A recent op-ed in the Arizona Republic by the Arizona Center for Economic Progress argued that the legislature’s budget “doesn’t add up” and that Arizona needs a “reality check.” We agree a reality check is in order, but definitely not the kind being offered.
The argument, which has become the standard refrain from the Left on tax policy, is that Arizonans have enjoyed too many tax cuts over the years (the fault of Republican lawmakers), and that this has left the state anemic in revenues and starved of the ability to provide essential government services.
But the average middle-class, tax-paying resident would probably scratch their head at this. They still have roads to drive on. The police still come when they call (except maybe if they live in Tucson). There are still bureaucrats employed to receive their tax filings and permit fees.
No matter how much the Left likes the story that government is running on fumes, people don’t believe it – and their intuition is right, because none of the actual data supports it. The reality is the very opposite. Arizona’s state budget has been ballooning for years. Our welfare programs have never been more riddled with fraud. And governments of every size in the state just keep sizing up. But most concerning about the myth that state government is poor and taxpayers are too rich is that it belies a philosophy that every Arizonan should find alarming…
A new round of videos confirms that the spread of misinformation is extensive on both campaigns.
The entire Arizona school choice coalition opposes both measures because they would curtail the ESA program, which enables the families of more than 102,000 Arizona students to choose the learning environments that work best for them.
The initiatives would greatly disrupt their education by imposing new restrictions on how families can spend their funds, layering on bureaucratic red tape, and—in the case of the union-backed measure—kicking tens of thousands of children out of the program entirely.
In the latest clips, signature gatherers working for Protect Education Now, a joint project of Save Our Schools Arizona and the Arizona Education Association, and Fortify AZ, backed by the American Federation for Children, misrepresent the basics of the initiative and the ESA program itself.
Surprisingly, the talking points used by the supposedly pro-school choice campaign frequently mirror those used by ESA opponents.
Both Campaigns Grossly Exaggerate Misspending
In video after video, signature gatherers working for both initiatives wildly exaggerate the prevalence of fraud in the ESA program and hype the supposed purchase of “luxury” items such as jewelry, lingerie, trips to Disneyland, and other tabloid-ready spending that are forbidden under the ESA regulations.
One signature gatherer wearing a badge for Petition Partners, the group hired by the American Federation for Children-backed campaign, claimed that the ESA funds were used for jet skis and vacation rentals.
Another signature gatherer wearing a Petition Partners badge claimed there was $10.3 million in misspending in 2025. She failed to note that that accounts for barely 1% of total ESA spending, and that the vast majority of unallowed expenses were innocent mistakes, such as backpacks, lunch boxes, and water bottles.
Although there is room for improvement, Arizona’s ESA program is among the most accountable of any Arizona government program.
The Arizona Department of Education has confirmed that only 0.3% of ESA spending has been flagged as fraudulent or egregious—and nearly all of that occurred in the ClassWallet Marketplace channel that the American Federation for Children-backed initiative would preserve, while eliminating the debit card and reimbursement options that have almost no fraud at all.
Both Campaigns Spread Misinformation
Some gatherers from both campaigns have gone further still, telling voters verifiably false information in order to induce them to sign their petitions.
One Petition Partners signature gatherer told a voter that ESA parents were not required to submit receipts and that they could “buy a puppy” with their ESA and “say it’s for science class.” In fact, parents are required to provide receipts and other documentation. Moreover, the Arizona Department of Education confirmed that no ESA funds have been spent on puppies.
Another Petition Partners signature gatherer told a voter that parents were using ESA funds on cruises and home remodeling, while yet another claimed they were buying “cars and houses” with ESA funds. The Arizona Department of Education confirmed that no ESA funds have been spent on cruises, cars, houses, or home remodeling.
In some cases, the signature gatherers misrepresent the ballot initiatives to make them appear to be providing more education options for students.
In one video, a signature gatherer wearing a badge for FieldWorks, the group hired by the union-backed campaign, falsely tells voters that signing the petition would “help low-income students go to college.” The ballot initiative does no such thing.
In another video, a signature gatherer wearing a Petition Partners badge claims that the ballot initiative was “for everybody to be able to qualify for the [ESA] program.”
When the voter pushed back, noting that all students already qualify now, he replied (incoherently), “Because there’s something that’s against it already, so we [are] trying to get it on the ballot to be voted on instead of it just being changed.”
Ballot initiative workers have even spoken falsely to voters about the nature of their employment. In one video, a signature gatherer wearing a FieldWorks badge falsely tells a voter that he works for the Secretary of State’s office.
FieldWorks, the Arizona Education Association, and Save Our Schools Arizona did not respond to a request for comment.
