In response to complaints on the Arizona Department of Education’s hotline, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne is questioning why the Osborn school district “is allowing race and gender politics to distract from academics.”
Horne accused the central Phoenix school district of displaying distracting signage promoting Black Lives Matter and other politically-charged causes on school grounds.
“As Superintendent of Public Instruction my primary focus is helping schools increase academic outcomes, and the Osborn school district is not doing well academically, in part because of needless and provocative distractions,” said Horne.
“We received a notification on the department’s Empower Hotline from a member of the Osborn community, who is offended by what is going on at that school district,” explained Horne. “This person sent pictures of a classroom wall that instead of posting academic materials had a big Black Lives Matter poster. They also sent a picture of stickers given to the students with the Osborn logo, surrounded by the colors associated with gender politics. The district provides magnets to attach this to cars, and stickers to students and staff, according to the notification we received on the hotline. There are no posters of brown lives matter, blue lives matter. Where does one stop when one goes down this path?”
Horne cites test scores comparing Osborn to the demographically similar Avondale Elementary district. Avondale has a higher poverty rate based on the number of children getting free and reduced lunches, yet Avondale does significantly higher in academics. 81 percent of Osborn students are not proficient in math, compared to 67 percent in Avondale. In reading, 76 percent of Osborn students are not proficient, while that figure for Avondale is 63 percent.
“If districts eliminate the time spent on race and gender politics they will have more time for academics,” said Horne. “This will produce higher test scores. I spoke to the Osborne superintendent about this. He said what I was complaining about was designed to make all students feel welcome. The way to do that properly is to teach students to treat each other as individuals without regard to race, sexual orientation, sexual identity, or any such characteristic. It is not to promote identity politics in our public schools. He responded that we would have to agree to disagree.”
“Arizona is a local control state,” said Horne. “I do not have authority to order this to stop. We must rely on the parents and taxpayers in the Osborn school district to bring proper values and focus on academics to that school district. I urge them to do this as I do parents throughout Arizona who may observe this kind of needless distraction being promoted by schools.”
“I have been a passionate supporter of civil rights since childhood. I attended the march on Washington in 1963 in which Martin Luther King gave his famous speech arguing that we should be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. That has been my philosophy my whole life,” concluded Horne. “Race and gender politics in schools are contrary to this philosophy which should be taught to all students.”
