PHOENIX — With a few years under her belt and through a pandemic, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman is hoping to retain her position to further her work in schools.
Hoffman is running against Republican and former superintendent Tom Horne.
As superintendent, Hoffman dealt with one issue her predecessors haven’t: a pandemic.
School buildings closed and test scores went down during COVID-19, as they did across the country.
The Arizona State Department of Education says scores did rebound a few percentage points in the 2021/2022 school year with 41% of students passing the English Language Arts section and 33% passing the math section. This is a 3% and 2% increase, respectively, to the 2020/2021 school ear.
“While that’s only a small amount of growth, we’re at least headed in the right direction, and I think that is in part because of the hard work of educators and families really going above and beyond really this last year,” Hoffman said.
During an interview with ABC15, Hoffman repeatedly discussed funding in the education sector.
She says more funding is needed to improve student academics adding that more money is needed to help keep class sizes small, find more teachers to educate children, and strengthen early education.
Several voters that ABC15 spoke with said they want to see Arizona get out of the bottom for education.
Hoffman responded by saying that’s happened partially because of funding and that the state cut back a lot during the recession. She said the state has started to reinvest in education over the years.
“Even with all the new funding allocated this past spring, that takes time for our schools to be able to really put that into action and to see the impact of that funding towards our teacher salaries,” Hoffman said.
The state is also going through a known teacher shortage.
The Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association reported there are 26.6% of teacher vacancies that remain unfilled, according to a recent report.
To combat that, Hoffman created the Arizona Teacher Residency program to ensure the retainment of teachers in the state. The program is modeled after medical residencies.
She plans to expand that in the years to come, but also still wants to raise teacher pay. She acknowledges Governor Doug Ducey’s, 20% by 2020 plan, but she added that time has passed.
“My question for the legislature and future governor is what is the plan going forward to ensure Arizona has a plan to keep building to support our teachers in the classroom? I will continue to be advocating for that type of additional funding from our legislature,” she said.
Another issue that’s at top of my mind for Hoffman is student safety.
“I would start by saying as a mom, I'm extremely concerned about school safety,” she said.
Hoffman said under her tenure, she helped secure more money for school safety programs, while also helping to acquire more school counselor positions across the state. Hoffman said she will continue to work with schools to figure out what they need to help keep students safe.
“Do they need to have multiple school counselors? Is it a school community that wants a school officer at their door? We want to make sure it’s not a ‘Which one do you want, it’s what do you need in making sure we’re providing resources and the tools to keep our children safe in schools,’” she said.
Hoffman’s opponent, Tom Horne, is running his campaign with critical race theory at the forefront.
He feels it is being taught in schools.
Hoffman rebuffed saying it is not being taught in class. She says she advocates for schools to teach about history and civics, which they should be following state standards.
“It’s not about teaching shame, it’s about learning about our history. Learning about issues like slavery and the history of our Native American people to be able to teach the next generation and ensure that there’s not the same mistakes made in the future,” she said. “I continue to advocate for these types of lessons to be historically accurate and culturally relevant. Ultimately, when it comes to my opponent, Mr. Horne, focusing on critical race theory, to me, shows that he’s out of touch with the priorities of Arizona voters because when I am traveling the state and talking with parents, the questions I’m hearing are about our teachers and what are we doing to ensure we have a strong workforce and educating our kids.”
Hoffman, who worked in the Peoria School District before becoming state superintendent, vows she will keep listening to schools about their needs.
