Tom Horne strikes alliance with Moms for Liberty over flipping Arizona school boards

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne struck an alliance with Moms for Liberty supporters at an East Valley event Thursday evening over what he said was a shared goal: electing conservatives to school boards in 2024.

"That's going to be my main occupation for 2024," Horne said.

The organization's Mesa town hall drew about 70 people. Moms for Liberty was founded in 2021 by former Florida school board members Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice out of opposition to pandemic-related school closures and mask mandates.

The group has since become a force in school board races across the country — and in conservative politics more broadly — and has made national headlines for attempts to restrict teaching and student access to books related to race, gender and sexual orientation.

Moms for Liberty trying to establish stronger Maricopa County presence

In 2022, 275 of the 500 school board candidates Moms for Liberty endorsed won their elections, according to its website. None of the group's endorsed candidates were in Arizona.

Moms for Liberty is attempting to establish a stronger presence in the Phoenix area, where a former chapter failed to gain traction and shut down a year ago. Now, it's trying again with a new chapter in Mesa.

The group's stated goals are to advocate for "parental rights" in education, as well as to "stop woke indoctrination." In June, it was added to the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of extremist groups. The Alabama-based civil rights organization called it an “antigovernment organization” that spreads conspiracy theories and uses its "multiple social media platforms to target teachers and school officials, advocate for the abolition of the Department of Education ... and spread hateful imagery and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community."

On Thursday, Descovich called the event the biggest kickoff Moms for Liberty has had. While chapters typically start with 10 or 12 people in someone’s living room, the Mesa chapter “gets to start with the national team coming in and a town hall,” as well as having local elected leaders present, she said.

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Elected officials, including Rachel Mitchell, turn out for town hall

In addition to Horne, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, Mesa Public Schools Governing Board Member Rachel Walden, Apache Junction Unified School District Governing Board Member Gail Ross and Higley Unified School District Governing Board Member Anna Van Hoek were in attendance. Van Hoek has submitted filings in a lawsuit to support Horne in defending Arizona's law preventing transgender girls from competing on girls' school sports teams. Representatives from the conservative group Turning Point USA were there, too.

Thursday's event was dominated by a panel discussion featuring state lawmakers Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, Sen. Justine Wadsack, R-Tucson, Rep. Justin Heap, R-Mesa, and Barbara Parker, R-Mesa. Discussion topics included the close monitoring of what children are learning in schools, combating Marxism and advocating "real American values" in the classroom, and fighting teacher unions.

"The reality is that the problems in education, while they look different today, they're in your face now because the Marxists have taken their masks off, and it's so sad to watch, but they've become so extreme and so insidious," said Hoffman to kick off the panel, citing social and emotional learning as an example of schools trying to "co-op these children's minds." Hoffman was one of 11 Arizona Republicans who falsely posed as certified electors in an attempt to circumvent the results of the 2020 presidential election.

One attendee suggested putting cameras in classrooms to monitor teachers. Another — who identified herself as being part of Arizona Women of Action, a conservative group that partnered with Moms for Liberty on the event — voiced concerns about mental health centers in schools and told the audience the youth suicide rate is being manipulated. Youth mental health struggles and suicide attempts rose after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Walden, the Mesa school board member, said she doesn't plan to be involved in the new Mesa Moms for Liberty chapter aside from attending events where her constituents will be or accepting potential invitations like serving on a panel, for example.

"I don't see Moms for Liberty as an organization for school board members as much for parents to give them a way to help them be involved," Walden said.

Horne identifies school boards he wants to make more conservative

Horne, a Republican, told Moms for Liberty his values are "very much in common" with what the organization values and encouraged attendees to run for school boards, citing specific targets like Paradise Valley, Scottsdale, Chandler, Mesa and Gilbert. "I'll do everything I can to help you," Horne said.

He told the audience he's fighting to raise the academic performance of the state's students, blaming "terrible" proficiency rates on "distractions" — "critical race theory, excessive social-emotional learning, inappropriate sexual stuff" — he said were emphasized by his predecessor Kathy Hoffman, a Democrat.

Horne told attendees that academics need to improve or the U.S.'s position as a global superpower will wane.

"If we don’t turn this around as a country, we are going to be a third-world country," Horne said. "China will be the dominant power, and China will be calling the shots if you can imagine that — what kind of world that will be."

As for the state's school voucher program, which was expanded in 2022 to allow any student to use public dollars for private school tuition, home-schooling, tutoring and other educational expenses, Horne acknowledged the opposition: "People say they're hurting the public schools," he said.

But he held that the increased competition would improve public schools: "If a school is afraid of losing a student to a private school, the answer is, work harder, produce better academics," he said.

Madeleine Parrish covers K-12 education. Reach her at mparrish@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @maddieparrish61.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Tom Horne tells Moms for Liberty supporters to run for school boards