Arizona State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne defended his department’s controversial policies during a visit Tuesday to Elgin School.
Horne was at the school to showcase a new AI tutoring tool that the school will be using to support teachers and students. After a brief school assembly, where he presented Elgin Superintendent/Principal Dan Erickson with an Exemplary Academic Achievement Award plaque, Horne sat down with Erickson, Sonoita School District Board members, staff and invited members of the press to take questions.
Many of the questions centered around the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program which has provided funding for more than 91,000 students to leave the public school system, siphoning money away from state funding for public schools.
Horne praised the ESA program, saying “it would be a crisis as far as the state budget goes” if those students who were benefiting from the ESA program were all enrolled in public schools.
Queried about the negative effects of students leaving public schools, Horne responded that public schools wouldn’t be losing these students if they did a better job. “If they would work harder, they wouldn’t lose students,” Horne said.
Horne did not address the lack of funding for public schools, saying that funding was a function of the legislature, not his office, nor did he address the fact that families are abandoning public education even in high-performing school districts.
The Elgin School earned an A rating from the state in the most recent assessment period, Superintendent Erickson was named Arizona Superintendent of the Year for Small School Districts, faculty members have won numerous county and state awards, and the students perform well on all assessment testing. In spite of this, the school has lost two students this year to alternative schooling, bringing the total number of students in the district whose families have opted out of public education to 82, according to Graham Krewinghaus of the Nogales International.
School board member Harry Dotson asked Horne if he supported academic and financial accountability for home-schooled, private and charter school students. “I haven’t taken a position on that,” Horne replied.
Horne was asked about President Trump’s proposal to require schools to pay $100,000 for each foreign teacher employed at the school. Elgin School currently has two teachers from the Philippines. Such move by the Trump administration could put undue pressure on the small school’s budget and would likely worsen Arizona’s statewide teacher shortage. Horne said he opposed Trump’s proposal.