PHX Reporter

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne (R) said the solution to making education better is “to elect more conservatives to school boards.”

“When I say conservative, I mean people who are academically oriented,” Horne told host Leyla Gulen on the Grand Canyon Times Podcast. “Who want the schools to do better academically rather than a lot of this left wing stuff, excessive social emotional learning and critical race theory and sexual stuff.”

“I'm not up for reelection until 2026,” Horne said. “So for 2024, my political emphasis is on electing conservatives or academically oriented people to school boards, turning the situation around.”

This full episode is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Horne, 78, was elected Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction in the November 2022 election, defeating incumbent Kathy Hoffman (D). Horne received 50.2% of the vote to Hoffman’s 49.8%.

A native of Montreal, Quebec, Horne is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. 

He has served in all three branches of Arizona government. Horne was a member of the Arizona House of Representatives from 1997 to 2001, and had a first stint as Superintendent of Public Instruction from 2003 to 2011. He was elected as state Attorney General in 2010, but lost his re-election to fellow Republican Mark Brnovich in the 2014 Republican Primary.

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Full, unedited transcript of this episode:

Leyla Gulen [00:00:02] Welcome to the Grand Canyon Times podcast. I'm your host, Leila Gallen. In this episode, we welcome our guest, Tom Horn. Tom currently serves as Arizona's superintendent of public Instruction. A graduate of Harvard Law School. Tom also served as Arizona attorney general and is Judge Pro-Tem in Maricopa County Superior Court and Arizona Court of Appeals. Tom, welcome. 

Tom Horne [00:00:27] Good to be with you later. 

Leyla Gulen [00:00:29] Well, you are definitely known for taking some bold steps in Arizona's education system, such as removing junk food from schools and eliminating ethnic studies in the classroom. But let's start with current day and how your office is defending the state of Arizona against a federal lawsuit challenging a state law that bans boys from competing in girls school sports. This has been a topic that's just been on many people's lives across the country. 

Tom Horne [00:00:59] Yeah, well, the papers have been followed. Stories about girls who work hard on their sports practice all day long and their dreams of making the varsity or maybe getting a college scholarship or maybe the Olympics. And then they have to and they're doing very well. And then they have to compete against a biological male. And their dreams are shattered. They're devastated. And sometimes I wonder why people don't have more people don't have sympathy for them. They seem to be the last people in this equation. And I will take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if I have to. If I get to the U.S. Supreme Court, I feel great. But put it all in there. I'm not sure about the liberal Ninth Circuit or this liberal Tucson judge. That's been a side to it. But if I can get to the U.S. Supreme Court, I think I'll win the case there, because I'm determined that we're not going to have biological boys competing against girls in our state. 

Leyla Gulen [00:01:52] Yeah, you're in the process of trying to change venues to Phenix, to Maricopa County. Why is that? 

Tom Horne [00:01:58] Well, we wanted to get a more objective judge, but the decision was made by the judge that had the case, and she obviously wanted to keep it to impose her ideology. And so we weren't able to do. But we stuck in Tucson. 

Leyla Gulen [00:02:12] Now, your office is defending the lawsuit because Attorney General Chris Mayes decided not to defend state laws. Do you think that she's shirking her duties of office by refusing to defend state law? 

Tom Horne [00:02:24] I think that's a nice way to put it. I was the attorney general, so I know that the duty of the attorney general is to is first of all, to represent the various state agencies and secondly, to defend state laws. And she claimed that she didn't have to do it because she had a conflict. But disagreeing with the position is not a consulate. I defended laws I did not agree with because I thought that was my duty and I knew it was my duty. A conflict would be if she had represented one of the parties or something like that, which she did not do. So I think she definitely shirked her duties. She gets money from the legislature to take care of lawsuits on. I get money or education and I'm having to use education money to defend this lawsuit because she won't do her duty. And I feel very strongly that biological boys don't belong in general sports. They don't belong in girls locker rooms, girls, bathrooms, showers and so on. 

Leyla Gulen [00:03:18] Now, related to boys being allowed to compete in girls, sports is also the topic of boys being allowed to use the same school bathrooms as girls because they say these boys identify as girls. So does your office have a role in preventing local schools from allowing this to happen? 

