Thursday, August 15, 2024

The Horne of plenty

 


 

The current superintendent of schools in Arizona is man named Tom Horne.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Horne

Thomas Charles Horne (born March 28, 1945) is a Canadian-American politician, attorney, businessman, and activist who has served as the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction since 2023 and previously from 2003 to 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he was Attorney General of Arizona from 2011 to 2015. Horne ran for reelection as Attorney General but lost to Mark Brnovich in the 2014 Republican primary.

He returned to the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2023, having been elected to that office in the 2022 election.




Horne was first elected to public office in 1979, when he was elected to the Paradise Valley Unified School District board. He served on the board for the next 24 years, and was board chair for ten of those years.

Horne was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 1996, and served from 1997 to 2001.

In 2000, Horne ran for the Arizona Senate for District 24, but lost the Republican primary to Dean Martin.

In 2003, Horne was elected Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction; he served two terms, ending in 2011. Horne oversaw the adoption to new Arizona's social studies standards, implemented beginning in the 2007-08 school year, under which all students "learn lessons in five areas including American history, world history, geography, civics and government, and economics" in each year from kindergarten through high school.

Horne was an advocate for full-day kindergarten, citing research that showed that such programs reduce the achievement gap between students from poor households and those from more affluent homes.

He also pushed for nutritional standards that removed junk food vending machines from elementary schools and created incentives for secondary schools to do so on a voluntary basis.

Horne, a classically trained pianist and founder of the Phoenix Baroque Ensemble, advocated for increasing arts education in schools.

Horne also continued to implement the Arizona Instrument to Measure Success standardized test; performance on the AIMS test (either alone or in combination with Advanced Placement examss and International Baccalaureate exams) determines graduating high school students' qualification for a "high honors" diploma, which guarantees free tuition at Arizona's three public universities.

Horne implemented policies that discouraged bilingual education and sought to shut down the Tucson Unified School District's controversial Mexican American Studies Department Programs. He argued that the Tucson ethnic studies programs "separated students by race, taught them that they are oppressed, and was influenced by Marxist and communist philosophies." He drafted a 2010 state law (which was adopted and went into effect in 2011, as HB 2281.) that effectively banned ethnic studies, and led to the Tucson Unified School District board closing its program in January 2012. A group of students and parents sued over the state law, leading to seven years of legal proceedings. In July 2017, Horne testified in the litigation; in his testimony, he defended the law and asserted that the Tucson program was led by radical teachers. The federal district court, later in 2017, ultimately issued a permanent injunction blocking Arizona from enforcing the law, determining that the decision to ban the Tucson program was "motivated by a desire to advance a political agenda by capitalizing on race-based fears" and was unconstitutional.

In 2021, Horne announced his campaign for a third term as Arizona superintendent of public instruction, challenging Democratic incumbent Kathy Hoffman. In the November 2022 election, Horne narrowly defeated Hoffman.

In 2023, Horne sued the governor, attorney general, and an Arizona school district over a dispute on how English-language learner students in Arizona should be taught. In the lawsuit, Horne contends that the 50-50 Dual-Language Immersion model, one of four methods used to teach such students in Arizona, violates Proposition 203, a 2000 ballot initiative.

In January 2024, Horne announced that the state would cooperate with PragerU, urging schools to adopt as part of their curriculum.The announcement was met with criticism since the organization has been accused of promoting climate change denialanti-LGBTQ+ politics, and whitewashing history. House of Representative Democrat Raúl Grijalva criticized the announcement stating "It’s masquerading as a serious educational resource when in reality it’s unaccredited right-wing propaganda.

If you look at Tom Horne’s history from an unbiased standpoint, you would have to admit that some of his earlier ideas made sense, but his more recent ideas highlight the fact that the “Horne of plenty” is plenty of nonsense.

Here are some examples:

1)    Praeger U is right wing news source that has low credibility. The state of Arizona should NOT be using any information from that source.

 https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/prageru/

2)   Tom Horne feels that state school boards should encourage more members of Moms for Liberty to be on school boards. This is the group that has pushed for book bans nationwide. As I mentioned previously, book bans make no sense.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2022/01/should-books-be-banned.html

In 2012, in response to state law HB2281, the Tucson Unified School District district put into storage, or distributed to the district libraries, several books used in a course that were determined to be against state law A.R.S. 15–112, including the textbook Rethinking Columbus and the Tempest. Books were taken away while students were in class.

 The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where Prospero, a wizard, lives with his daughter Miranda, and his two servants: Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes, including magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. In Act IV, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-a-play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language.

Although The Tempest is listed in the First Folio as the first of Shakespeare's comedies, it deals with both tragic and comic themes, and modern criticism has created a category of romance for this and others of Shakespeare's late playsThe Tempest has been put to varied interpretations, from those] that see it as a fable of art and creation, with Prospero representing Shakespeare, and Prospero's renunciation of magic signaling Shakespeare's farewell to the stage, to interpretations that consider it an allegory of Europeans colonizing foreign lands.

