Horne: No stand on new taxes

by David Safier
Ed Supe Tom Horne was interviewed on Arizona Illustrated a few days ago. Jim Nintzel of Tucson Weekly, one of the panel, posted the video on his blog.Three points jumped out at me:

• Horne refused to say whether he supports a tax increase for schools, claiming that's up to the legislature. True, of course, but that doesn't mean he can't speak out from his bully pulpit. He just didn't want to answer, especially since he said at another point he supports more funding for schools, though he qualified that by saying we have to wait until the economy is better. Still, if he thinks we're under funded, he can't be for cutting funding next year. His choices were to look like a hypocrite or look like one o' them soft-on-taxes Republican moderates. So he took a pass.
• He stated once again, in no uncertain terms, that we're 49th in funding per student, saying the ranking is done by national groups that have no reason to favor or disfavor Arizona or any other state. He says you have to take the cost of building schools out of the equation. He goes on to say, in Arizona's defense, our student performance is "better than average."
• He would support a constitutional amendment to allow private school vouchers. He thinks it's fine to give state money to religious schools.

We've got an election coming up for State Superintendent of Education. Horne has made it clear it's a position that makes a difference in the way our schools are run. Let's hope we get some viable candidates with pro public education platforms.