Tom Horne [00:03:38] But we don't have the power to stop it. But I've been communicating with school. Telling the transsexuals they should have a separate bathroom. If they don't have room for one, they should be able to use the faculty ballots. Not that they should not allow boys and girls laptops. And I told them that you do that while others will take their daughters out of those schools. They can't stand the idea that boys can come in in their daughters bathroom. And and parents have a choice. No, they don't have to go to their local school. So it would be very self-destructive to allow biological boys and girls bathrooms or locker rooms or showers. 

Leyla Gulen [00:04:14] And with so much of this talk going around and parents really up in arms from coast to coast, they're really stepping up and they're making sure that their voices are heard. Do you find the parents are making any traction in this fight that there are any better equipped to protect their children? 

Tom Horne [00:04:32] Yeah. What happened was during Covid, the parents could see what was being taught because it was on, it was online. And so the parents could look at the child's laptop and see what was being taught. And they were outraged by what they saw. They shot outrageously racial stuff and critical race theory dividing kids by race rather than teaching students that they should be they should treat each other as individuals. And what mattered is what they know and what they could do and what was their character, but not what race they were. That's irrelevant to anything but critical race theory. That part. But that is primary. And and then social emotional learning has gotten out of hand where instead of learning academics, I have a letter from a teacher who was a teacher of English literature who said that for ten days our kids didn't learn anything because they went under social emotional learning. They sat around and talked about their identities. And if the parents knew that because we're learning it, then they took the school and she couldn't understand why there's a desire for her to produce ignorant ignoramuses, her students. So parents were outraged by that. And so a number of them went to their school board meetings. And they they weren't always treated courteously. So when I took office, I created a hotline where parents communicate directly with me. And the teachers union called for a protest against me for a march to the Department of Education to protest my hotline. And both people showed up. So that was never a successful march. Great. The most interesting email I got on the hotline was not from a parent, but it was from a teacher who was in the Mesa district, was upset about her professional development, and she'd sent us a picture of a visual that that that claim that United States was a white supremacist country. So we called Mesa and they eliminated the professional development. 

Leyla Gulen [00:06:29] Oh, goodness. Yeah. I was going to ask you about that hotline. And I think the teachers union, their biggest argument was you got 30,000 prank calls. Therefore, this is a waste of time and resources. I can't even imagine how many prank calls 911 gets on a regular basis. But that's not going anywhere. So why do you think these teachers are just so hard pressed to have so much control and to the detriment of kids learning and also against parental wishes? 

Tom Horne [00:07:06] And the people who know most about their children are the parents. When a child is born, it's the most important thing in the world's lives. And they read them and they call them and they take care of them. They know more than anybody else about them. And they should be able to choose where their children go. And so. I've been a defender of essays, education, empowerment, scholarships, education, scholarship account where people at all economic levels have the same rights that rich people have always had. That students needs are not being made in public school. They have other choices. Now, my my main job as state superintendent of public instruction is to help schools improve their academic outcomes. And that's where I spend 90% of my time and effort. But but I do think parents should have a choice. Even a good school doesn't necessarily meet the needs of all the students. And we have like a family where three children to go to public schools and are very happy there. And one of them needed something else so that so that that one child got an essay. And I think that that's a right that the parents at all economic level should have not just rich parents. 

Leyla Gulen [00:08:14] It just so I have my information correct. Are these the vouchers that you're talking about? 

Tom Horne [00:08:17] Yes. Yes. Universal vouchers? Yeah. We call them. We call them education scholarship accounts. 

Leyla Gulen [00:08:23] And Kathy Hobbs seems to have an issue with that, saying that it's now exceeded the expected cost to the state. 

