By Staff Reporter |
The Democratic nominee for Superintendent of Public Instruction, Teresa Leyba Ruiz, says Arizona’s school choice funds should be reverted back to the public schools.
Ruiz, the former president of Glendale Community College, told “The Mike Broomhead Show” on KTAR that Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) funds should be converted to public school funding under her administration of the Arizona Department of Education (ADE).
Ruiz said that she would like to use ESA funds to pay for a literacy coach in every single classroom. Ruiz said if Arizona spent more on its schools, parents would be “fighting” to stay in public schools instead of leaving.
“Right now, in Arizona, there’s over $350 million dollars being stockpiled for future use, for college perhaps. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we took that money and invested it in our schools?” said Ruiz. “If we just invested in our schools — remember this is 50 years of underfunding and not prioritizing our public schools.”
The state spent more than $13.4 billion on public schools in the past fiscal year, an increase of $300 million from the prior fiscal year. Per-pupil spending was more than $12,000, and the average teacher salary was more than $65,600.
Instructional spending declined for the third consecutive year to 52%, the lowest rate since state monitoring began in 2001.
Ruiz also told KTAR on the “AZ Political” podcast that ADE would save money by creating an automated denial system for ESA funds.
“Over $650 million of our taxpayer dollars have flown out the door, unchecked and unchallenged. No oversight on the front end, and that’s something we would put an end to,” said Ruiz. “We’re talking about having a modern, automated system that can quickly process transactions that are appropriate and flag and stop inappropriate transactions.”
According to the current superintendent, Tom Horne, ADE automatically approved expenditures under $2,000 due to lack of staffing. Problematic expenditures under that cap would be subject to review post-approval.
Ruiz said it was for a lack of leadership that Horne had that problem. She claimed that ADE could have shifted resources from one aspect of the department to another to make up for understaffing within the ESA expenditure approval team.
Ruiz served on President Joe Biden’s Advisory Commission on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics, specifically the committee for Advancing Higher Education and Hispanic Serving Institutions. The commission was part of the Biden administration’s reestablishment of the Hispanic-Serving Institution programming, which used federal funding to incentivize higher education institutions to intentionally prioritize Hispanic students within admissions.
Ruiz’s commission resulted in the July 2024 creation of the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence and Economic Opportunity Through Hispanic-Serving Institutions, which formally prioritized Hispanic-serving institutions through federal recruitment, federal resources, and federal funding.
The commission also successfully convinced the Biden administration to expand federal TRIO programming to illegal alien students classified as Dreamers; TRIO programming has historically provided low-income American citizens with support services such as college campus visits, tutoring, and assistance with college and financial aid applications.
Ruiz also served in the Aspen Institute’s 2018-2019 Presidential Fellows Program; as reported previously, the Aspen Institute played a major role in covering up the Hunter Biden laptop scandal ahead of the 2020 election.
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