounds where children were supposed to be getting an education.  The predators we routinely exposed were the teachers entrusted to educating students, not exploit them.  After covering countless members of the leftist teacher’s unions who betrayed the trust of parents and students, we let our coverage of these predators lapse, since it became what we referred to as the “Endless Parade.”

This 2013 post exposed the strenuous efforts engaged in by leaders of the nation’s major teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers — objecting to barring such predators from working around school children. They claimed the measure might “jeopardize workers’ protections under union contracts.”

In numerous cases involving teachers or administrators, union officials have negotiated separation agreements with employers, allowing offenders to quietly leave their positions with a letter of recommendation — enabling them to secure jobs in unsuspecting districts — as well as taking a hefty payout with them as they leave.

Today, we’re reviving the topic of predator teachers to introduce Brittany Zamora, 27, a married sixth-grade teacher at Las Brisas Academy Elementary in Goodyear Arizona who repeatedly engaged in sex acts at the school with a 13-year-old boy who was in her class. His parents have filed a lawsuit against the district, where other teachers and students were aware of the inappropriate relationship. Rather than notifying the boy’s parents, Principal Timothy Dickey lectured students about “the dangers of rumors.”

Read their explicit text message exchanges here.

Zamora was arrested at the home she shares with her husband and is being held on $250,000 bond. 

In 2016, Zamora was certified to teach elementary education K-8 in Arizona, according to the Arizona Department of Education’s database, which now notes she has a disciplinary record on file. She was certified to teach Structured English Immersion, a method of rapidly teaching language skills to non-English speakers. Obviously, she’s found a universal language that bypasses the mundane teaching practices. 

Brittany Zamora has been booked into the Fourth Avenue Jail, charged with 8 counts of sexual contact with a minor, Class 2 felonies; 2 counts of child molestation, Class 2 felonies; and I count of transmitting obscene material, a Class 4 Felony. She is scheduled for a status conference on March 29 and a preliminary hearing April 2, 2019.

 

Educrat thugs promise “Armageddon”

AEA Pres. Joe Thomas threatens another strike, as teachers resemble thugs pulling a heist

Emboldened by Gov. Ducey’s capitulation to their 20% salary demands, the #RedsforEd unionist teachers are planning more walkouts.

Even after Ducey caved to their demands after vowing he would not, the unionists still endorsed radical Leftist open border proponent David Garcia for governor.  He was trounced 56% to 41%. And the new money for the teacher’s raises which Ducey said he would not increase taxes to provide? He’s instituted a new “public safety fee” to cover the pay hikes.

During the strike Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association (AEA) was front and center issuing statements about the need for more money for the teachers —- who care so much for their students that last year they abandoned 800,000 of them for over a week in violation of their contractual agreements.

Paid by the union, Joe Thomas received in excess of $400,000 in compensation each year from 2011 through 2016. That swank sum has no doubt been upgraded in the past three years. Thomas and his teacher wife are Democrats. Following the Nov. General Election, we posted, “If you like AZ’s leftist election results, thank a teacher.”

The striking teachers chose Noah Karvelis as the leader they mindlessly followed. The 23-year-old hip hop music teacher and Socialist Bernie Sander’s AZ campaign coordinator,  urged his colleagues on Twitter to teach political activism to their students and advance the concepts of gun control, white privilege, and anti-capitalism.

Never forget the “underpaid” teachers, who work 81/2 months a year, are able to support the far left teacher’s unions to the tune of $millions a year, earmarked for Democrat candidates and liberal causes.

We are geared to think that teachers care about the students entrusted to them, but walking out on them proves otherwise. So do the words of then-retiring NEA legal counsel Bob Chanin. Listen to his admission carefully.(brief video.) He admits that the unions are about money, power, and a leftist agenda —- clearly stating “It’s not because we care about children.”

Teachers have staged walkouts in West Virginia, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, and now in the Los Angeles School District, where they are  promising “Armageddon.” To most of them, that’s a word with mystic allure.  What it really promises is catastrophic calamity of biblical proportions.

Passage of ballot propositions — 301 in 2000 increasing the state sales tax and 123 in 2016 a grab from the state land trust — guaranteed more money for education, which apparently is never enough. School districts routinely hold budget overrides and bond elections to “get more money into the classroom” —- eduspeak for bolstering teacher’s salaries. A major premise of passing the Arizona Lottery in 1980 was that money from ticket sales would fund schools.

