Arizona OKs biggest school voucher plan
PHOENIX >> Republican Gov. Doug Ducey on Thursday signed a massive expansion of the state's private school voucher system, even as he faced a promised effort by public school advocates to block the bill and ask voters to erase it during November's election.
The expansion Ducey signed will let every parent in Arizona take public money now sent to the K-12 public school system and use it to pay for their children's private school tuition or other education costs.
Arizona already has the most expansive education options in the nation and will have the most comprehensive voucher system if the bill takes effect.
An estimated 60,000 private students and about 38,000 being homeschooled would immediately be eligible to take up to $7,000 per year, although a small number currently get vouchers. All 1.1 million students who attend traditional district and charter schools would also qualify to leave their public schools and get money to go to private schools. About a third already qualify, but only about 12,000 students statewide now use the system.
Ducey has championed “school choice” during his eight years in office. He signed a universal voucher expansion in 2017 with enrollment caps that was referred to the ballot by a grassroots group called
Save Our Schools Arizona.
Voters soundly rejected the expansion by a 2-to-1 vote in the 2018 election, but advocates of what are
formally called “Empowerment Scholarship Accounts” pushed ahead with new expansions anyway. The universal voucher bill passed with only support from majority Republican lawmakers in the legislative session that ended early on June 25.
Save Our Schools Arizona Executive Director Beth Lewis said her group will immediately file to refer the law to the ballot under a provision of the Arizona Constitution that allows opponents of new laws to collect signatures of 5% of eligible voters and block it until the next general election.
In this case, they will need to collect nearly 119,000 valid signatures, and proponents usually add a 25% cushion. They need to have those collected and turned in to the Secretary of State by late September to prevent the law from taking effect and put it on the November ballot.
Lewis and other public school advocates say vouchers take money from an already underfunded public school system, while proponents herald the program as letting parents choose the best education for their children.
Lewis said the price tag of the new voucher law could take away more than the new school funding lawmakers added this year, which neared $1 billion in ongoing and one-time cash.
“In a nutshell, this bill will siphon upwards of $1 billion from public schools every single year to unaccountable private academies, micro schools and homeschools,” Lewis said. “And we simply can't let that happen.”