Arizona Department of Education Purges ‘Woke’ From Its Midst

Arizona Department of Education Purges ‘Woke’ From Its Midst

By Corinne Murdock |

The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) is eliminating social-emotional learning and other “woke” initiatives from its administration, with an eye on barring it from schools entirely.

ADE Superintendent Tom Horne explained his vision during an interview with “The Conservative Circus” on Thursday. Horne said that leftist agenda initiatives took away critical funding from teacher salaries.

“The money should be going to teachers’ salaries, and not, as we say, ‘woke’ ideology,” said Horne. 

Horne said that social-emotional learning, sexualized curriculum, and critical race theory (CRT) had nothing to do with academics. 

“The nonsense is producing the low test scores. If we focus on academics, we can bring the test scores back up,” said Horne.

Arizona students have struggled to perform well in tests over the last few years: a sharp downturn in achievement from forced school closures amid the pandemic following years of general decline.

Last October, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) revealed in a report that students suffered severe learning losses in math and nominal losses in reading due to the COVID-19 shutdowns. In September, ADE revealed that a majority of Arizona students were still failing the statewide assessment.

In response to critics alleging Horne operated out of racial animosity, Horne disavowed claims of racism and noted that he’s been a longtime supporter of Civil Rights. Horne participated in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington in 1963.

Horne’s first moves in office included purging ADE of initiatives by former Superintendent Kathy Hoffman: sex chat rooms for minors, such as “Queer Chat”; the division on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI); and references to social-emotional learning.

“The word ‘equity’ in common-use of the English language is a very positive word,” said Horne. “But what they’ve done with Critical Race Theory is they’ve made it into a negative word: it is the desire that we have equal outcomes by racial groups which doesn’t recognize individual merit. I believe in individual merit.”

The Office of EDI contained the Office of Indian Education (OIE), which administered federal and state program resources for Native American students; 

As part of ADE’s annual conference that began on Wednesday and concludes Friday, ADE eliminated presentations on social-emotional learning and racial trauma, as well as diversity and equity.

ADE spokesman Doug Nick said that these events didn’t address core academic issues: namely reading, science, and math. Nick said that teachers tell ADE that they oppose prioritizing SEL in the classroom.

“[Teachers] disagree with being compelled to use social-emotional learning curriculum instead of teaching core subjects,” said Nick. 

During his campaign, Horne declared “war” on CRT and other “woke” curriculum championed by former Superintendent Kathy Hoffman.

“[CRT is] venal racism, and its war against merit and achievement, which if not stopped, will make us a third world country,” stated Horne. 

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

Arizona Families Need Tom Horne as Our Next State Superintendent

Arizona Families Need Tom Horne as Our Next State Superintendent

By Christine Accurso |

Arizona families need a complete change in our state’s Department of Education. The current superintendent, Kathy Hoffman, has not served Arizona’s children well, and she needs to be replaced. With the election upon us, NOW is the time for change.

For far too long, the Department of Education has placed its focus on teachers. But while the needs of teachers are important, the primary focus should always be on students. That’s why we need someone who will change the focus of the entire department to a service-oriented organization—and who will build a team that wants to serve the people of Arizona. The public servant that we need is Tom Horne!

Tom will not need any training. He successfully led this department before, and he will hit the ground running to get our children back on track immediately. Tom is an attorney and has served in the legislature and as our state attorney general. He supports the new ESA school choice law and wants to see that program serve our children well. Tom has met with many of Arizona’s families and has truly listened to our needs. I have full confidence that he will address them immediately when he is in office.

In contrast, under Kathy Hoffman, our children’s test scores have been plummeting. She pushed for extended school closures during the pandemic. She violated our families by releasing sensitive, private information on our children during the data breach of 2020. She pushed for professional development under gender and sex topics and equity, diversity, and inclusion. She also pushed to repeal the “No Promo Homo” law and started a “Q chat” on the ADE website where any child can be easily groomed or confused when exploring their sexuality online, away from their parents. The last four years have been dreadful for everyone except the unions who back her.

The role of the Superintendent is to execute the state education laws and the State Board of Education policies. The Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) law is administered by the Superintendent, and the State Board of Education writes the policies and rules around this program. It has been in effect for over 10 years. As our current Superintendent, Kathy Hoffman has publicly stated that she wants to see an end to the program and has proven in the last four years that ESA Students who are in the program are not her priority. The fact that she picks winners and losers and plays games with our children’s education proves that she is not a good leader. Every single child matters and deserves an education that they will thrive in.

It’s time to turn our focus back to the children of Arizona. The most important focus is the academic success of our children in the core areas of study. This is a very important race, and I implore all of the people in Arizona, especially parents and grandparents, to support Tom Horne so that our children will be front and center again. Our children deserve the very best, and our families deserve to have a fully functioning Department of Education.

