Tom Horne is back on the ballot this November, vying for the State Superintendent of Public Instruction position. Horne, a Republican, held the schools' chief position from 2003 to 2011 before being elected state attorney general.
Horne is now a partner at a law firm in the Valley.
“My friends tell me, ‘You’re going backwards for running superintendent again.’ I say, ‘No, the big problems are in the schools and that’s what I want to work on,’” he told ABC15.
One of his main priorities, if elected, is to stop critical race theory. He believes it is being taught in schools.
Horne’s opponent, current State Superintendent Kathy Hoffman, said CRT is not being taught in schools. She does, however, support schools teaching about history and civics that are under the state standards as well as learning about racial issues “in a way that is learning empathy, learning about people who come from a different background.”
“The reason I’m opposed to [CRT], what I believe are my ideals and the American ideal is we’re all individuals. We’re all brothers and sisters under the skin. Race is irrelevant to anything. What is your character? What is your ability to appreciate beauty and not what race you’re born into,” he said.
ABC15 also spoke with voters about their concerns about education. Many consistently said schools needed to be funded more in order for the state to get out of the bottom of the rankings. Several surveys over the years show Arizona on the lower end of the spectrum for education.
“Arizona is at the bottom because of the failure of leadership by the current superintendent. And, I have a program to bring it back up based on the experience I had as superintendent and we did have high test scores,” he said.
Horne says he doesn’t blame Hoffman for the state test scores that came out after COVID. However, he refers to test scores prior to COVID.
Numbers from the State Department of Education do show a higher pass rate when Horne was in office, however, the state said it did change the test in 2015. A spokesperson said the new test in 2015 was brought up to standards and is more rigorous.
The former state superintendent says he wants to hold schools accountable for low test scores, too. He feels Hoffman is not doing that and says she’s focused on other issues.
“She’s focused on social-emotional learning, which, in some ways, is a front for critical race theory, if you look at the actual curriculum. But also, it discourages discipline, because teachers are told don’t discipline kids because it hurts their feelings. You have to have discipline in order to have academic progress. You have to have orderly classrooms where kids can learn,” he said.
He also brings up the Q-Chat website, a space Hoffman started with the Arizona Department of Education for students in the LGBTQ+ communities to have online discussions with “experienced staff who work at LGBTQ+ centers around the country” the website says.
Horne said he’s concerned about the website.
“Students go on, give personal information, with parents not knowing about it, give personal information, sexual information, talk to queer chatters who are volunteers, not licensed. We don’t know how many of them might be predators,” he said.
Hoffman responded saying students in the LGBTQ+ community need to have safe and inclusive learning environments, adding that attacks on these resources “are really harmful.” She says the conversation should be around making sure kids are safe online.
Safety is also a top concern for Horne. He believes there should be a school resource officer at every school.
“They're not only good for safety, but they're there all the time so they make friends with the kids and the kids learn to trust them,” he said.
Horne believes there should be more funding for education, too, but in an accountable way.
“There’s two kinds of accountability. There’s academic accountability, you want to see results for putting in more resources. And then there’s financial accountability, the money goes toward teacher salary rather than administration because a school can be no better than the teachers in the classroom,” he said.
He believes teachers should be paid more, and correct legislation needs to be written to make it happen.