It is unsurprising, if dishonest, when a teachers’ union and an avowedly anti-choice group resort to these tropes. It is genuinely appalling when a campaign backed by a self-described school choice organization spreads misinformation about a popular school choice program.
The American Federation for Children did not respond to a request for comment.
Previous videos have shown workers from the two campaigns colluding to gather signatures. In a new video, a signature gatherer with a FieldWorks badge that identifies her as a “team leader” introduces a voter to her fiancé, whom she claims is working for the “other education petition,” seemingly referring to the American Federation for Children-backed campaign.
The FieldWorks worker claims to be the “top signature gatherer in the state.” Her fiancé does not appear to be wearing a badge identifying the campaign for which he works, but he is holding a clipboard for the Fortify AZ petition.
When asked for comment, the owner of Petition Partners, Drew Chavez, deferred to their spokesperson David Liebowitz, who runs a self-described “public relations, political and crisis communication firm.”
The spokesperson declined to answer questions about the involvement of the American Federation for Children in crafting the messaging provided to the Petition Partners signature gatherers, instead providing the following statement: “Petition Partners has hands down the most thorough training program in the industry. Each of the more than 800 circulators hired for this effort has spent hours training on how to comply with state law and the facts of the measure itself.” The Petition Partners spokesperson said that they “have had reports of people pretending to be [Petition Partners] team members in an effort to discredit our work.” When asked to confirm or deny the employment of individuals who appeared in the videos, the Petition Partners spokesperson declined to answer.
Jack Reany, an ESA parent from Tucson, says that he has spoken with more than a dozen signature gatherers. He expressed shock at how little they tend to know about the ballot initiatives they’re asking people to sign.
“The public is being dangerously misled,” says Reany. “The fraud-and-accountability narrative is a smokescreen obscuring a deeply consequential piece of legislation: one that would strip legal protections from private schools, remove children from educational environments where they are thriving, and raid savings set aside by disabled students for their future.”
Arizona law is clear. Under A.R.S. § 19-116, knowingly misrepresenting an initiative’s subject matter to induce a signature is a Class 1 misdemeanor.
The videos keep accumulating. Whether Arizona’s anti-ESA attorney general acts on them is another question.
In the meantime, the advice from Arizona’s school choice advocates remains unchanged: If a gatherer approaches you with either petition, decline to sign.
Jason Bedrick is a Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
In 1949, George Orwell wrote the novel 1984, in which the fictional character Winston works for the Ministry of Truth in a totalitarian government. His job is to manipulate historical records to justify the Party’s present and future actions. Orwell captures this idea in the chilling line: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
Today, there is a growing concern that Artificial Intelligence (AI) could play a role in shaping and distorting our understanding of history. AI systems rely on vast and ever-expanding databases of information to generate responses and conclusions. As more data is added the interpretation of what is considered “true” shifts over time.
We can already see examples in modern society where new revelations about historical figures lead to dramatic changes in how they are remembered. Statues are removed, holidays reconsidered, and achievements reevaluated or diminished. In Orwell’s dystopian vision, this process was called being “unpersoned”—erased from history altogether.
Orwell’s story was influenced in part by real events, particularly the manipulation of information in the Soviet Union. It served as a warning about the dangers of centralized control over truth and historical narrative. Today, while our society is very different, some see parallels in how information is shaped and distributed through AI and social media, raising concerns about influence over public thought.
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, an important question emerges: will our nation’s rich historical heritage remain intact, or will it be reshaped by evolving interpretations amplified by AI? Some critics argue that certain modern historical narratives present interpretations that are more opinion-driven than fact-based. An example is the book 1619 that paints a distorted view of the history of the United States of America. This type of invented history is part of the data base AI uses to determine truth
Truth is a human characteristic. The Constitution of the United States contains passages that reflect truth. The words in the Declaration of Independence that refer to the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” reflect absolute truth as does the reference to “Unalienable Rights”. As AI becomes a more prominent tool in our daily lives, it is essential that we remain aware of its limitations.
AI can be a powerful resource, but it does not replace human judgment, critical thinking, or a commitment to truth. If we are to preserve an accurate understanding of history, we must remain engaged, thoughtful, and discerning in how we use and interpret the technologies shaping our world.
Paul Parisi is the Arizona Grassroots Director for Our America.
On May 12, the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) Governing Board voted 5-0 to place a $375 million capital bond on the November 2026 ballot. Five months earlier, the same body voted 3-2 to close Pima Elementary and Echo Canyon K-8 over declining enrollment and its poor fiscal management.
