The new Governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has chosen Jacob Olivia, a member of Ron DeSantis’ education team to lead Arkansas’ schools.
Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times expects that the change in personnel indicates a new move to install vouchers and to copy other parts of disastrous and divisive education agenda.
Yep, the Cabinet appointment today by incoming Governor Sanders was a big one. She’ll be replacing Asa Hutchinson’s Education secretary, Johnny Key, with a veteran of the DeSantis administration in Florida, Jacob Oliva, senior chancellor at the Florida Department of Education, overseeing the Division of Public Schools.
Brantley quotes an opinion piece written in the district where Olivia was a superintendent before DeSantis brought him into a statewide position:
A quick search turned up this opinion piece on Oliva, by a writer who said he’d been a generally progressive school administrator in Flagler County but had drunk DeSantis’ “reactionary Kool-Aid.” It notes that, as a high school principal, Oliva initially moved to kill a student production of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” but relented after protests, a positive sign of his willingness to listen.
But the writer also said of Olivia:
I am trying to understand how you went from being one of the most progressive, innovative and inclusive superintendents in the history of Flagler County to a shill, as one of two Florida senior chancellors of education, for the single most regressive, reactionary and, frankly, just plain mean state departments of education in the nation. Something isn’t adding up.
I urge you to open the link and read the article, and please, please read the comments.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Possible subtitle, Diane:
Another Flor-uh-duh educational metastasis
When Jeb Bush was governor of Florida, he believed passionately in testing, accountability, and choice as the cornerstone of the non-existent Florida miracle. He sent his acolytes across the country to spread his hackneyed ideas. Brother George made them into federal law and called them”No Child Left Behind.” 22 years later, even more have been left behind.
Now DeSantis embellishes the Florida miracle: no teaching about sexuality, gender or race. No teaching about the unpleasant things in US history. Send the kids to religious schools to be indoctrinated into someone’s faith. Enrich the charter grifters.
What a sad history, Diane!!!
I taught under NCLB. Its acolytes have indeed moved on to megaphilanthropy (by way of tech billionaire widows and ex-spouses) and charters. NCLB damaged curricula and students and not one of its advocates has been held accountable.
I never quite understood how people could so debase themselves for ambition.
That’s Que Sera Huckster-bee Slanders
The United States is evolving into two countries: RED States and BLUE States
There are also states that are called PUPRLE that are divided politically and are not controlled totally by one party. In the last two elections, the RED states lost some ground. I recall that eight states that were once RED are no longer RED.
BLUE states basically represent the US Constitution in how they are governed, and are continuing to improve human rights and lifestyles.
Without fact checking, again, I recall that in the last two elections, BLUE states increased by five. I don’t know how many PURPLE state there are. I haven’t checked recently.
RED states, depending on how long they have been RED, are more autocratic, have more gun violence, more crime, and higher poverty rates, et al.
That is odd considering that most of the political influence in RED states comes from ALEC, an organization with members that claim to be libertarians while they are really theofascists, anti-labor unions, anti-law when those laws apply to corporations and rich people, anti-public sector, mysogynists, racists, and anarchists.
What’s happening in Arkansas, a solid RED state, should not be a surprise.
“In 2020, Trump won 62.40% of the vote to Biden’s 34.78%, a 27.62% margin, the seventh consecutive election in which Republicans improved on their margin in Arkansas, the longest in the nation of any state for either party.”
Now, Arkansas also has a theofascist Repulibican governor, who may rise to the top of the water in the RED toilet to complete with Abbott and DeSantis for the crown of the most autocratic governors in the country. It’s apparent to me that if she does that, her end goal is the White House just like DeSantis and Abbott.
Over the weekend, a nationally broadcast ad for The Freedom FROM Religion Foundation was aired.
The Hill (right wing) ran an op ed yesterday that references a government agency that uses the exclusionary term, Freedom OF Religion. The op-ed was written by a mother of 7 who converted to being a Latter Day Saint (Katrina Swett who claims to be a Democrat) and by Sam Brownback, a Republican politician who converted to Catholicism.
There’s a great deal at stake for Americans. We find ourselves coerced by the laws of conservative Christians. There are attacks against women’s rights in international law and global governance which are led by a U.S. agency.
Under the heading, Global Constitutionalism, Cambridge Press posted in 2022 (11:3, p. 401-429), “Control, Alt, Delete: patriarchal populist attacks on international women’s rights.” The article suggests what democracy has to fear from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. First, a US. gag rule on the mention of abortion which reflects, “Control. Secondly, ” reflecting, “Alt”, women’s rights are reframed by claiming they threaten other rights. And, thirdly, reflecting, “Delete”, there is the removal of the terms, gender and sexual reproductive health from US documents.
Sarah Huckster-bee Sanders picks a fence post to be Secretary of Education. Why? Because she and a fence post have the same degree of understanding of most things.
I don’t think she’s hiring anyone to run anything unless it’s into the ground. On another note, we will see this very much in the next couple of years. Part of the DeSantisization of the US.