Indications are that State Sen. John Huppenthal doesn't appreciate irony

Cross-posted at Blog for Arizona...


Wednesday afternoon, State Sen. John Huppenthal chaired a meeting of the Senate Education Committee.

Much of the meeting was an exercise in campaign positioning (he's running for state superintendant of public instruction this year). That positioning included inviting Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute to give a presentation on the "wonderful" statistical results of education reform in Florida.

After that, the committee considered a couple of bills, proposed by Huppenthal himself. One of those was SB1039, a bill to remove certain info from the "report cards" that public schools have to issue about themselves to the public. The info he wants removed from public scrutiny includes (from the lege summary sheet) per pupil expenditures, available social services, available transportation services, class size, and teacher/student ratios.

His objection is that such info is "self-reported" and not subject to verification. As such, it is suspect and shouldn't be disseminated to the public.

The ironic part is that while Huppenthal was blunt in his criticism of public schools as deceptive, his praise of Ladner and GI, an organization known for fudging numbers and taking shortcuts (apples to oranges comparisons) with statistical analyses, was effusive to the point of being overtly obsequious.

Yes, it's an election year, with all of the expected posturing and preening, but it isn't unreasonable to expect a little intellectual honesty out of someone who want to oversee the state's education apparatus, is it?