Don't Sign the Anti-LEARNS Petition! (Part III)

This is the third and final post of a series to reveal the truth behind the movement to stop Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' monumental transformation of the Arkansas education system. The inappropriately named CAPES stands for Citizens for Arkansas Public Education and Students. A more fitting name would probably be CARES for Citizens Against Reforming Education for Students. My first two posts in this series described what the petition peddlers hope to achieve and what LEARNS seeks to achieve. This final post of the series will expose who is leading this charge to prevent reform of an education system that fails too many kids. (Part I, Part II)

The Governor's LEARNS Act is a plan to overhaul a system that leaves almost two-thirds of third graders below grade level in reading. According to the most recent data available for the Arkansas School Report Cards, less than 42% of high school graduates enrolled in college the fall following their senior year. Of those, more than 70% were required to take remedial courses. It's not a great stretch to put these numbers together to show not much more than 12.5% of students leave high school adequately prepared for college. The petition pushers are leading a movement to maintain this system in its current form, while LEARNS is hoping to transform it into a system that better serves Arkansas students. (Part I)

Once we realize how poorly the system is functioning, it seems almost crazy to think some people don't want to reform it. That leads us to the question, who is leading this charge? 

Let's take a look at the faces behind the petition pushers. Their names and pictures are posted on the CAPES website along with a short bio. Let's meet CAPES Executive Director Steven Grappe and Chair Veronica McClane. Who are they and what do they stand for?

Ronald Reagan said we shouldn't consider a person an enemy because we disagree with them 20% of the time. But does it make sense to follow someone we disagree with 80% or more of the time?

Who is Steve Grappe?

On May 19th, on his personal Facebook page, Mr. Grappe shared a CAPES post that claimed it is a non-partisan organization. In fact, many of his posts promoting the CAPES petition tout the moniker "non-partisan." But Mr. Grappe could appropriately wear the tag Democrat activist.

Before Governor Sanders revealed her education package, before CAPES started its petition pushing, Grappe's Facebook feed is filled with postings of Democrat party events from all over the state. His bio on the CAPES website declares him chair of the "Rural Caucus of Arkansas," conspicuously missing its undeniable ties to the Democrat Party of Arkansas. In fact, the organization is referenced on his posts several times by friends of his as the Rural Caucus of the Democrat Party of Arkansas. A January 15th post on the Rural Caucus of Arkansas page proclaims "Tonight marks the first step in the Rural Caucus plan to take back the 69 rural counties for the Democratic Party of Arkansas." That page is also filled with tons of posts supporting Democrat candidates and Democrat causes.

Grappe ran for White County Justice of the Peace in 2022 as a Democrat. On his campaign Facebook page he quotes Democrat Senator Raphael Warnock from Georgia. A September 20, 2022 post from his campaign page proclaims, "We need you to help us beat the “Moral Majority”, MAGA-right radical Republicans this fall." Grappe's far left radical Democrat rhetoric and campaigning didn't seem to go very far with his would be White County constituents. He garnered only 14.73% of the vote against his Republican challenger.

There's more evidence easily located with a few clicks of the mouse, but it would take way more lines than you want to read to document it here. But if you've read this far, you can surely see Mr. Grappe is no more non-partisan than I am. We're just on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Who is Veronica McClane?

It won't take long to demonstrate Ms. McClane is another hard left Democrat activist. The first thing I noticed in her Facebook photos is a selfie of her sitting next to Jerry Cox of the Arkansas Family Council. Mr. Cox is a pro-life champion in Arkansas. She proudly described harassing him for his work to end abortion in Arkansas. She posted another photo on June 29, 2022 begging people to keep wearing masks, even though it was painfully obvious long before then that masks were completely ineffective at controlling the virus.

On April 6th of this year, she posted two pictures showing some of the definitions listed in SB 396, which became Act 689, in a misleading attempt to disparage Republicans in the legislature. SB 396 requires social media companies to confirm users are not minors or have the explicit permission of a parent or guardian to access the platform. It is clearly an attempt to protect children from the perils we all know exist online. But McClane claimed the intent was for government to monitor your social media use. There is nothing in the law that authorizes or encourages any government agency to collect or receive any data at all. It is simply a law to protect children, but McClane misrepresented it to use it as propaganda to slander Republican legislators.

But the most egregious of all posts I found on her Facebook feed was this photo, a meme proclaiming, "The biggest danger of taking your children to a drag show is that a Christian could show up with a gun."

I don't believe it's possible to look at either of these two leaders of the petition peddling movement to take down LEARNS and believe their obvious lies in claiming to be a non-partisan movement. They are as far left as I am right.

The difference is, I'm not dressing up in non-partisan camoflage to fool people into following me. But, if you are this out of touch with the majority of Arkansas voters, how else can you get people to follow you down the path to prop up an education system that fails to adequately prepare more than 80% of its students for further academic study?

Arkansas voted 62% for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. The two people leading this charge are deep blue, as far from non-partisan as I am, but on the opposite side from the majority of Arkansas voters. 

Don't follow these two leftist Democrats off a cliff. Governor Sanders came in with a bold ambition to transform education in Arkansas. 

In the first post of this series, you saw what these petition peddlers want to achieve--they want to keep Arkansas's education system as it is. In the second, you saw what LEARNS seeks to accomplish--the Governor wants to move Arkansas from the bottom of the pile of education systems to the top. Now you see the faces of the anti-LEARNS petition movement, two leftist Democrat activists posing as non-partisan concerned citizens. 

If these two aren't going to vote like you at the ballot box, if they're going to support and campaign for candidates you couldn't hold your nose and support, why would you follow them into waging war on the best chance at real education reform we've ever had in Arkansas? 

Please, don't sign the anti-LEARNS petition!