Tom Horne asks Arizona schools to take public stand on critical race theory, discipline
The Arizona Department of Education wants all public school districts and charter schools to certify that they are avoiding critical race theory and "excessive" social and emotional learning.
Earlier this month, the department asked school leaders to answer five yes or no questions as part of its new "academic focus attestation."
The answers will be made public in the department's online school report cards, which detail academic performance, enrollment demographics, extracurricular offerings and other information that parents might seek when selecting a school.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne opposes the use of critical race theory, which examines how U.S. systems and institutions bear unevenly on people of different races. Horne has said that students should be taught they are individuals to be judged on their own merits.
Horne has also spoken and acted against social and emotional learning, a method for teaching students interpersonal skills and emotional regulation, sometimes through classroom activities. He said he thinks it's a waste of time that could be spent on learning. Horne said teachers described the method to him as "dumb games."
"My heroes are math teachers who love math and history teachers who love history and so on, and some of them will complain to me because they want to teach their subjects bell to bell," Horne said.
The academic focus attestation asks school leaders to respond either yes or no to the following statements:
The school protects instructional time from excessive distractions labeled as Social Emotional Learning.
The school/district appropriately respects all students as individuals, avoiding concepts like Critical Race Theory, that promote racial division.
The school/district fully supports teacher discipline recommendations.
Sexual content taught in school is developmentally appropriate.
Curriculum at school does not expose students to explicit or graphic content that is developmentally inappropriate.
The Education Department pushed its initial end-of-month deadline for completing the attestation to Feb. 11, spokesperson Rick Medina said, after several superintendents asked for an extension to first discuss the statements with their principals.
Although the Education Department cannot require schools to respond, Horne said, school report cards will note in "big red letters" that a school "refused to respond" if its leadership fails to complete the questionnaire.
No other report card section denotes a lack of data in such a way, Horne said.
"I'm not forcing anything. I'm just wanting parents to know so they can choose the school with knowledge," Horne said. "It's up to parents what they consider is important."
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Reach the reporter at nicholas.sullivan@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Horne asks AZ schools to take public stand on critical race theory