Falling prey to the teacher’s demands was foolishness personified. It’s like attempting to bribe a mobster. No amount will ever be enough.

Uh oh…Pres. Trump’s polling has tanked

Republicans are warned that Donald Trump will lead them into the political wilderness.  It’s a repeat of the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, when all of the cultural elite asserted with absolute certainty (video) that Donald Trump would never be president.

They were, of course, off by a country mile.

The current polls are reflective of the relentless multi-pronged, media-driven, crusade against President Trump. Those who know little and read even less, are easily swayed and bullied into thinking that the man who was buoyed by a populist wave into the White House has somehow fallen short. 

He hasn’t.

To the delight of his base, President Trump is delivering on his campaign promises. Joblessness is at historic lows, the economy is surging, he has appointed two U.S. Supreme Court justices, with another in sight. His unprecedented inroads with North Korea have been monumental. The Dems are smarting, bruised and broken.  They are also enraged that that “sure thing Hillary,” endorsed by the majority of nation’s editorial boards — including the leftwing Arizona Republic, not only lost, but suffered massive nationwide losses.

Further evidence of the dismal shape the Democrats find themselves in, is shown by the socialists who are gaining dominance in the party that once appealed to many of our patriotic parents and grandparents.  Renown economics professor Dr. Walter Williams, succinctly compares Capitalism to Socialism.

It is the far left educrat unions that are responsible for failing to educate American students in the realities of the disastrous system. Preceding the midterm elections, Investor’s Business Daily ran this editorial, “Millennials May Love Socialism, But Socialism Won’t Love Them Back.“

Millennials supported Socialist Bernie Sanders for president in shockingly high numbers.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Socialist trounced a ten-term incumbent Democrat congressman in New York by courting minorities and the youth vote with slippery deception and technology rather than traditional campaign strategies.

Republicans must regard these phenomenons as instructive, rather than dismissing them as anomalies. America’s future depends on it.

Gov. Ducey’s magical “fee” is actually a tax

Teacher pay hikes that “wouldn’t raise taxes,” find their funding source: YOU

Remember when Gov. Doug Ducey, vowed he would not be held hostage to teachers’ demands for a 20% pay hike, and then acquiesced, though promising no tax increases would be needed to fund their excessive demands for their part-time jobs?

Surprise!

Beginning Jan. 1, 2019 there will be a new, deceptively named “public safety fee“(notice it’s not called a tax) that will be tacked on to vehicle registrations. The newspaper headline says it takes effect Jan. 1, but the ADOT press release declares Dec. 1.  Which one of these charlatans to believe?

ADOT’s website is full service, providing a choice among 103 languages from Afrikaans to Zulu, and even has a readily accessible Civil Rights Division, in case your feelings were bruised during your work day. If that isn’t enough, it also hawks specialty license plates, “for that person who’s impossible to shop for.”

The $32 fee/scam, originally touted as $18, was projected to raise either $149 or $185 million yearly. The numbers fluctuate wildly depending on the “fee” and who made the projections.  When the word “stakeholders” is used, your suspicion antenna should be on high alert. ADOT itself announced it would actually be $265.6 million! Good luck in finding that news release now. This is the enabling legislation, signed by Gov. Ducey. The purpose of this “fee” is to free up highway safety money tapped into for educrats, according to this revealing news report.

On July 13, 2018 leftist editorialist Linda Valdez wrote, “What’s wrong with Phoenix raising taxes?” one of her loads of drivel passing for a column.  Valdez is a staunch cradle-to-grave advocate. With liberals, having the government provide for you throughout your lifetime is a core belief comparable to the religious fervor she so disdains. Of course, “the government” is us.

The rest of us hold the belief that taxes are our money, necessary for maintaining infrastructure (pipelines, utilities, roadways, bridges, and military preparedness), but often misspent. President Trump’s tax cuts have, in fact, spurred economic growth. Tax cuts, not tax increases, are the means of energizing the economy and empowering Americans.

Tell that to da Dems and da Ducey.

