Speaking to a packed room, Democratic candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Terry Leyba Ruiz laid out a “fully thought-out comprehensive plan” to rein in Arizona’s runaway ESA voucher spending, rebuild teacher morale, and end the Department of Education’s lack of accountability.
She spoke in Tucson on October 17. Ruiz was introduced by Pima Supervisor Rex Scott, who pointed to her résumé:
- A math teacher at the middle school, high school, and college levels.
- Former president of Glendale Community College.
- Scott said she oversaw more employees at the college than the Department of Education has.
A contrast with Kimberly Yee
Scott framed the race as a choice between a career educator and a politician who introduced the voucher law to gut public schools. He said Republican legislators want no guardrails or fraud checks on the ESA program — even though an audit by the Arizona Auditor General found that 34% of a sample of transactions were unallowable or lacked proper documentation.
After ongoing public disputes with Governor Hobbs over education spending and lawsuits over English immersion programs, incumbent Superintendent Tom Horne lost the Republican primary to state challenger Kimberly Yee. Yee was the primary sponsor of Arizona’s original school voucher legislation in 2011 when she served in the Arizona legislature.
“Why did they pick her?” Scott asked. “Because they remembered when she was a member of the Arizona Legislature, that she had an extraordinarily poor record in terms of supporting K12 education.”
Ruiz was blunt about her opponent. “Not only is my opponent the absolutely wrong person for this job, but she continues to attack our teachers and our schools, and talk about kitty litter, and all the things that are just ridiculous,” she said. “It makes zero sense.”
Yee made a bizarre, false claim that schools provide kitty litter for students who identify as cats.
Scott added that Yee is “absolutely the person we don’t need at this very critical time for Arizona’s public schools.”
“A kid like me”
Ruiz, a 35-year educator, told the crowd her story is the case for public education. Her parents were raised in South Tucson and attended Wakefield Middle School and Pueblo High School, and she herself was raised in South Phoenix and attended its public schools.
“That a kid like me … to eventually become the president of one of the largest colleges in Arizona, that’s public education,” she said. “That’s why we’re fighting to protect this around our state.”
Crumbling schools, a billion-dollar voucher program
After campaigning in all 15 counties, Ruiz said she has seen the cost of Arizona’s 49th-place ranking in per-pupil funding. “That means that our schools are crumbling,” she said, describing the gym at Page Elementary School, “literally held up by hydraulic jack lifts because the beams are cracked.”
She said a math teacher in Tuba City spends $1,000 a year of her own money on classroom supplies. “And at the same time, somehow the state has a billion dollars that can go out for the ESA, the Empowerment Scholarship Account vouchers,” Ruiz said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Scott said he believes roughly 75% of ESA recipients had kids already enrolled in private and parochial schools before applying, and he called the program a “huge hole in our state budget.”
Ruiz said voters are fed up. “Parents are angry, citizens are angry, voters are angry that we’re paying for someone’s vacation. We’re paying for someone’s diamond ring and designer handbags.”
Ruiz’s first-100-days agenda
Ruiz said her plan, posted at her campaign website, includes a list of first-100-day priorities so she can “hit the ground running”:
- An Office of Rural and Small Schools, because “our rural communities really feel left out and forgotten,” giving them a direct line to the superintendent.
- An end to automatic approval of ESA expenses under $2,000. “Over half a billion dollars of our hard-earned taxpayer money just flew out the door,” she said, “unchecked and unchallenged.”
- Clawing back money spent on non-educational needs, so “every education dollar actually does go for education.”
- A public transparency portal, which she described as “more like a dashboard,” built with public input, so taxpayers can see where their money goes.
- Shutting down the “snitch line.” Ruiz said the hotline Horne created leaves teachers “afraid of what they can say, what they can’t say,” and that most of the complaints are about Horne himself. “Let’s take down that snitch line, and let’s reallocate those resources in a way that is going actually to benefit our schools and our teachers and students.”
Winning teachers back
Ruiz said she met a teacher who left the profession over those conditions. “He said, ‘I’m not working under those conditions.’ We can’t afford to lose our teachers,” she said. “We need to change the tone and bring back a level of respect and admiration for our educators, and welcome back all those educators who have left.”
She vowed to push for higher pay and more resources, even if that means “going up against our state legislature.” Asking the audience, “Are we going to flip the legislature?” Ruiz drew loud cheers. She argued that “the mess we’re in is because of the career politicians who for decades have underfunded our schools.”
Ruiz ended with a call to action. “We can make Arizona better. We can make our education system stronger, and I can’t do it alone,” she said. “We’re going to make sure people who haven’t voted yet vote now and turn it in quickly so we can really make a statement that Arizona is serious about making Arizona better.”
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