In the race for Tom Horne’s current office, the nominees for state superintendent of public instruction debated over the biggest challenges facing Arizona schools today.
Democratic nominee Terry Leyba Ruiz is a former math teacher of 25 years and retired as the president of Glendale Community College in 2023. Republican nominee Kimberly Yee is the current state treasurer and former vice chair of the Senate Education Committee.
Both candidates are lifelong Arizonans, mothers and the products of public education.
Ruiz said her primary concern for the state of education is what she called a “teacher crisis,” or shortage of teachers. In 2025, more than 8,600 teachers quit their jobs across Arizona. As superintendent, Ruiz said she would be the “Advocate-in-chief” for teachers.
“They are leaving because they’re disrespected. They are leaving because there’s low pay. They’re leaving for many reasons,” she said. “And the first thing I would do as superintendent of public instruction is I would change the tone.”
For Yee, academic achievement is priority number one. Only about 40% of Arizona fourth graders scored proficiently on last year’s reading and math exams according to Department of Education data.
“We need to get back to traditional instruction of mathematics. It’s too bad that so many students are just using their calculators to determine their answers rather than critical thinking,” she said.
The role of the superintendent is in the executive branch of the state government, meaning it does not allow for direct policy-making.
What the candidates agree on
Each candidate said they’re advocating for more funding in public schools, accountability for the voucher program and the responsible use of artificial intelligence in classrooms.
Yee proposed redirecting district administrative funds toward classroom resources. Ruiz said she’s aiming to boost Arizona’s per-pupil spending — which is ranked lowest among states — to the top of the list.
The two also said the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts voucher program should eliminate its $2,000-and-under auto approval of expenditures. Audits have shown misspending within the ESA program and recipients often say the payment process is long and confusing.
Yee’s idea for combatting that misspending is to find a way for ESA expenses to be approved or denied at the point of payment, similar to an Electronic Benefits Card people use for food assistance. An AI platform was launched last month to help simplify the ESA payment and reimbursement process.
Highlights on the hot-button issues
Improving test scores
“Clearly, we are not teaching phonics adequately to allow for these young students to pass these tests,” Yee said.
“It’s not that phonics isn’t being taught. We don’t have enough teachers. When 4,000 teachers have left the profession in one year alone and there’s a revolving door of substitutes, that’s an automatic impact,” Ruiz responded.
Oversight on ESAs and school choice
“My opponent, as she has admitted in the past, helped create legislation for the ESA program. It’s written to be exploited and we see that that’s happening. That’s taking choice away from Arizona taxpayers,” Ruiz said.
“The definition, for me, of school choice includes public district schools, charter schools, homeschools, private schools and tribal schools,” Yee said.
Teacher turnover
“One of my plans as state superintendent will be to ensure we have a mentor teacher program that the Department of Education can facilitate to allow for retired teachers, experienced teachers to put the newer teachers in their first, second and third years of teaching under their wing,” Yee said.
“I would bring respect back to our educators. I would welcome our educators back in because every single day I would be advocating at the Capitol to increase funding for public education,” Ruiz said.
Campus safety
“I wish there was an SRO (School Resource Officer) Officer on every single campus around the state and if the funding was there, we would have that,” Yee said.
Yee continued that she’d “provide alternatives” like retired officer or, “for instance, we could have those who are juvenile probation officers to be able to come onto those campuses.”
“I trust our schools to work closely with parents to decide: What does that school need and want? I’ve met many school leaders whose parents do want an SRO on campus and I’ve met others who are just as unique who would like to have a counselor or a social worker,” Ruiz said. “It is not the job of the superintendent of public instruction to tell a school what they must have.”
Election Day is Nov. 3.