Higher education reaches its nadir*

Illegal invaders now charity recipients, courtesy of Berkeley

Gone are the days when a university degree was indicative of attaining a higher education. Nurtured in a curriculum of liberal indoctrination from the earliest grades, students are pawns in an ideological crusade. This appalling example from Edina, Minnesota is not an anomaly, but is reflective of teaching throughout the United States.

Is it any wonder that by the time the barely out of wet-diaper toddlerdom, kindergartners are propagandized, matriculating as brainwashed high school students, ultimately reaching institutions such as Berkeley or Princeton, they engage in full-throated lunacy?

The student government at the University of California, Berkeley, “voted to financially fund the migrant caravan in a resolution passed by the student senate,” as Breitbart reported. “US imperialism and white colonialism has been implemented in Central American countries,” said a teary-eyed student, adding that she would be ashamed to see anyone in the student senate vote against funding the migrant caravan. Once again students illiterate of history accuse anyone they disagree with as being “Nazis,” although there are no brutal labor camps with ovens specially constructed for humans or gas streaming from shower heads, killing men, women and children given bars of soap to make the victims more compliant. Janet Napolitano, formerly Arizona’s radically leftist governor and Obama’s appointee as a worthless Homeland Security chieftain, is now the president of the University of California system.

On the East coast, Princeton sophomore Noa Wollstein was so offended by the “toxic masculinity” expressed in the song, “Kiss the Girl,” she was moved to write to the student newspaper, The Daily Princetonian to complain.  She declared the Disney song performed by an all-male a cappella group, the Princeton Tigertones, was misogynistic and dismissive of consent. In the cartoon film, The little Mermaid, it is sung by Sebastian a talking crab, urging him to kiss Ariel, the little mermaid.

“Remove the context of magic and mermaids,” Wollstein wrote, “and the lyrics blatantly encourage a man to try to make physical advances on a woman without her consent.”

FrontPage mag exposed, “Another week of leftist lunacy,” writing, “One worrying illustration of this comes from – none other than – the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) with, chapters at more than 500 universities and colleges throughout the U.S. According to Campus Reform, the AAUP is urging its members to combat legislative proposals meant for “the protection of free speech” on campus.”

Imagine that?

* That’s ‘rock bottom’ for those of you who graduated from an Ivy League school.

Lazy AZ voters willingly vote away their right to vote

 Coconino County: Voting is such a wearying process it deserves to be ditched

In the wake of Arizona’s leftist unionist teachers, led by a 24-year- old, self-avowed socialist veering the November elections into the Democrat column, it was easy to miss this strange election phenomenon.  First, a bit of background:

In 1974 Arizona voters approved a slickly packaged, State Bar contrivance, Constitutional Amendment known as Merit Selection of Judges. Its purpose was to replace election of judges that had served the people well, with a controlled process while letting the voters think they were participating in something far superior, since it carried the key words “non-partisan,” as cover.  The non-partisan aspect is a farce, since the judicial applicants each must designate a political party on their applications, the commissioners are all selected by virtue of their party affiliations by obviously partisan Boards of Supervisors  (on the trial court level) and the governor (appellate level courts). Ultimately the partisan governor makes the final judicial selections from among partisan applicants. When judicial vacancies occur, the 16-member commissions, selected to represent political parties, and each chaired by a voting Supreme Court justice engage in a vetting and interview process.

A 250,000 population component covered the Superior Courts, which originally included just Maricopa and Pima counties. The thirteen remaining counties didn’t reach that population threshold, so they continued to elect their judges, keeping the judiciary closer to the people they serve.  Then wha’dya know?  Suddenly Pinal county hit the magic mark, and the vote was removed from its citizens.  Next to fall into the trap will be Yavapai, Yuma and Mohave Counties.

Coconino County, the home of liberal NAU university town, Flagstaff, is number 7 on the population density list, but its residents couldn’t wait to have their votes confiscated from them by virtue of this imposed constitutional amendment overreach. Proposition 416, was sold by the Coconino County Board of Supervisors — who would now have a direct hand in the process — as representing “transparency.”

It received little notice, but in the recent election, the voters in Coconino County actually voted to give up their right to vote. Our Founders must be reeling in their graves.

Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin when he was stopped by woman at the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787:

“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”

  “A Republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”