School vouchers could be coming to a voting booth near you.
The biggest union for public school employees in the state, the Arizona Education Association, joined forces with one of the best-known public school advocacy groups, Save Our Schools Arizona, to craft a ballot measure that would rein in the Empowerment Scholarship Account program.
In what may come as a surprise to some, the proposed ballot measure would not eliminate school vouchers.
Instead, the AEA and SOS Arizona designed the measure to match the public’s view of the voucher program, based on a poll conducted late last year that showed overwhelming support for more oversight of the voucher program.
A poll from last year showed widespread support for more accountability in Arizona’s school voucher program. Source: Arizona Education Association
In the last few months, issues with the statewide program have surfaced, including questionable (at best) use of ESA funds, and whether the program is equitable or simply widens the gap between the haves and have-nots.
AEA President and eighth-grade social studies teacher Marisol Garcia spoke with the Education Agenda about the proposed ballot measure.
But before we hear from Garcia, let’s take a moment to unpack what the ballot measure would do:
Safety: Schools that use voucher funds would comply with safety standards, including background checks for educators and staff. Those schools also would have to investigate allegations of misconduct and maintain fingerprint clearance cards for all employees who have unsupervised contact with children.
Spending restrictions: Voucher funds could only be used for educational purchases. Parents would have to return unused voucher funds annually, which would then go to public schools.
Transparency: The Arizona Department of Education would have to report how much voucher funding a school gets each quarter. The Arizona Attorney General would be required to enforce the spending and transparency rules, and could file civil actions.
Income cap: Families with income above $150,000 would not be eligible for vouchers starting with the 2027-2028 school year.
Student academic performance: Private schools that get voucher funds would have to assess their students in much the same way that public schools do, or they could be accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting organization.
OK, now let’s hear what Garcia had to say:
Most people, I suppose, would have expected an attempt to eliminate the voucher system altogether. It feels like this might be a compromise.
The voters are craving accountability, and we spent the holidays really reflecting on it. I spent a lot of time on the phone with rank-and-file union members, local leaders, elected officials … people from all over the state.
This is something people care about. In the fall, we kept seeing these crazy stories like the lingerie and the diamond ring. The last trigger was when H.R. 1 passed on a national level — the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ — which would nationalize that.
We put out a poll — we and Save Our Schools have done these before, separately. The poll went out in October. We got the numbers back in November. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, this is way, way more doable than we thought it was going to be.’
From Garcia’s Instagram account
What were some of the things you found in the polls that were most surprising?
Well, I was grateful that people were concerned about student safety, as I always have been. You have to keep kids safe all time, and the fact that it's acceptable that there are people around little children that have had no background checks or fingerprints. We tried several times to get this as a verb in a budget bill. We had tried on the floor – former Sen. (Christine) Marsh had tried several times. It has always been curtailed, and that shocked me.
Why not just scrap (ESAs) altogether, or is that still on the table?
No, I think right now, what we really want to talk about is reining it in.
The reality is that families have become dependent on this, specifically special needs families. I have seen students in my school who are extremely fragile, and we struggle with the ability to meet their needs because of funding at a state level.
When the program started initially, it made sense: if I have a student that needs to be (intubated), who is nonverbal, and we only have one paraeducator available, it's not going to work. Families have been living under that for quite some time. To disrupt that continuity of education, I just didn't think was appropriate. It was heartbreaking that that funding couldn't come to public schools.
The (Republican) majority party in Arizona has refused to do anything to stop this. There’s a layer of hypocrisy. This week, we saw bills regarding training and cutting down fraud in food stamps, disability benefits …. At the same time, they have no interest in even hearing a bill about the fraud and abuse and waste of (the ESA) program.
Unless the voters do something about this, it will destroy our entire General Fund.
The language of the ballot measure isn't set in stone yet. Are there any adjustments anticipated?
Well, we'll see. We have to wait 30 days. I don't know how many text messages, emails I’ve received. Today, I gave a speech about the history of the labor movement, and three elderly women came up to me (and said) “We want to help collect signatures. Here's our phone numbers.”
But we have to wait, there’s excitement around it, but there is time to make sure that we fortify the structures that are necessary to follow the law.
House Speaker Steve Montenegro released a statement that said the ballot initiative is “a direct attack on parents.” How do you feel about that?
The “parent attack” makes no sense to me. We see this as more of a tax accountability issue.
The other reality is, most families where I live or in lower income areas don't access this money, even though it was sold (as being for) them. These children don't have access to these schools and are not choosing these schools. They're choosing schools that they can ride their bikes to and walk to.
