Kimberly Yee wants schools chief race to be about more than vouchers

“It will be a factor,” she said in an interview with The Arizona Republic. Other factors, like a focus on math and reading, will be “equally important in the general election conversation as well.”

Yee, the Republican state treasurer for the past eight years, soundly beat former attorney general and incumbent Superintendent Tom Horne in the July 21 primary election, denying what would have been his fourth term in the office. Before his 2022 run, Horne served two terms as superintendent from 2003 to 2011.

The superintendent leads the state Department of Education and serves on all the state's education boards, including the State Board of Education, to help develop curriculum and standards.

Yee was recruited to enter the race last year by state Sen. Jake Hoffman, a Queen Creek Republican who chairs the hardline Arizona Freedom Caucus, after Horne proposed mild steps to reduce the level of improper and fraudulent purchases by voucher program users.

Now, she's got just over three months to convince supporters of the state's billion-dollar Empowerment Scholarship Account program that she'll protect it while assuring critics she won't let users spend taxpayer money recklessly.

Voters will decide not only whether Yee will get the superintendent job instead of Democrat Teresa Leyba Ruiz, who won the Democratic primary election. They will also consider three, or possibly four, ballot measures related to the ESA program.

Yee pushed back on the notion that the program is the main factor in the race.

During a conversation with The Arizona Republic, Yee explained how her “back to basics” program would include a push for "traditional mathematics," phonics-based instruction and more home economics and shop classes. She's also proposed a mentor program for teachers and forging a better relationship with local school boards.

"I'm a daughter of a public school teacher, and we need to focus not only on reading instruction for these teachers, but we need to focus on teacher retention," she said.

Yee says Horne was content with status quo

Yee campaigned on her education background. The born-and-raised Arizonan lived in California for several years working as an adviser for California Govs. Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, specializing in education policy.

Her career also includes eight years in the state Legislature and a job as a state Senate staffer. She's a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump and is endorsed by Turning Point Action.

She declined comment when asked about a racist social media post the conservative group's chief operating officer, Tyler Bowyer, directed at an Asian lawmaker. Bowyer had asked Republican Rep. Quang Nguyen of Prescott Valley if he could "speak English." Yee had been the target of a racist ad by Horne supporters during the campaign.

Horne fashioned his campaign as opposing diversity, inclusion and equity programs in schools, and Yee is no less of an opponent. She vehemently denies she served on a DEI committee while a member of the National Association of State Treasurers, a charge Horne leveled at her during the campaign.

According to Yee, DEI and "gender ideology" in public schools remains a problem.

"When you ask a 5-year-old in kindergarten what their pronoun is, that is a distraction to academic classroom learning," she said.

The difference between the two conservative candidates was that Horne "seemed to think everything was OK, and it's not," Yee said, referring to poor performance by students in reading and math. "Mine was a carry-forward vision to the future versus everything's 'just fine.'"

Although leading the Treasurer's Office is a largely functionary duty, Republican former Gov. Doug Ducey showed it can be a pathway to higher office.

Yee, 52, was a popular choice for Republican voters in 2022: When Democrats took the statewide offices of governor, attorney general and secretary of state, Yee beat former Democratic lawmaker Martín Quezada and ended with more votes than any other competitive candidate. Horne also won his race that year, though more narrowly.

Horne outspent Yee about two-to-one in this year's race, in part by loaning his campaign more than a half-million dollars. He chalked up her win to her Turning Point endorsement.

"I have absolutely no regrets," Horne told The Arizona Republic. "That's why I put in as much money as I did."

He said he was excited for his next project: He and some partners plan to start a 7-12 grade charter school in the West Valley that commits to 50% "high-poverty" students.

"We're going to prove that they can learn just as well as rich kids," Horne said.

'Messy' messaging in race likely, consultant says

Yee considers herself one of the founders of the state’s school choice movement, noting she was a prime sponsor of a 2011 bill that offered taxpayer-funded school vouchers to children with disabilities.

Ten years after that bill became law, the state Legislature passed a universal ESA law signed by Ducey. The program now helps pay for school tuition and educational expenses for more than 100,000 students and has a price tag of about $1 billion a year. But its reputation has been marred by examples of abuse.

The state’s largest teachers union floated a ballot measure this year that would put strong guardrails against fraud in the program and cap household income for participation at $150,000. The Arizona Education Association submitted 421,451 signatures by the July 2 deadline, more than the required 255,949.

The Secretary of State's Office is still evaluating the signatures' validity. The conservative Goldwater Institute filed a suit on July 20 challenging the signatures.

If the Protect Education Act goes to the ballot and voters approve it, the program would be smaller and heavily regulated.

Republican lawmakers countered by threatening to pass three ballot measures. One of those measures would eliminate the Protect Education Act even if voters approve it. The other two would reduce union resources and micromanage how school districts spend the public's money, requiring at least 60% to be spent on classroom education.

When a proposed deal to halt the union measure collapsed in June, Republicans passed the measures voters will soon see on the ballot.

How all of this could help Yee isn't clear.

"It's very, very messy message platform," said Doug Cole, a Republican consultant for Highground public relations, adding the union initiative will be "challenging to navigate" for both Yee and Ruiz.

It’s challenged her already. When Yee announced last year she would run for the office, she claimed Horne did not have the authority to deny purchases like Rolex watches and other non-educational items. She later denied she meant such purchases should be allowed. A state Auditor General report later showed the program was vulnerable to fraud and had allowed unauthorized purchases.

With the statewide general election looming, Yee said she is ready to implement a number of safeguards. She wants an AI-powered system that blocks requests to buy unauthorized items on the front end instead of investigating purchases already made.

She acknowledged that to do that, she’d need to ask the Legislature for more funding for equipment and staff. GOP lawmakers who control the Capitol have in the past been reticent to provide that, a complaint Horne frequently raised when asked about ESA misspending.

At the same time, authorized expenses need to be doled out quickly, she added.

Yee also supports a renewed but slimmed-down version of Proposition 123, the 10-year plan voters approved in 2016 to take more money from the state land trust for education needs. It brought about $300 million a year for the school system but is now expired, with the funding now coming from the state's general fund.

Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Republican majority have battled over what a new Proposition 123 program would fund, and whether it would include protections for the ESA program.