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Senator John Huppenthal with his wife, Jennifer, and their daughters Brooke and
Morgan.
John Huppenthal to
Explore Campaign for Superintendent of Public Instruction
For the first time in 17 years, State
Senator John Huppenthal will not be a candidate for the state
legislature in 2010. The current Senate Education Chairman announced he
has opened a committee to explore the 2010 Superintendent of Public
Schools race. Superintendent Tom Horne cannot run for re-election due to
term limits.
Senator Huppenthal is one of Arizona’s leading authorities on education
issues. In addition to being the current Senate Education Chairman,
Huppenthal has served for 17 consecutive years on the State House and
State Senate education committees.
“Improving Arizona’s schools has been my life’s work” said Huppenthal.
“I’ve worked closely with teachers and parents on education issues for
nearly two decades, so I’m very familiar with the challenges and
opportunities Arizona schools face.”
Huppenthal has articulated a vision for improving education in Arizona.
As Superintendent of Public Instruction, Huppenthal would:
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Expand parental choice in education.
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End social promotion by directing
parents towards the most academically productive schools,
particularly those doing the most effective jobs in teaching reading
and math skills at the k-3 level.
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Build the Department of Education’s
respectable customer service record to excellence, including
providing strong technical support to teachers and school districts,
and continuing to improve the licensing turn around time.
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Establish a research council to create
best practice models for our schools. This council will evaluate the
best research for improving schools, and will shine a spotlight on
our most academically productive schools in Arizona.
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Provide more guidance to parents in
choosing the best school for their child by building on Measures of
Academic Progress (MAP) by measuring the percentage of parents
rating their child’s school quality of education excellent; and
provide more guidance to parents and teachers by measuring and
publicizing the percentage of teachers rating their school an
“excellent place to work.”
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Enhance career and technical education
by identifying more occupations, developing a world-class curricula
and establishing certifications which guarantee students high paying
jobs upon graduation.
As a legislator, Huppenthal has been a
strong supporter of reform and accountability in the district public
school system. Through the years, he has worked closely with the
Department of Education to improve assessment and increase
accountability.
Huppenthal played a key role in helping create school choice for
parents. In 1995, as Senate Education Chairman, his legislation took the
caps off charter schools. This legislation moved Arizona to first in the
nation in school choice (ALEC rankings). In addition, Congressman Trent
Franks named Senator Huppenthal one of three legislators most
responsible for creating and expanding tuition tax credits in Arizona.
During Huppenthal’s legislative career he successfully developed and
passed over 200 bills – the most of any legislator in Arizona history. A
substantial number of those bills were education related. Huppenthal’s
efforts resulted in the creation of the Career Ladder program for
teachers, improved measures of academic progress, and graduation
standards. Huppenthal also worked closely with the disabled community to
improve opportunities for children with special challenges, including
creating a model summer school for children with autism, increasing
resources for the blind and deaf, expanding textbook formats to
accommodate children with disabilities and reducing mandates on
teachers.
A law sponsored by Huppenthal has recently been used by the Balsz School
District to increase their school calendar from 180 to 200 days,
allowing them to test the Japanese model of a longer school year for
improving academic outcomes.
Huppenthal has been a leader in adopting performance pay in education.
After reviewing over 700 studies and creating new concepts in
performance pay, Arizona’s career ladder program has become the only
performance pay system in the country resulting in statistically
verifiable academic gains. His legislation resulted in enabling Arizona
to be the only state nationally where every teacher has a significant
portion of pay dependent upon performance measures (Prop 301 classroom
site fund).
As a City Councilman in Chandler from 1984 to 1992, Huppenthal was
committed to improving city government’s responsiveness to its citizens.
He implemented a citizen’s survey that rated the quality of services the
city was providing. During his 8-year tenure, the percentage of citizens
rating city government excellent improved from 13% to over 30.
Huppenthal attended high school in Tucson. He earned a Bachelors of
Science in Mechanical Engineering from Northern Arizona University and a
Masters of Business Administration degree from Arizona State University.
John is a devoted husband and father. He and his wife Jennifer have two
daughters, Brooke (17 years old) and Morgan (16 years old). John and
Jennifer are active in their children's education, and participate in
community and church groups.
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