Chief education official addresses state deficit, education

Arizona's chief education official, Tom Horne, visited Lake Havasu City this week to visit with teachers, school administrators and concerned citizens about many of the pressing issues facing K-12 education in the state.

The most immediate are the projected $1.2 billion state budget deficit for the current fiscal year and an even larger revenue shortfall for the next fiscal year that promise to cut as deeply into education funding, as they will into other programs.

The Legislature's belt-tightening measures could even extend to the annual 2-percent increase in per-student funding mandated by law. In a meeting with Lake Havasu Unified School District officials Monday, Horne said he expects lawmakers will take advantage of ambiguous wording in Proposition 301 in order to suspend the increase to offset inflation for at least the next couple of years.

Today's News-Herald met with Horne Tuesday to talk more about how the budget crisis will affect the schools as well as other issues facing public education in Arizona.

Today's News-Herald: How will the proposed state funding sweep affect the education department?

Tom Horne: It does affect us. There's about $100 million in programs that are called non-formula line items — these are things that aren't fixed by law, like the amount of per pupil funding that goes to schools — and I have to cut about $10 million out of that, and it's very, very difficult.

TNH: This year Jamaica Elementary School in Lake Havasu City received a $82,000 reading grant. Is that the kind of program that will be cut?

Horne: Right, that was Reading First for non-Title I schools. It was a million-dollar appropriation last year. Anything that hasn't been spent, I have to take back. So, luckily Lake Havasu did spend its share. But unfortunately we won’t have that next year, and it's too bad because it was a very good program. That's a good example, because Reading First makes sure that all kids learn to read, and you need that in all schools, not just Title I schools. So it's a shame to lose it, but that's typical of the kind of thing that happens when you have a budget cut.

TNH: Any idea how long this austerity period will last?

Horne: Well, it all depends on the economy. I hope it's short.

TNH: Lake Havasu has experienced dwindling student enrollment. Is that a trend elsewhere in the state as well?

Horne: Yes, we're expecting to spend $40 million less than we planned on because the enrollment growth has not been where we projected.

TNH: What is the state doing to address the shortage of teachers in Arizona?

Horne: We've worked very hard on recruiting teachers. We've advertised a Web site that we have to help people find teaching jobs in Arizona. We've sent posters to all the colleges in the country. We've done a lot of advertising of it, and last year we had 22 million hits on that Web site.

TNH: Doesn't the state have a program to encourage people to go into teaching math, science and special education?

Horne: The Legislature passed a program that said if you go into a high-needs area like math, science or special education, they would forgive the loans, if you stayed for three years teaching in that area. That program is in effect now, but it's one of the things I'm fearful, with budget cuts, that may get cut.

TNH: What is your position on the appropriate way to AIMS test special education students?

Horne: Well, I'm very opposed to what No Child Left Behind did. They put in a rule that forbids out-of-level testing, which means if you have a high school student that reads at the second-grade level, you can't give him a second-grade test, you have to give him a high school test. And a lot of the kids can't understand what they're looking at, and I consider that child abuse. I would like to see that rule repealed and let us test kids at the level they operate at.

TNH: What's the future of No Child Left Behind? There's talk it will either be changed or scrapped.

Horne: It will be changed. I don't think it will be scrapped, but it will be changed, depending on who becomes president. It's up for reauthorization. It didn't get reauthorized this year, so they just extended it. When they do reauthorize it, there will be changes and I think (new special education requirements) will be one of the changes.

TNH: You advocate separating English language learners from the mainstream classroom to teach them English. What about the concern these students will fall behind in content areas while they're learning English?

Horne: They need to teach content while they're teaching English, and it was actually at my personal initiative that we got the task force to put in a rule that while you're teaching English, you do it in an academic context. We're not teaching them turista English — we're teaching them academic English. They could (fall behind), but the first thing they need to do is, they've got to learn English. You can't neglect the English — that's the first requirement. And then they'll need to do some catching up on their content.

TNH: What success rate do you expect from this approach?

Horne: I think all kids should be reclassified (to English proficient) within two years. So that would be a 50 percent reclassification rate rather than the (current) 13 percent.

TNH: Do you really think that's doable?

Horne: I have no doubt. I have a list of charter schools that have a 100 percent reclassified in one year.

TNH: To conclude, what do you see as the greatest challenge facing schools in Arizona today?

Horne: Well, the overall theme of my administration is increasing rigor in the classroom, and everything is in support of that: higher standards, maintaining our testing, holding people accountable. That's really the way to raise student achievement, because in the future we'll be competing with China and India as well as Japan and Germany and other countries around the world, and we've got to have kids that are well trained academically or they're not going to be able to function in the economy of the future.

You may contact the reporter at dparker@havasunews.com