Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne unveiled a new grant to expand educator apprenticeships, tying a policy push to a reelection bid that focuses on the state’s ongoing teacher shortage.
The Arizona Department of Education will distribute $300,000 over the next two years to support roughly 100 teachers in training, which Horne said could result in an additional $3,000 per apprentice. It will expand the department’s Arizona Teacher Registered Apprenticeship Program that was launched in 2025 under Horne's guidance.
The program allows aspiring educators to get paid while they receive hands-on experience under the guidance of experienced teachers and complete courses for certification. The grant will be distributed by the National Center for Grow Your Own, a private nonprofit organization that helps local communities train and retain educators. Funds will be used to support teacher wages and cover the cost of their education.
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According to Horne, his office first began to address Arizona’s teacher shortage back in 2003 when the department helped create alternative pathways for teachers who didn’t have a traditional education background.
“We've added a lot of teachers that way, and we need them because we have a terrible teacher shortage in our state," Horne told The Arizona Republic. “A lot of students are taught by permanent substitutes who aren't properly trained to teach them.”
Horne
Teacher retention becomes focus amid reelection bid
In 2025, Horne’s office launched the first official educator recruitment and retention report. It showed over 4,200 teacher positions are filled by long-term substitutes, student teachers, third-party vendors or existing teachers working through their planning period.
The report also showed that over 1,000 teachers left their positions after July 2025, or about 1.8% of all teachers in the 2025-26 school year. That number was 1.1% in 2024. Still, only about 2.4% of positions were unfilled in the 2025-26 school year, which was a marginal decrease from the prior year's rate of 2.8%.
The announcement comes as Horne gears up for his reelection campaign. During his 2026 State of Education speech, Horne said he urged lawmakers to raise teacher salaries and provide administrative support in order to combat the state’s teacher shortage.
“I got a letter from a teacher at the Phoenix Union School District that told me that she could name 40 teachers who left the profession because of lack of support from administrators on discipline,” he said.
Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee, who is running against Horne for the GOP nomination for superintendent, told The Republic she would create a mentorship program to support young educators.
Yee laid out similar plans for teacher retention during her debate with Horne in May. Horne said he already had a mentorship program in place, but Yee said it wasn’t working.