Christine Accurso is a wife, mother, and ESA parent who led the charge for the Decline to Sign Movement. You can follow her on Twitter here.

Superintendent Kathy Hoffman Sued Over Adult-Supervised, Secretive Sex Chat Rooms for Minors

Superintendent Kathy Hoffman Sued Over Adult-Supervised, Secretive Sex Chat Rooms for Minors

By Corinne Murdock |

Arizona Department of Education (ADE) Superintendent Kathy Hoffman is facing a lawsuit for advertising links to chat rooms where minors discuss sex and gender with adults present and without parents necessarily knowing.

The lawsuit, case number CV2022-093889 filed in the Maricopa County Superior Court, requests that ADE remove the chat space from its website. Judge Peter Thompson was assigned the case. 

The chat room website advertised by the ADE, Q Chat Space, targets LGBTQ+ youth 13 years and older. It offers a “quick escape” feature that masks a child’s visit to the site by redirecting from the Q Chat Space site to Google’s homepage. The adults facilitating discussions, “Q Chatters,” don’t have to be licensed professionals.

Some of the upcoming chat rooms are: “Sex and Relationships Q&A,” “FOR TRANS/NON-BINARY YOUTH: Activism and Allyship,” and “FOR TRANS/NONBINARY YOUTH: Sex Ed.”

The site has minors offer personal information when signing up, including their sexual orientation, romantic interests, gender identity, email address, birth date, ZIP code, and race.

According to the ADE, Hoffman developed the LGBTQ+ resource page with her Equitable and Inclusive Practices Advisory Council (EIPAC) before launching it last June as part of Pride Month.

The citizen behind the lawsuit, Peggy McClain, claimed that Hoffman violated the Parents’ Bill of Rights provision prohibiting any attempts to encourage or coerce minors to withhold information from their parents. McClain further asserted that the children’s data was vulnerable to hacking and could therefore be sold on the dark web to child predators, noting that some of the adult chat facilitators could be child predators as well. 

“By doing the things set forth above, Katherine Hoffman is encouraging the grooming of young children,” stated McClain.

Q Chat Space is a collaborative effort of Planned Parenthood, the LGBTQ+ support network organization PFLAG, and LGBTQ+ community center organization CenterLink. 

ADE also directs minors to another chat site similar to the one contested in the lawsuit: Gender Spectrum. That chat site is open to minors aged 10 and older.

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

Parents Overwhelm Dept. Of Ed Website To Apply For ESA Credit Up To $7K

Parents Overwhelm Dept. Of Ed Website To Apply For ESA Credit Up To $7K

By Terri Jo Neff |

With nearly $7,000 becoming available for every K-12 student to attend a private school or be homeschooled through the recent expansion of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs), the Arizona Department of Education’s website has been overwhelmed with parents seeking to apply.

The credit becomes available on Sept. 24 but the number of parents applying in advance has created issues for the Department of Education’s website. An advisory posted to the website this week noted “high volume” may cause users to receive an error message when trying to establish an account.  

On Saturday, Ducey took to Twitter as word spread about the tremendous interest.

The ESA expansion legislation sponsored by Rep. Ben Toma provides families of all 1.1 million of Arizona’s K-12 students the option of allocating 90 percent of state funding which would have been allocated to the student’s district or charter school and have it be available for private school tuition, home-schooling, tutoring, and other educational needs such as transportation, textbooks, and computers.

Among the permitted expenditures for homeschoolers is the cost of specialized teachers for subjects such as foreign language, art, and music.

Ducey presided over a Aug. 17 ceremonial signing of HB2853. He later said making ESAs available to all of Arizona’s K-12 students was putting “the power back in the hands of parents, who are best suited to make decisions for their children’s education.”

Jenny Clark, founder of Love Your School, attended last week’s ceremony (Ducey actually signed HB2853 on July 7). Clark says Arizona’s ESA program can be life-changing for Arizona’s students.  

“My five children have benefitted from ESAs and I can’t help but think how many kids don’t get the help they need,” Clark said. “Now, they will. Every child in Arizona will have the same opportunities and ability to get the education tailored to their needs.”

Corey A. DeAngelis of the Federation for Children was one of the stakeholders  involved in ensuring passage of HB2853, calling it “a national model” that empowers parents. He too used Twitter to comment on what the high demand on the ADE website means.

“This is why the government school monopoly fights so hard against giving families a choice,” DeAngelis wrote. “They’re terrified. They know parents want alternatives.”

Information about ESAs and eligibility can be found at https://www.azed.gov/esa