John Huppenthal -- Superintendent of Public Instruction Exploratory Committee Website

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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:

Expand parental choice in education.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.

Paid for by Huppenthal 2010 Exploratory Committee.