Giving Douglas six months to raise her grade from 'F'

Anthony Espinoza and Max Goshert are doing what too many voters decided not to do in the last election: Their homework.

They're preparing for a possible recall of Arizona's newly elected Superintendent of Public Instruction, Diane Douglas.

They set up a website (recalldouglas.com) through which they are seeking volunteers and putting an organization together in order to be ready six months from now, when it will become legal to file a formal recall petition.

"We were really surprised by the momentum that it gained and how quickly that occurred," Goshert told me. "It really told us a lot about the community's feeling toward Douglas' win. She clenched this powerful position with a kind of shadow campaign. One note. No Common Core. No other ideas. What we found out was people who paid attention to this election were really dismayed by this result. More so than any other race, I think.'"

Within a day after the election Espinoza started a Facebook page calling for Douglas to be recalled.

It received a large and immediate response, which got Espinoza and Goshert working on the larger project.

"We can't just sit around and twiddle our thumbs," Goshert said. "We want to really pay attention to what happens in the next six month, keep the public informed and be ready."

There is no guarantee that Douglas will be able to do away with the Common Core standards adopted by the state school board several years ago.

But there's a lot about educational standards Douglas doesn't seem to like.

Advanced degrees, for example.

She didn't grant many interviews or have much of a public presence during the elections. It seemed that having an "R" behind her name proved to be enough for voters.

But on her campaign website Douglas wrote, "I began studying the American education system and the federal government's ever increasing intrusion into our local control since the early 1990s. I did it on my own, for my own edification rather than through a college of 'education' in order to add letters after my name.'

Who needs letters? MBA? ME? M.D.?

I'm wondering how Douglas would react if, on a day she wasn't feeling well, she walked into the office of a man who called himself a "doctor," and was told he that he didn't go to medical school but instead "did it on my own, for my own edification rather than through a college of 'education' in order to add letters after my name."

Gov.-elect Doug Ducey said he isn't fond of the Common Core standards, either, and he will have an opportunity to appoint new members to the state school board. There most likely will be legislative challenges as well.

Our state representatives and senators REALLY don't like standards.

In the meantime, Espinosa, Goshert and their volunteers will watch Douglas's progress – or lack of it.

"A lot of people are saying the recall effort is premature," Goshert said. "But she has that six months to do the job. If she manages to prove herself to voters then the recall effort will not succeed. But if during that six-month period she gives the public no reason to trust her then we will ready."