It’s looking likely that a school choice bill passed by the Arizona legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey will ultimately be decided by voters in 2018.
Senate Bill 1431, a measure that expands eligibility for students to enroll in a school-voucher program, was passed in April. The bill makes all 1.1 million Arizona students eligible to apply for the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) — a program in which students in public schools can use a voucher to attend a school of their choice, be it public or private.
Previously, only a select group of students in Arizona were eligible to apply, such as children with disabilities or students enrolled in under-performing schools. The ESA program now gives eligibility to all Arizona students, but it caps actual enrollment to 30,000.
After its passage in the state legislature, however, opposition groups garnered more than enough signatures to block its implementation.
Save Our Schools, an organization formed in resistance to the bill, collected 111,540 signatures to force Senate Bill 1431 to the ballot box. Only 75,321 valid signatures were needed.
Implementation of the measure has been put on hold as the secretary of state’s office checks the validity of the signatures. If the office finds that there are enough valid signatures (which is likely, given the high number submitted), the expansion of the program will be left for voters to decide next year.
Opponents argue the Arizona school system is already underfunded — the state historically ranks very low in terms of student performance — and an expansion of ESA would only siphon more money away from cash-starved schools.
“The fundamental argument is that we’re not adequately funding the education system that we have, that the vast majority of families are using. So let’s not create another way of cutting into that funding until we’ve solved that,” said Dawn Penich Thacker, the communications director of Save Our Schools Arizona.
Thacker spoke to Western Journalism about why her group is against the expansion of ESA and what needs to be done to fix the Arizona school system.
“Our main issue was that this was not a collaborative process. One movement got to have its say. So Save Our Schools Arizona wants to back away from that, put it to the voters and then say ‘let’s start over.’ What will help education in Arizona? It will probably be a hybrid of things. It will probably be a mix of choice options, public education and who knows what else. But let’s have that conversation,” she said.
“It’s hard to improve if you’re broke. Our schools are no different.”
Thacker pointed out that despite Arizona families having “choice” options, the vast majority of them choose public schools for their children. She believes if the bill is put into the hands of voters, they will ultimately choose to vote down an expansion of ESA.
“Voters want a strong education system that is built in. Ninety-five percent of Arizona families, even though we are a choice state, are still choosing public options.”
Thacker said she was caught off guard by the amount of private and home school family volunteers petitioning against ESA expansion.
These unlikely opponents of the measure told her that its implementation would lead to the type of regulation that they tried to get away from in the public system. Accepting voucher money from the government would, in their eyes, eventually take away choice.
They believe this particular law would take away the freedom that they get with current school choice options.
“Whenever you take something from the government, there are going to be strings attached,” Thacker warned.
But there are many supporters of ESA expansion who do not see it this way.
“The number of dollars that would be affected by this change, while it’s an important change, is still pretty narrow. This is almost a pilot program. It’s capped at just a few thousand kids who are going to be able to take advantage of it. In a state this size, giving these sorts of ESA options to a few thousand kids, is not a significant shift of dollars away from public schools,” said Kory Langhofer, an attorney for the Goldwater Institute.
The Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit over the attempt to delay the program’s expansion. The conservative think tank believes school choice empowers families and students, and it argues that halting the program’s implementation is putting the education of Arizona children in limbo.
“What this bill does is if your kid is not getting a proper education, it gives you a chance to fix that. It gets your kid into a better school where they can learn to be successful,” Langhofer told Western Journalism.
Langhofer said Arizona children can’t wait 18 months for a 2018 voter referendum (what would take place if the signatures collected by Save Our Schools are deemed valid).
“The reason people are opposing the referendum is because if your kid is in a bad school right now and you need to get them a better education, you can’t afford to wait 18 months for that. The bill can be put on hold, but your kid’s third-grade education can’t be put on hold,” Langhofer said.
Currently, the ESA program is only available for a select group of Arizona students. Langhofer pointed out that these students are in the best position to say whether it works, and he argued they approve.
“The families who are using the program are in the best position to say whether it’s helping them and they seem to happy. They continue to stay in the program.”
Langhofer and other supporters of school choice support the bill that was passed by the Arizona legislature. He believes Gov. Ducey has done a good job in tackling education issues.
“Fixing education is not easy. It’s extremely expensive. I think it’s the biggest line item in the state’s budget and if you’re going to make meaningful changes that large and run by bureaucracy, it’s difficult to turn the ship. The changes he (Ducey) made have been good for education, good for school choice.”
If and when the decision to expand school choice is left to the citizens of Arizona, Langhofer is expecting a tough campaign for the hearts and minds of the state’s voters. (For more from the author of “Battles Lines Drawn in the Fight for School Choice” please click HERE)
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