SUSD has lost roughly 6,250 students since 2010-11, a 24% decline. Applied Economics, the district’s own demographer, projects another 2,400-student loss by 2035-36. Six additional campuses sit on the Phase II repurposing list and are likely the next to close. Yet, the district wants a bond 64% larger than the last one approved by voters to renovate buildings it is in the process of closing.
In 2019, Pima was rebuilt with funds from the last school bond approved in 2016 to boost the school’s enrollment. Seven years later, the Pima renovations are a startling example of hubris that comes at a colossal cost to taxpayers.
State-funded enrollment is down7.19% over four years, which directly reduces the per-pupil dollars the district receives.
The day-to-day operating reserve lost nearly half its value in a single year, falling from $18.86 million to $10.60 million.
SUSD spent more than it took in two years running, by 4.14% in FY25 and 8.52% in FY24.
The General Fund savings account fell 25% in FY25 and 31% in FY24, a combined $28 million drawdown.
SUSD pulled $4.2 million of its state capital aid, money meant for buildings, technology, and buses, and used it to cover payroll and operations instead.
In other words, SUSD is so operationally distressed that it is cannibalizing its capital fund to make payroll. A bond cannot fix that. By law, bond proceeds can only be spent on capital projects, not on salaries or classroom costs.
If this bond is approved, SUSD will still have to make cuts, most likely to staff while throwing away money to maintain spaces it cannot afford to operate.
This pattern is statewide. Chandler Unified has similarly delayed school closures and narrowly forced through a bond in 2025 after a 2024 bond request led to the district’s first school bond rejection in 30 years. Kyrene passed a $161 million bond in 2023 and is still closing six schools. Bonds do not solve enrollment declines, nor do they save jobs. Scottsdale Governing Board member Pittinsky put it plainly in the December 2025 closure vote: “SUSD is nearly 25% smaller than we were 15 years ago, yet we have closed only one program in that timeframe.”
The political machinery behind school bonds runs on the profit motives of vendors and not on the genuine needs of students, families, or the school district. The Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting documented that three architects, three construction firms, and three subcontractors captured more than half of Arizona K-12 contracts from 2013 to 2016, doing so through hundreds of thousands in political contributions to pro-bond PACs statewide.
SUSD voters have seen the worst side of school bonds co-opted by the greed and financial interests of vendors. In 2018, former Superintendent Denise Birdwell steered architectural work to Hunt and Caraway without competitive bidding, accepted $30,000 in payments during contract negotiations, and appointed an unlicensed architect with a prior felony theft conviction on the contractor selection committee. She was later indicted on 18 felony counts. Yet, the same conditions that enabled this malfeasance still remain in place with no real guardrails to protect taxpayers from the too cozy relationship between district leaders and vendors.
Before SUSD asks taxpayers for $375 million, the Governing Board and Superintendent Scott Menzel owe the district three deliverables that address the Auditor General’s findings.
Complete Phase II closures before any new funding request.
Align capital planning to the 2035-36 enrollment projection of 17,340 students.
These actions would constitute rightsizing in earnest through fewer schools, a smaller operational footprint, and a proportionally smaller payroll.
A district carrying five high-risk flags from the Auditor General has not earned the right to ask voters for $375 million. Scottsdale voters would be well-advised to reject the request this fall.
Arman Sidhu is a lifelong Arizonan, a professional educator, and a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University, where his research focuses on school bonds and K-12 education funding. The opinions presented are solely his own.
This week’s erroneous attack on Arizona’s popular Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) is another example of how biased reporting is misleading lawmakers and the public.
When the Arizona Auditor General last week released its Single Audit Report on the state for fiscal year 2024, Craig Harris of Channel 12 News had another fairy tale ready for viewers and readers. The ESA program, he claimed, is “plagued by weak controls, questionable spending, and internal management failures.”
No mention was made of the Arizona Department of Education’s recent finding that only 2% of ESA funds were spent on unallowed items (mostly innocent errors like backpacks and lunch boxes), and only 0.3% of ESA funds were spent fraudulently.
A new Arizona Auditor General report finds the the percentage of misspending in the state's Empowerment Scholarship program was a stunning 34 percent, based on a sample of transactions from July 23-October 25.
The report also is highly critical of @RealTomHorne management….
Both halves of that claim are false. And the falsehoods are not minor.
Start with “random.” The Auditor General’s report describes the relevant sample in unambiguous language: “we judgmentally selected 63 expenditure transactions for review occurring between July 2023 and October 2025 totaling $251,446.” [Emphasis added.]
A footnote on the same page adds, for the benefit of any reader who might be tempted to make the mistake that Harris did: “We selected our audit sample(s) to provide sufficient evidence to support our findings, conclusions, and recommendations. Unless otherwise noted, the results of our testing using these samples were not intended to be projected to the entire population.” [Emphasis added.]