Tom Horne [00:08:32] Well, whoever prepared that study for her needs to go back and take their best was the. What they did figure is that if a student would otherwise be in public school and these are not be made and the the parent decides to put them in private school, we pay 7200. But if the student stayed in public school, it would have cost the state $30,000, though they calculated only the cost. That's counting the offset cost that it would cost in the public school. It's first. He's got off to a bad start last year before I took office because the people who were on top of things were rich or people who already had their kids in private school. And so there we were, paying the gross cost. But when I took office, I started advertising to let people at all economic levels know that this was available to them. So we're down from 80% to about 5050, and the trend, I think, will continue downward. We're less of the parents that sign up for essays already have their children in private school and more of them that would otherwise hug the public school. So there'd be an offset so we won't have the overrun that she's been predicting. On the contrary, even though the state is facing a budget shortfall, it's not due to K-12. The K-12 budget, including public schools and essays, is $70 million below budget. So that's a clear refutation of what she's been saying. 

Leyla Gulen [00:10:06] Say. And I want to continue our discussion and on content that's being taught in schools. But if I could for just a moment, go back to the boys using girls bathrooms. So what do you say to local school boards such as Peoria Unified School District who are refusing to pass measures that would prevent boys from using the same bathrooms as girls? 

Tom Horne [00:10:28] Well, what's happened is very. I'm sure the district, certainly in the Phenix area, a very left wing school board. So what happened is the teachers union would get left wing teachers to run for school board, not in their where they teach, but where they live. And they would put a lot of money into those races. And a lot of people don't know where the various candidates stand for other school board races. So you get these left wing school boards in conservative areas Paradise Valley, Scotts, you know, Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler, you name it. And they're not really representing their communities. So I'm not up for reelection until 2026. So in the 2024 election, my reasonable political point of view is going to be to help elect more conservatives to school boards. And when I say conservatives, I mean people who are academically oriented, who want to make the effort to raise the academic results in their schools rather than people who are interested in implementing this left, left wing ideology like you see in Peoria. 

Leyla Gulen [00:11:37] And before we jump into critical race theory again and also some of the sexualized content that children are being exposed to now, I wanted to go back to I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up and to give some context to your previous work in eliminating ethnic studies in the classroom side. So I want to make sure that our listeners have some context as to what that means, because on the face of it, eliminating ethnic studies, it's not exactly what it sounds like. So maybe you could offer us a bit more. 

Tom Horne [00:12:09] Right. So that is divided students by by race. So. White kids. The classroom number one, black is the classroom. Number two is classroom. Number three, Native American should for just like the old school. So they're going backwards on primitive life. People are loyal to their tribes and everyone else is an enemy. But as as civilization develops, people learn to treat each other as individuals and not pay attention to race, which is irrelevant to anything. So they're going backwards not only to the old South, but to that backwards against civilization. And they one of the things they say they're against, believe it or not, is enlightenment rationalism. Which taught people that they could think for themselves and they could do experiments to get facts. They didn't have to rely on religious doctrine. I wrote a bill for the legislature, which the legislature passed to put a stop to it. And we eventually got the got the Tucson to eliminate it. But then after I left office, it came back with a vengeance. And. Or these ten years. I felt like I was a voice in the wilderness fighting critical race theory, which is an explicit. Curriculum under ethnic studies. But when Fox News started describing critical race theory as CRT, I knew the world had caught up with me. 

Leyla Gulen [00:13:31] Right. Exactly. So that Segways perfectly into my next question. Critical race theory. It's not wholly different from what you're describing as sort of those segregated classrooms, but rather everybody in the same room. However, being taught lessons that at essentially kids who you don't know any better are taught to hate their neighbor sitting next to them. 

Tom Horne [00:13:57] That's what I call it, ethnic chauvinism that they're pushing. And it's contra totally contrary to the idea of civilization in which we learn to treat each other as individuals. And we need to teach our students really Chinese individuals and not focus on race. It's crazy. It's backward. And I'm committed to fighting it. 

Leyla Gulen [00:14:17] Is critical race theory being taught in Arizona schools? And I know, but what is your office doing about it? 

Tom Horne [00:14:22] I have a document with 50 signatures on it. Teachers say the document was put out by the the NEA, the National Education Association, the National Teachers Union, which said, believe it or not, it said if states restrict the teaching of critical race theory, they are going to defy the law. Now, these are teachers supposed to be role models for their students. A serious thing to say. You're going to defy the law. They wouldn't be saying that. They weren't already teaching it. And I have the list of the school districts they come from in 25 districts. They include all of Arizona's largest districts. So the idea that critical race theory is not being taught here is ridiculous. I'm fighting against it. But it's going to be a long fight. The the the left wing view of critical race theory is that it does not exist. And it's awesome. 

