Ready for today’s history lesson.
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The state of Arizona has had a contentious relationship with teachers for years, resulting a regular inability of districts to fill many teacher positions, at times resorting to measures like recruiting teachers from the Philippines. A 2017 study found that, adjusted for cost of living, Arizona elementary teachers were the lowest paid in the nation (high school teachers were 48th). But legislators were not always sympathetic; then-House Majority Leader John Allen explained that teachers were only working second jobs because they wanted a boat or a bigger house.
Almost exactly three years ago, tens of thousands of Arizona teachers walked off the job, citing issues of pay, respect, and support for public education; they triggered a national teacher movement in the process. The legislature passed a bill with increased funding for public education and Governor Ducey signed it the same day.
But the legislator backlash began immediately. Rep. Mark Finchem proposed a “Teacher Code of Ethics” bill forbidding teachers to talk about politics or advocate for any side of a “controversial issue.” He claimed to be doing this because he had been “inundated” by angry parents; a FOIA request revealed that he had received one email about the issue. In fact, the code of ethics was actually being passed around nationally by some hard right activists. In that same session, Rep. Kelly Townsend proposed a $5,000 fine for any person responsible for closing a school on a scheduled school day. Also on the table was a bill forbidding any employee of a school district to “espouse a political ideology or religious belief, unless it is germane to the subject matter of the class or activity.” Teachers who wore a red shirt to school would have been subject to a $5,000 fine.
Townsend was not particularly coy about her intentions. She told the Arizona Capital Times, “People are saying, ‘Oh, you know, this is just a response to Red for Ed.’ Who’s saying it isn’t?”
Those bills did not gain enough traction to pass, but the impulses behind them have not eased up. In 2021, Arizona student enrollment is down in public schools, with a few thousand “ghost students” who are neither in public nor charter schools. But the drop has triggered teacher layoffs, which has brought into play a decade-old law against using seniority or tenure in these decisions. Instead, districts are using rubrics that include down-rating teachers for not “promoting the campus culture,” negative social media posts, or discussing district school decisions and concerns publicly.
A flurry of bills were proposed at the beginning of this year’s session, but the one currently making news is SB 1532. This bill started out as a bill about country transportation planning assistants. Now it is a bill about forbidding controversial topics in the classroom.
At first, SB 1532 had become one of many bills across the country aimed at forbidding the teaching of critical race theory in the classroom, using virtually the same language used in similar bills in other states like Idaho and Texas. But with her recent amendment, House Education Chair Rep. Michelle Udall upped the ante by including this clause:
If a Teacher chooses to discuss controversial issues of public policy or social affairs, the teacher, to the best of the teacher’s ability, shall present these issues from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective.
The language is spectacularly vague; for some folks, it is controversial to say that slavery was the cause of the Civil War, that the Earth is round, that climate change is real, that 9/11 was perpetrated by terrorists, that the Holocaust happened, or that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Would an Arizona teacher required to present an impartial look at “both sides” of these issues? Confronted with that question, Udall replied that “Largely discredited arguments don’t need to be presented as fact,” which is not really an answer at all.
Teachers who violate the law are subject to a $5,000 fine (about 10% of the average Arizona teacher salary), plus reimbursement of any “misused monies.” The attorney general may also bring an action against anyone found to have used public monies or resources to prevent “a public school from operating for any period of time.”
The bill has sailed quickly through the Arizona House, using procedural moves to skip any sort of public testimony. It goes back to the Senate next.
It’s hard to estimate just how chilling this bill would be for classroom teaching. With every potentially controversial topic, a teacher would have to consider if an opposing viewpoint is even worth the trouble. How do you function as a responsible educator if you must face punishment for not airing objectionable “other sides.” How do your job when the law requires you to teach things you know are wrong? And with such a law in place, one can be guaranteed that some administrators who want to avoid trouble will simply forbid teachers to teach anything controversial, ever. This bill is not a great Teacher Appreciation Week gift.
