School head fights 'ethnic chauvinism' in Arizona

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By Valerie Richardson

Tom Horne has two degrees from Harvard University. He participated in Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington. He's Arizona's superintendent of public instruction.

In other words, he's not the kind of guy you would expect to find at the forefront of a movement to eliminate a politically sensitive program such as ethnic studies. Yet there he is, blasting classes that promote what he calls "ethnic chauvinism," calling for voters to oust school board members who support it and generally painting a target on his back for liberals and minority advocacy groups.

"What I object to is dividing kids by race and teaching them only about their own culture," Mr. Horne said in a telephone interview. "That's exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. We should be teaching kids that they're individuals and not exemplars of racial groups."

What's equally remarkable is that he is succeeding. In June, a state legislative committee approved a bill, backed by Mr. Horne, under which school districts would lose 10 percent of their funding every month unless they eliminated ethnic studies from the curriculum.

The bill was expected to pass both houses of the Republican-dominated Legislature, but a massive standoff over the state budget pushed votes on all unrelated legislation to the end of the session. The Legislature adjourned July 1 before the bill could reach the floor for a vote.

Its sponsor, state Sen. Jonathan Paton, later called the bill "a victim of circumstances." Still, backers are confident the bill will pass next year, when essentially the same cast of characters returns for the 2010 legislative session. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer is expected to sign the bill.

The delay gives critics another six months to combat Mr. Horne's efforts. Supporters of ethnic studies argue that students who participate in the program do better on standardized tests and deny that the courses promote "ethnic chauvinism."

"That's an absolute lie," said Augustine Romero, who heads the Mexican American/Raza studies program at Tucson Unified School District. "That's the message used to try to fire up people against us. We have Anglo kids in our program. It's really unfortunate that there's a lot of misinformation about the program out there."

The Tucson school district has three charter high schools with an ethnic studies theme that could be forced to revamp their programs if the legislation passes.

"It really affects us in that, if there's a change, we would have to re-evaluate our purpose," said Tillie Arvizu, vice president of Chicanos por la Causa, which sponsors the charter schools. "What makes us different is that we have the opportunity to offer Chicano studies and Mexican-American history to our students."