Leyla Gulen [00:15:12] So I've had the opportunity to speak with parents from West Virginia all the way to Arizona, discussing the sexualized content that has seeped into schools and into school libraries. Now, in July of this year, the AC Valley Times reported that the Perry Branch Public Library, which is located on the grounds of Perry High School in Gilbert, Arizona, contains a book featuring a group of Catholic nuns mocking transvestites are called Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. So are you aware of this book being in a library on public school grounds? And is this type of content something that your office is focused on and can deal with? 

Tom Horne [00:15:56] Well, I think there are more outrageous things going on in public libraries and in school libraries, especially in church child story hours about transsexuals and about drag queens. They called it Drag Queen Child story or something like that. Now, if an adult wants to go to a drag queen show, that's their business. Nobody should ever interfere in that. But you don't subject kids to drag queens. That's ridiculous. And and in the public schools, when we have a duty to decide on age appropriate literature for the students in reading. And so when we say something, it's not like you take a book like. I'm trying to remember the name of it. There's a book that has a picture that has drawings of men having sex together and having sexual borders that that has no place in a school library and deciding which age appropriate is not censorship. Censorship is if you if you don't let somebody sell a book anywhere and put them in jail for for selling a book. That would be censorship. But determining what's age appropriate in schools is not censorship. And and it's it's every bit appropriate. Teach scientifically based materials to students when their bodies are changing and they want to know what's happening to them. But other than that, sex has no place in the schools that we need to teach them reading, writing, math, history, science and the arts. And I'm reminded by I'd like to quote something that Churchill's mother said, which is that sex belongs in the privacy of the bedroom and not out in the street where it might scare the horses. 

Leyla Gulen [00:17:33] Yeah. I think that horses ran for the hills. They heard and saw some of the books that were being displayed and on the shelves of these libraries. I mean, some of them are just downright pornographic. 

Tom Horne [00:17:48] Yeah, they really are. And I saw a superintendent I got a letter from a grandmother saying that, well, grandchild was in middle school and in the library was a book. It's called Something of a Wallflower. It was once a famous book. It has a scene in there of forced oral sex at a party that has no business in a middle school library. No, I didn't censor it. I just said email out to the middle school. Alert them that this book was in a middle school library. They want to check my check and see if it's in their library. And then it's up to them what to do. I got accused to try to be a censor, but that wasn't my intent. My intent was simply to alert women. 

Leyla Gulen [00:18:29] What about the parents, though? Because if the parents are learning that this is available to their kids and the children could be reading it and never the parents will never know. I mean, I would think that they would have some sort of a say in which to have those books removed completely. 

Tom Horne [00:18:48] Yeah. The ultimate solution. So we need to elect more conservatives to school boards. And when I say conservative, I mean people are academically oriented. What the schools to do better academically rather than a lot of this left wing stuff, excessive social emotional learning and critical race theory and sexual stuff. And so. I'm not up for election and reelection until 2026 over 2024. My political emphasis is on electing conservatives or academically oriented people to school boards turning the situation around. 

Leyla Gulen [00:19:24] And what have you been hearing from parents and parents been championing your efforts? Do you have detractors? What has been the overall response to your actions as superintendent? 

Tom Horne [00:19:36] I think a lot of parents, I'll put it this way. Governor of Arkansas pointed out that we're in a war of the normal against the crazy. And I'm the only one in statewide office who's fighting against the crazy. And I have support of a lot of normal people. But I also have opposition from the left wing, from different groups. But I've always had that because I want to do things. I want to accomplish things to improve academics. And when you're if you don't do anything, it's easy to have nobody against you. But if you're doing things, you're going to have people attack you. And I get tons and tons of hate mail. I was going to tell you about the our hotline. 

Leyla Gulen [00:20:20] Yes. 

