Tom Horne joins Ted to discuss his platform for Arizona schools

Tom Horne, the new Superintendent of Public Instruction defeated incumbent Kathy Hoffman for the position by 9,100 votes. Horne held the position before from 2003-2011. He ran partly on a platform of removing CRT or Critical Race Theory from being taught in Arizona schools. His critics pointed out that is not taught in the schools.

“I think parents are upset that the students are not doing well on their tests,” Horne said. “They’re not learning enough, too many distractions, Social Emotional Learning, Critical Race Theory, inappropriate sexual stuff,” he said. Horne said parents want teachers to teach the academics that they’re supposed to be teaching and get rid of other diversions.

In the case of SEL, Horne said it discourages discipline. “Kids can’t learn in a class that’s not disciplined or structured,” he said. Horne said he believes every school should have a counselor for students.

Horne wants Arizona schools to get back to orderly classrooms. “Teachers need to teach academics,” he said.

“The school is no better than the teachers in the classroom,” he said. “The message I’m getting from teachers is to let us teach the subjects I signed up to teach.”

Horne’s first priority is school resource officers to keep kids protected in schools. Secondly, Horne wants counselors in every school. “I always have and I fought for it [counselors] when I was on a school board.”

In terms of pay, Horne said Arizona teachers are not paid enough and that surrounding states to Arizona pay more. “We lose good teachers to those surrounding states,” he said. “We need to pay teachers more. That’s important.”