PHOENIX — Just a handful of complaints from hundreds of calls to a new state hotline to report race-based education have warranted an investigation, Arizona’s top education official said Friday.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told radio station KTAR News that the Arizona Department of Education found half a dozen complaints to be credible.
“At this point, most of the calls are prank calls,” Horne said. “But we won’t let that put us off. We’ll just ignore them.”
The Arizona Empower Hotline has been operational since March 7th. It was set up specifically to address allegations by teachers who teach so-called critical race theory or classes that invoke race and ethnicity. State education officials say the hotline has received 2,000 emails and 600 calls and voicemails so far.
There was a social media campaign to flood the tips with either prank calls or messages praising teachers.
Many education groups have accused Horne of politicizing their jobs. A group of teachers marched to Horne’s office on Wednesday in protest.
The Arizona Education Association recently took to Twitter, urging Horne to eliminate the hotline.
Other conservative-leaning states have developed similar methods to eradicate curricula that make reference to race or ethnicity.
In January 2022, Governor Glenn Youngkin established a tipping hotline in Virginia. However, his office said she was deactivated in September after receiving “little to no” pertinent calls, USA Today reported. In 2021, North Carolina Deputy Governor Mark Robinson launched an online portal to address concerns about instruction in the state’s public schools. Many used it to submit criticism of him.
In Louisiana, Attorney General Jeff Landry launched a child protection hotline in November for complaints about teachers and library staff. Louisiana Illuminator, a nonprofit news organization, found through a public records request that most of the complaints were about memes and spam.
Source