Rethinking Columbus is a revised and expanded edition of a popular 1991 booklet that changed the way "the discovery of America" is taught in classroom and community settings. The new edition has over 100 pp. of new material, including a role-play trial of Columbus, materials on Thanksgiving Day, resources, historical documents, poetry, and more. It will help readers replace murky legends with a better sense of who we are and why we are here -- and celebrates over 500 years of the courageous struggles and lasting wisdom of native peoples.

3)   The dismantling of the Mexican-American studies departments and similar Mexican cultural courses has caused controversy regarding the ideas of xenophobia and racism against Mexican-American students and their heritage. However, studies demonstrated that students enrolled in these programs had higher rates of graduation and attendance.

The TUSD board meetings, in response to the proposed bill HB2281, resulted in several students and faculty who demonstrated against the legislation being arrested and/or injured. Due to the impending loss of state funding should the TUSD continue the program, the board ruled in a 4-1 decision in January 2012 to ban the program. On January 13, 2012, students walked out of class and held a protest against the banishment of the Mexican-American Studies program.

The Daily Show aired a satirical piece on April 2, 2012, concerning the banning of Mexican-American studies as voted by the school board. Michael Hicks, a voting member, said that he was concerned with the "revolutionary" aspect of the curriculum that encouraged students to take part in "bloodshed" against the "gringos." When asked if he had ever been to a class himself to support his claims, he answered that he had not visited the school but based his opinion on "hearsay from the others."

The TUSD Governing Board's resolution of this issue has been to establish a course to be taken by all students that emphasizes multiculturalism and diversity. The current program, much like the Mexican studies program, seeks to educate students on themes of identity. It is based on four pillars namely, "identity, diversity, justice and action." This program strives to "promote intercultural understanding and addresses the needs of students who have been historically marginalized or underrepresented." Some students and their parents sued the school board and government, claiming that the TUSD ban of the Mexican American studies program violated their rights under the First and 14th amendments. In August 2017, A. Wallace Tashima, a federal judge, ruled that the students and parents had had their rights violated on both counts. A US judge in 2017 also blocked an ethnic studies ban because he found the ban to be racially motivated.

Tom Horne was one of the earlier opponents of dual language instruction in Arizona. Since 65% of the students in Arizona are minorities, dual language instruction make sense.  In May of 2024, State schools’ chief Tom Horne has been ordered to pay more than $120,000 in legal fees over his unsuccessful bid to quash dual-language instruction in Arizona schools.

Arizona taxpayers are on the hook for the money because Horne, a Republican elected in 2022, sued in his official capacity.

The new order comes more than two months after Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper ruled Horne had no legal authority to force all Arizona schools to use only “structured English immersion’’ to teach the language to students who are not proficient.

Cooper said nothing in state law even allowed Horne to go to court and ask her to declare that school districts are violating a 2000 voter-approved measure dealing with English instruction. Any such right, she said, actually belongs to the state Board of Education.

https://tucson.com/news/local/subscriber/arizona-public-instruction-superintendent-tom-horne-lost-lawsuit-dual-language-english-instruction/article_b6e11be6-1dde-11ef-ba83-1fef2c0db9ea.html

 4)   Arizona was one of the first states in the country to pass a universal voucher system, called the Empowerment Scholarship Program. Initially, the program made, but in 2022, it was expanded to cover every student in the state, which had the effect of taking money from inadequately funding public schools, and giving to wealthy parents who send their children to private schools. Th cost of the program is now close to $900 million, and was a large contributor to the state’s $1.3 billion budget shortfall.

 

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2024/05/30/republicans-never-reform-school-voucher-esa/73909844007/

Arizona has had a superintendent of public instruction since 1912, and they have been a mix of Democrats and Republicans. Since 1995, there have been 6 Republicans and one Democratic.  As of 2017, Arizona's Superintendent of Public Instruction is the lowest paid state education administrator in the United States, being paid $85,000 compared to the national average of $174,000.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Superintendent_of_Public_Instruction

 Arizona has long been stingy on funding for education. Although progress has been made in recent years, the state currently ranks #48 in school funding. The only states that are worst are Oklahoma and Idaho. Oklahoma recently tried to divert public funds to private religious schools, but the state Supreme Court recently blocked the effort.

 

https://stacker.com/education/states-spending-most-and-least-student-education

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/25/us/oklahoma-religious-charter-school-supreme-court/index.html

Over time, education instruction in Arizona will improve, for the following reasons.

1)    Tom Horne is now 79, and is not eligible for re-election.

2) The energy generate by the Harris-Walz team will mean more Democrats will win “down ticket” elections. Since the Republicans in Arizona currently have a slim one vote majority in the legislature, that means that control of the legislature could likely switch to the “adults in the room”, and that is good news for all of us.

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