Every Arizona family should be able to go to their local community school and have it be funded well, be healthy and safe; it would compel the community to be healthy and safe as well. You can tell how healthy and safe a community is by its school.
A statement from Arizona House Speaker Steve Montenegro opposing the proposed ballot measure. Source: Montenegro’s office.
Do you feel like there's a lot to be worried about with some of these other schools?
I do – only because I take my profession seriously. (It's) important to be credentialed or background-checked.
Also, I have to account for everyone's learning levels, reading levels, vocabulary levels. If I had to go in and teach a second-grade class, I wouldn't know what I'm doing — and I'm a teacher.
To have people in front of children who have no background in grade level achievement is a little bit unacceptable to me, (plus) awareness and understanding of brain development, critical thinking skills.
Tell me about the longevity of the ESA program, if things remain the same?
It’s like turning on a faucet and never turning it off. There is no end to this program.
In a recent Phoenix Business Journal op-ed, First Things First CEO Melinda Gulick and RIESTER CEO Tim Riester argue that investing in child care is essential to Arizona’s economic future. As the state continues to diversify and attract new industries, they warn that limited access to affordable, high-quality child care threatens workforce growth and long-term attainment goals.
The authors connect early learning directly to the Achieve60AZ goal, noting that children who attend strong early education programs are more likely to graduate, enroll in college, and complete credentials. They also emphasize the immediate economic impact that expanding child care access could have by significantly increasing workforce participation, boosting GDP, and strengthening Arizona’s talent pipeline.
With attainment currently lagging at 49%, Gulick and Riester argue that child care is not a luxury but a foundational workforce strategy.
Read the full article in the Phoenix Business Journal to learn more.
Speaking of voucher oversight: Democratic lawmakers are miffed about the Arizona House approving $3.6 million to hire more staff to oversee the school voucher program, Wayne Schutsky reports for KJZZ. Their complaint goes beyond their opposition to the voucher program as a whole. They say the Legislature already gave the Arizona Department of Education $10 million to hire more employees three years ago. Instead of hiring staff to watch out for misuse of voucher funds, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne spent it all on commercials for vouchers.
“The $10 million that was given to the Department of Education — my understanding was that it primarily was to market the program and for advertising,” John Ward, the voucher program director, told lawmakers last month.
Need a crystal ball: A placeholder proposal for Proposition 123 is moving through Senate committees, but nobody knows whether this will be the year that lawmakers renew the proposition, which provided about $300 million annually from the State Land Trust for public schools before it expired last year, Kiera Riley reports for the Arizona Capitol Times.
“I have no idea what’s going to happen on Proposition 123, if anything,” Republican Sen. J.D. Mesnard said. “I’m hopeful that we’ll get to something, but I admit to not knowing the future. However, this is the last committee, and so we’re going to keep them alive, we need to move them out.”
Different needs: School officials in rural Arizona are asking state lawmakers to consider the “unique needs” of rural schools, like high poverty rates, difficulty recruiting teachers and costly transportation responsibilities, Peter Aleshire reports for the Payson Roundup. Like many other school districts, the district in Payson is looking at a budget deficit and declining enrollment, which led Payson school officials to cut nearly all the in-town bus routes next school year.
Sky’s the limit: Arizona State University already has one of the highest enrollments in the country, and now they’re aiming even higher, Helen Rummel reports for the Arizona Republic. ASU President Michael Crow wants online enrollment to reach 200,000 in the coming years, up from the current 120,000.
Give the Education Agenda’s online enrollment a boost by clicking this button.
Not backing down: Crow got an earful from a student at last week’s meeting of the Arizona Board of Regents, Sam Luba and Carsten Oyer report for the State Press. Hypatia Meraviglia, a doctoral student in geological sciences, castigated Crow for preemptively complying with the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“Michael Crow, you chose again and again to abandon ASU workers and ASU students by pulling resources and programs that might be considered DEI,” Meraviglia said. “When the Trump administration announced that they would ban DEI policies, you didn't even wait for that announcement to be tested in court.”
Mir-Aedrees Sekandari, a senior at Mountain Ridge High School in Glendale, spent his early years helping his parents, who fled Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, navigate life in Arizona.
“As a young child I had to help my parents with documentation and some extremely complex vocabulary. I didn’t know what taxes were. I was filing for the IRS and I was like 6,” he said.
Now that the tech-savvy Sekandari is in a position to make life easier for others, he developed the Newcomers Arizona app to help refugees access basic services after they arrive in Arizona, Richard Smith reports for the Daily Independent.
The app is available in 18 languages and averages about 400 daily users.
He says his next step is building the app for refugees in the rest of the country.
Mir-Aedrees Sekandari shows off the app he developed. Photo by Richard Smith.