Supt. Horne Serving Special Interests Over AZ Kids
Only three months in office, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne has all but removed “Public” from his title. Horne is radically shifting the direction of the Arizona Department of Education to an anti-public school, voucher-pushing agency focused on “selling” vouchers for elite private schools across the US, co-running the department with special interests, and fomenting culture wars in an effort to drive families away from their neighborhood public schools.
Horne put out the welcome mat for the special interest group American Federation for Children (AFC), a Betsy-Devos-backed organization that has spent billions on the privatization of public education across the country. AFC spent $570,000 in Arizona on privatization candidates like Horne 2022 alone. Recent reports suggest that the ADE has welcomed AFC in as a full partner in the push to completely privatize public instruction via vouchers.
Horne put out the welcome mat for the special interest group American Federation for Children (AFC), a Betsy-Devos-backed organization that has spent billions on the privatization of public education across the country. AFC spent $570,000 in Arizona on privatization candidates like Horne 2022 alone. Recent reports suggest that the ADE has welcomed AFC in as a full partner in the push to completely privatize public instruction via vouchers.
Are Special Interests Running Arizona’s ESA Voucher Program?
This week, angry ESA parents revealed to the State Board of Education (SBE) a bombshell: Horne’s team worked with Betsy DeVos-backed AFC on a new draft of the ESA Policy Handbook, which guides every aspect of the program and dictates how over $600M in taxpayer funds are being spent. In apparent coordination with AFC, Horne and his ESA Director Christine Accurso are rolling out multiple confusing, mid-year administrative changes that directly conflict with the handbook approved by the SBE.
In the recent SBE meeting, Accurso openly admitted to sending the handbook to AFC’s Arizona Implementation Director for edits. These edits removed all references to the vendor marketplace and debit cards (which low-income parents rely on) and stripped out any reference to SBE rules. Accurso claims that DeVos’ AFC had “no influence” on the handbook – which is clearly a lie.
Horne Selling Vouchers Across the US
Supt. Horne and his AFC-adjacent ESA Director, Christine Accurso, are traveling the country to advance AFC’s agenda, promoting Arizona’s flawed universal ESA voucher program as a model that can be exported across the nation. In one of her first acts as ESA Director, Accurso flew to Virginia to advertise the program at a Catholic church. She proudly shared that the universal voucher expansion correlated with increased giving at Catholic churches, and made a point of saying that she was “looking toward Virginia next.”
In a recent trip to DC, Superintendent Horne met with school privatization groups that seek to dismantle public schools, including the Director of the Education Freedom Center and Director of Education Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, promoting “parental rights” and “education for all.” In his comments to ESA voucher parents at the State Board Meeting, Horne stressed that Arizona must be a “model for the nation.” Horne and Accurso should not be jetting across the country to advertise vouchers while the program implodes back home with hundreds of millions in unbudgeted costs, rampant discrimination, and chaotic mismanagement by Horne’s ADE.
The Buck Never Stops: Tom Horne and Christine Accurso’s ADE
Adding insult, Horne and Accurso are throwing the entire ESA voucher program into chaos. Under their watch, the already unaccountable program is months behind in vendor payments, making it impossible for low-income families and parents of kids with special needs to even use it – drawing the ire of ESA parents across the state, who turned out en masse to testify for hours in front of the State Board of Education.
Make no mistake – the universally expanded ESA voucher program was not designed to benefit most Arizona families. The special interests who forced universal vouchers through Arizona’s state legislature failed to include any protections for families and wrote the bill knowing it would defund local public schools. This was always the goal.
More Like the “AZ Department of Private Education”
The Arizona Department of Education is working hand-in-hand with the DeVos-funded American Federation for Children to prop up private schools with tax-payer-funded vouchers while public schools are left in the dust. Tom Horne is politicizing public education and vilifying teachers as he markets universal ESA vouchers to the nation. Meanwhile, Arizona public schools are facing a $4.5 Billion funding deficit every single year.
The special interests ramming through universal ESA vouchers have completely taken over the Arizona Department of Education; it is far past time for the Arizona Legislature to step in and roll back this program before it bankrupts this state. Arizona has a constitutional obligation to fund the public schools that 92% of Arizona families choose – it’s time for the Superintendent of Public Instruction to focus on public instruction rather than elite private schools for the wealthy.
