
For many years, the Arizona schools have experienced a lot of negative publicity that affects its ability to recruit talent, garner extra funding, and keep students in the public school system. Current superintendent Tom Horne says that much of this publicity is unwarranted and unfair to the Arizona schools that have made many positive strides toward improving education.To counter this unwanted publicity, Horne developed the Spotlight on Success program for the Arizona schools. Basically, the program works to put as much positive publicity about the Arizona schools into the public spotlight as possible. The superintendent, himself, seeks as many opportunities available for public speaking and voicing his opinions and facts about the Arizona schools to the media. His goal is to emphasize the positive inroads Arizona schools have made both in his public statements and when quoted in the media, and he to refutes any false negative publicity with ruthless tenacity.Not too long ago, many newspapers within the state of Arizona and across the nation carried a negative story where a Kansas company designated Arizona as the “dumbest state in the country”. The story was quite untrue. Arizona schools students performed above the national average in Terra Nova (the only nationally-normed test), which is taken by essentially all Arizona schools students. Though Arizona schools ranks 49th out of 50 states in expenditures per student, the funding handicap has not affected the ability of the Arizona schools to educate their students above the national average. Horne is quick to remind the media of these statistics.Another example of false negative publicity is that the Arizona schools have one of the highest dropout rates in the country, according to the “Kids Count” measurement. Horne says the count is incorrect, since the census was used for the measurement — otherwise,
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