Tom Horne [00:20:21] I got diverted in Virginia. What happened was they got thousands of Greg calls or that were grant emails. And so they gave up and they shut it down. But I have a little more stick to events than they do. And we just ignored the Craig stuff and focused on the meaningful ones. And so we're not this long with I'm in office, we're going to have a thing. 

Leyla Gulen [00:20:44] Then you had mentioned the NSA program a few minutes ago. Your office has reported that almost 70,000 kids have received empowerment scholarship accounts as of October 23rd. So just in the last several days. Can you provide an update on what's working with the NSA program and what could work better? 

Tom Horne [00:21:06] We have to put that in context. We have 70,000 kids in states, but we have 1,100,000 in our schools. So it's still a very small percentage. Most people want their child to go to the neighborhood school. But if the if a child's needs are not being met and the other children's needs might be met, might be a very good school. But if a child's needs are not being met, the parent needs to have the choice that rich people have always had. Find another school that will meet the needs of the child. I have people working for me in the Department of Education who are teachers. They're strong supporters of ESEA because they saw kids whose names were not being met and they wanted to tell the parents the choices that they have, but they were afraid to do it because they're afraid they'd be disciplined by the administrations. So it's important that we make this option available. So to the extent possible, all of the children's individual needs will be met. 

Leyla Gulen [00:22:01] Indeed, indeed. Well, it sounds like you have an awful lot on your plate, but I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you, do you have anything else that we haven't discussed already that you're working on that you want to make sure our listeners know about? 

Tom Horne [00:22:15] Well, you may have heard that I sued the governor and the attorney general. The. And the issue is English language learners. 

Leyla Gulen [00:22:22] Yep. You say saying that singular English language is superior. 

Tom Horne [00:22:28] After being in structured English immersion and not dual language. An initiative passed in the year 2000 requiring structured English in. 

Leyla Gulen [00:22:37] This is not to be confused, though, with learning a second language in schools. 

Tom Horne [00:22:43] Though I'm all for that. You know, I studied the five languages. Offer that. But kids coming here not learning English first have to learn English so they can succeed academically and ultimately succeed in the economy. When I took office of the initiative had not been in enforced. One of my predecessors was Lisa Graham Keegan, a name you might remember, and she reported. The legislature vandar bilingual education, which was preeminent at the time. 4% of the students became proficient English in one year. That's pathetically low. At that rate, almost no one would be proficient. They'd fail in the economy abroad. Instruction English Immersion. We got up to 31% at 31% in 3 or 4 years, they all become proficient or almost all become admission. So anybody who cares about the academic success of the kids knows that English structured English is the way to go. Those who are defending good language are doing it out of ideology and not for the academic success of the students. 

Leyla Gulen [00:23:43] And in many cases, these children, these students, they go back home to a foreign language environment. So to to not even have the practice at home, they're getting all of their instruction from school. But if the schools are teaching in dual languages or in a language other than English, then they're really just never learning to assimilate into American society. 

Tom Horne [00:24:10] Exactly. Or the economy. 

Leyla Gulen [00:24:11] Or the economy. 

Tom Horne [00:24:13] We can't succeed in the economy if you don't know English. So this is a strong crusade of mine. And I think these kids are getting cheated, ones that are dual language. And I think it's a it's abuse. It's a terrible thing. Governor in the attorney general supporting new language. So that's why I simply. 

Leyla Gulen [00:24:32] And the thing is, when you look at people from around the country excuse me, around the world, there are many people from foreign countries that speak English better than native born American. So to be able to stay competitive on the world stage. English is the universal language. 

Tom Horne [00:24:53] Well, that's absolutely right. Like a lot of professions, like airline pilots must know English. They're in any country, even communist country. They have to know English because that's what's the universal language for other people in the world. 

Leyla Gulen [00:25:08] It's amazing. Well, Tom Horne, Arizona superintendent of public instruction. Thank you so much for joining us today. 

Tom Horne [00:25:15] It's a pleasure to be with you, Layla. What? 

Leyla Gulen [00:25:19] Thank you so much. Well, that wraps it up for another episode of Grand Canyon Times podcast. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you soon.