Photo by Jason Millstein/Illume Photography — Tom Horne, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction

Tom Horne has led Arizona schools since 2003 and encouraged more academic rigor. But not everyone has an apple for him.


Tom Horne can pinpoint the year the quality of education hit its peak. It was 1963. “I remember that, because that’s the year I graduated from high school,” Horne says.

He went to high school in Larchmont, New York, a Long Island suburb. Classes were demanding, but Horne’s accelerated coursework enabled him to enter Harvard University as a sophomore. Not everybody gets into Harvard, of course. But everybody’s entitled to a quality education. And for Horne that means academic rigor, as good as he got nearly 50 years ago.

When Horne became Arizona superintendent of public instruction in 2003, he pledged to restore that rigor. He’s had two terms and nearly eight years to get the job done, andHorne believes he’s gone a long way toward that end. He made passing the AIMS test a requirement for a high school diploma. He fought for standards that beefed up content in social studies and other courses. He got junk food banned from cafeterias, snack bars and vending machines in elementary and middle schools. As evidence of his success, he points to improved scores on standardized tests.

But his critics have lined up against him, right and left, and Horne has a response to every charge. That likely comes naturally because he previously worked as a litigator for about 30 years, arguing dozens of jury trials involving commercial disputes.

At 65, he remains confident in his arguments. But now the jury is a public that twice elected him to oversee the state’s school system. He’ll seek another verdict from voters in the August 24 GOP primary for state Attorney General. He faces former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas.

Both are Harvard-educated lawyers. Both promise to be tough on immigration and border issues, and both have attacked each other’s fitness for the job. In a televised debate in June, Thomas jumped on revelations that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had sanctioned Horne in 1970 for puffing up the balance sheet of a company that went bankrupt. Nearly 30 years later, Horne failed to report the bankruptcy when filing incorporation papers for his law firm. Thomas equated Horne to a “con artist.”

For his part, Horne accused Thomas of using the county attorney’s office to pursue political vendettas against county supervisors and judges who ruled against him. Thomas is now under investigation by the State Bar of Arizona. Horne was quick to point out Thomas faces possible disbarment, which would disqualify him for attorney general.