OMG! Where do I begin? I’m going to assume most folks reading this have already heard about Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction and his racist rants on various blogs under psuedonyms Thucydides and Falcon9.  I’m not going to list them all again, but suffice it to say he hates Hispanics, he thinks those on welfare are lazy pigs, and he is a coward for not posting under his own name.  Then, when he was caught in the act, he uttered a faux apology before breaking down crying in a news conference but refusing to resign.

I’ve thought long and hard about this issue and have come up the only reasonable conclusion that he must resign. After all, what John Huppenthal has done is share his true self with us, albeit under another name. He said he used another name to encourage an open dialogue. Really? Doesn’t seem very open when someone is hiding who they are. Furthermore, although he is trying, it’s not like he can “take back” his comments. After all, he compared the Mexican-American studies program in the Tucson Unified School District to the KKK and said it was similar to what Hitler did to coalesce the Germans against the Jews. Sorry, but that’s not the kind of thinking for which you can say “oooops, I misspoke”.  That’s the kind of thinking that comes straight from the heart…or lack thereof.

John Huppenthal tried to justify his robocalls encouraging parents to put their children in private schools by saying he is the Superintendent of Public Instruction, not the Superintendent of Public Schools. That didn’t fly then, anymore than his claim that he didn’t really mean all those nasty things he said will fly now. Since at least 2009, he has spewed hatred toward the poor and Hispanics. One in four children in Arizona is living in poverty and the percentage of Hispanic children in K-12 education has now surpassed that of White children. Huppenthal wouldn’t be the right guy to chart the course for any state’s education program, and especially not in Arizona. Not to mention that he doesn’t even begin to set the example for our students.

He has systemically been trying to turn back the clock to those great ole’ “Leave it to Beaver” days while privatizing public education so private enterprise can profit. He needs to step down so we can move forward and he needs to do it now!