Sweeping Arizona school voucher plan takes effect

PHOENIX — All Arizona parents now can use state tax money to send their children to private or religious schools or pay homeschooling costs after an effort by public school advocates to block a huge expansion of the state's private school voucher law failed to collect enough signatures to block it.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said Friday that her office's review of signatures turned in a week ago to refer the expansion to the ballot came up short of the nearly 119,000 that were needed. Hobbs is a Democrat running for governor who opposed the plan.

Republican Gov. Doug Ducey championed the plan and signed it into law in July. He celebrated on Twitter, saying “Let's Roll!” and “Parents Prevail.”

Arizona now has the nation's most expansive private school voucher law. It allows parents of the more than 1.2 million schoolage children to get 90% of the state money that would normally go to their local public school and use it for private or other school costs. That amounts to about $7,000 for a non-disabled student.

The effort to block the expansion passed by the Republicancontrolled Legislature over Democratic opposition was organized by Save Our Schools Arizona, a grassroots group of public school teachers, parents and public education advocates who blocked a similar expansion in 2017. Voters then overwhelmingly rejected the law in the 2018 election.

The group turned in what they estimated was nearly 144,000 signatures on Sept. 23, a day before the new law was to take effect, and that temporarily blocked it. Initial reviews by Hobbs' office showed they turned in far fewer

signatures than the nearly 119,000 needed to refer it to the ballot the state's constitution's referendum provision and that was confirmed Friday. The automatic hold was then removed.

Arizona already had the most expansive education options in the nation, with public and charter schools, a tax credit system that helps pay private schooling costs and the voucher system, technically called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts.

Opponents of the voucher system argue it siphons cash from an underfunded public school system and allows parents who already can afford and currently send their children to private schools to get state money for those costs. They estimate that the K-12 education system could see as much as $1 billion redirected to private schools in the coming years.

Voucher supporters say it gives parents choice to send their children to the best school possible. And Ducey argues that public schools are now well-funded, pointing to billions of dollars in new education funding in recent years.

The voucher system started in 2011 with a small program that only applied to disabled children.