Judgmental sampling and random sampling are not synonyms. They are distinct methodologies with distinct inferential properties. A random sample can be projected to a population; that is its entire purpose. A judgmental sample cannot, which is why auditors use it to probe suspected weaknesses rather than measure their prevalence.
In this case, the auditor general was testing the robustness of the Arizona Department of Education’s review process, not trying to determine the prevalence of misspending in the ESA program.
More responsible journalists, such as Garrett Archer of ABC 15, made sure to clarify that the auditor general’s findings were not generalizable to the entire program.
Note: This is not a program transaction error rate. The Auditor General's focus was on the review process itself.
— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) May 12, 2026
In other words, Harris completely misrepresented the auditor general’s methods and findings. That is sloppy at best, dishonest at worst.
Not only is the “34% misspending” figure not generalizable, it’s also not all misspending.
The 34.4% figure comes from dividing $86,599 in flagged transactions by the $251,446 sample. But Table 2 of Finding 2024-04 breaks those flagged transactions into five categories, and only two of them — “unallowable expense” ($2,155) and “overpayment” ($9,977) — involve money the program should not have disbursed.
The other three — missing documentation ($42,760), missing accreditation ($14,175), and “indicators of possible misuse” ($17,531) — are paperwork and compliance gaps. A tutor’s accreditation certificate that wasn’t uploaded is not the same thing as a misspent dollar. The actual confirmed misspending share within the sample (combining 0.9% unallowable expenses plus 4% overpayments) is about 4.9%, not 34%. Moreover, as the report concedes, even the 4.9% figure cannot be projected to the entire program.
In short, Harris conflates paperwork issues with misspending and treats a non-generalizable sample as generalizable, even though the auditor general warned readers not to do exactly that. Then Harris’s manufactured anti-ESA talking points are repeated ad nauseum by politicians and political activists.
Harris built an entire investigative series on a Department of Education internal review that supposedly reported a 20% misuse rate — except the internal review, like the auditors’ sample, was not designed to be projected. Harris projected it anyway.
When the same Department then produced a separate analysis suggesting misuse was minimal, Harris turned around and faulted that study for over-generalizing from its sample. For Harris, non-generalizable findings become generalizable when they damage ESA. Generalizable findings become non-generalizable when they don’t.
The convenient feature of this method is that the error always points the same direction. A reporter who genuinely struggled with the statistics of audit sampling would make mistakes in both directions over time. Harris’s don’t. They cluster.
And they remain uncorrected. Harris’s original 20% claim has never been retracted. The “random sample” language and the 34% framing are now circulating through campaign statements, legislative press releases, and social media posts, citing Harris’s distorted reading of the Auditor General report.
One cannot help but notice that Harris’s manufactured anti-ESA talking points come at a moment when anti-ESA groups are gathering signatures for two ballot initiatives to curb and regulate the ESA program. One also cannot help but wonder whether the downstream political effect is more than incidental to the reporting.
The Auditor General’s findings on ESA are real and worth engaging on their own terms. The program’s risk-based audit methodology is likely better than any other program in the state, but it could still be improved. The auditor has some substantive criticisms, and ADE will have to answer them.
Arizonans deserve honest reporting on those findings, not statistical fictions dressed up as “journalism.”
Jason Bedrick is a Senior Research Fellow and Corey DeAngelis is a Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
This November, Tucson voters are being asked (again) to approve a 25-year franchise agreement between Tucson and Tucson Electric Power (TEP). Franchise agreements are generally standard arrangements that allow utilities to use public rights-of-way for poles, wires, and infrastructure. But there is nothing standard about this deal. Bundled with it is an “Energy Collaboration Agreement” that will quietly embed climate policy into Tucson’s governance for the next quarter century. Voters should read the fine print (and the price tag) before checking the box.
If Tucson voters are having déjà vu reading this proposal, it’s because it is awfully similar to what they have already said no to. In May 2023, Proposition 412 put a nearly identical TEP franchise agreement before the public, and voters rejected it by a 55-45 margin. That deal included a new 0.75% “community resilience fee” on top of the existing 2.25% franchise fee, with proceeds earmarked for undergrounding utility lines as well as funding the city’s Climate Action Plan. Despite voters already telling the city they don’t want it, city leaders and TEP have assumed residents really just want a more expensive version of the same thing – rebranding and trying to ream through for a second time the same agenda but at a cost of $64 million instead of $56 million.
What the franchise agreement really does is help TEP maintain infrastructure, expedite permitting, and improve outage response. But TEP can still operate without a franchise agreement, meaning this vote is not about whether Tucson continues receiving electricity. Instead, it creates the legal foundation for a broader political partnership between the city and the utility…
