‘I find it interesting that someone that’s never spent a single day walking in the shoes of our teachers, working as a teacher, would try to knock the experience and respect that I have that he doesn’t have.’— Jason Williams

Both candidates running for the state’s top schools post say Arizona has work to do to improve the education system, but the similarities between incumbent Tom Horne and challenger Jason Williams end there.
The pair differs not only on how to better educate Arizona students, but also on where the state stands currently, with Mr. Horne saying students have made great strides during his time in office, while Mr. Williams says schools are worse now than they have ever been.
Mr. Horne, a Republican, cites Arizona’s rank at 22nd of 50 in the National Assessment of Educational Progress test as proof students are learning. Other standardized test scores — the SAT, the ACT and TerraNova — also place Arizona students above the national averages, and he says the increased learning is due to an emphasis on academic rigor in the classroom.
“We’ve held schools accountable, teachers accountable and students accountable with the AIMS test,” he said. “As a result, the students have been studying harder.”
Even the AIMS test has seen an improvement in scores. Mr. Horne says that when he took office in 2003, 55 percent of students were failing the AIMS test before their senior year, while only about 20 percent are doing so now.
But Mr. Williams says that dramatic increase in the number of students who pass AIMS is deceptive because the tests have been “manipulated” through lowering the minimum passing score required and not determining the passing score until all the scores have been tabulated.
“[It is] an attempt to mask the reality of what’s happened,” he said.
Mr. Horne, though, says it wasn’t his decision to lower the minimum score and he was opposed to it. The State Board of Education, he says, voted 9-1 to lower the score for the math segment of the AIMS test. Mr. Horne was the only vote against lowering the passing score.
“The reason I voted against it was because it only affected 3,500 of 63,000 students,” he said. “I thought [the policy change] would deflect attention from good students.”
Mr. Williams says the lopsided Board of Education vote shows that Mr. Horne lacks the leadership necessary for the job, as he wasn’t able to influence anyone else to support him. He also said Mr. Horne should have rethought the usefulness of AIMS once the decision was made to lower the standards on it.
“If you didn’t agree that it be lowered,” he said, “why then would you still insist on the one test [to determine graduation], if it’s been watered down≠”
Mr. Horne says Mr. Williams’ arguments and his solution just don’t jibe.
“If it’s too easy, why not require students to pass it≠” he wondered.
Instead of using a student’s AIMS score to determine whether he or she graduates from high school, Mr. Williams wants the state to use several different indicators. He would like to see AIMS used as one of several diagnostic tools to assess student learning, instead of the high-stakes test it is now.
“We need to focus on all the years of education, not just the end of high school,” he said.
If the AIMS test was no longer a graduation requirement, Mr. Horne says, the Arizona public school system would be significantly worse, as schools would return to social promotion and students would move from one grade to the next, even if they hadn’t learned what they needed to know.
“Learning would plummet, because students would know they could skip school and it wouldn’t hurt them,” he said. “If Jason Williams is elected and we go back to social promotion, learning will again plummet.”
Teacher vs. school board member
Aside from their differences on policy issues, the candidates are separating themselves by profession. While Mr. Horne served on the Paradise Valley Unified School District Governing Board for 25 years, Mr. Williams says his background as a teacher gives him an advantage because he knows how policies impact educators on the front lines.
But Mr. Horne says his opponent, who taught for three years in California, was never a fully certified teacher and did his teaching as an intern. Mr. Williams, though, says that was only the start of his education career and expressed dismay that the incumbent would belittle his classroom experience.
“I find it interesting that someone that’s never spent a single day walking in the shoes of our teachers, working as a teacher, would try to knock the experience and respect that I have that he doesn’t have,” he said. “To me, I think that is a choice that people have: do you want someone who has spent their professional career working as a lawyer or do you want someone who has been working as a public educator≠”
In the end, Mr. Horne says the campaign comes down to whether voters want to return the education system back to what it was like before he got there.
“I’m a reformer — he represents a special interest that wants to maintain the status quo,” Mr. Horne said.
Mr. Williams, on the other hand, is banking on the tireless campaigning that propelled him past Slade Mead in the primary election to give him the boost he needs to beat the Republican incumbent in a state in which Democrats trail Republicans by about 150,000 registered voters.
“I’m going to work as hard as I possibly can every single day,” he said. “I think we saw how that paid off in the primary, and, hopefully, we’ll be having the same result and celebration after the November 7 general election.”