Horne is right about discipline. The fix needs fewer quotas and more backbone.

Arizona schools chief Tom Horne says improving student discipline would help keep teachers in classrooms, pointing to a new survey of educators from the 2025-26 school year, according to Capitol Media Services. The report found fewer than 60% of continuing teachers felt supported by administrators on behavior and discipline. In an earlier survey, more than half of teachers who left said student behavior drove their decision to quit.

The consequence is not abstract. If teachers do not feel backed when a kid melts down or menaces a class, they walk. The same reporting notes many who remain cite safety, supportive culture, and autonomy. Yet support on discipline lags, and that gap is where morale leaks out.

Horne’s fix is legislative. A bill run by Sen. John Kavanagh would have required schools to impose some form of discipline in at least 75% of office referrals, with failure costing the school two rungs on its A-F letter grade, Capitol Media Services reported. It passed the Senate and died in the House. A second effort would have forced administrators to provide written or electronic certification of the action taken when a teacher sends a student to the office. Horne said he crafted it with teacher input.

Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, a former teacher and the No. 2 House Democrat, disputed that claim and the premise. “How does the Arizona Department of Education know this would solve anything if they’re not engaging with teachers?” she said, arguing the approach ignores why kids act out and how to help teachers manage classrooms, issues she ties to a decade of teacher shortages.

Arizona Education Association President Marisol Garcia added that a required note is not an answer. She offered a real-world scene of an eighth grader throwing a pencil and mouthing off, then asked what had happened earlier in the day. “I teach eighth graders,” she said. “I know their brains are developing.” A detention slip does not fix that context.

Horne is unmoved. “Actions have to have consequences,” he said, dismissing “the soft way, the psychology,” which he called “total failures,” and warning this is “why we have anarchy in the classroom,” per Capitol Media Services.

Here is the part Horne gets right: consequences matter, and teachers need backup. The survey’s discipline numbers justify urgency. But the proposed 75% quota tied to a school’s A-F grade is a sledgehammer. It invites box-checking, creative coding of referrals, and more paperwork than order. If you make discipline a performance metric, do not be surprised when the performance looks theatrical.

A better route is transparency without quotas. Require timely feedback to the referring teacher. Publish campus-level data on referrals and outcomes so parents and staff can see whether administrators act. Make it hard to boomerang a disruptive student back into class with no action, and easy for parents to understand what consequences look like.

Pair that with real tools for adults. Provide training that teachers actually request, create campus alternatives for chronic disruptors, and draw clear lines for removal when learning is being hijacked. None of that denies child development or context. It simply restores the classroom as a place where learning can happen and adults are in charge.

Pay is part of this picture too. Only 38% of continuing teachers said their salary is competitive, and the National Education Association pegs Arizona’s average starting salary at $44,860 and overall average at $64,291, Capitol Media Services reported. Horne concedes pay is a perennial issue. Discipline, though, is the lever lawmakers can pull now. Skip the grading guillotine. Pass a targeted, data-driven discipline bill that backs teachers, informs parents, and keeps classrooms calm enough to teach.

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