An Arizona mother says the state’s universal school choice program ensured the successes of her nine children.
Andrea attested that the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program allowed her family to have choice in the education of their nine children after she and her husband lost their jobs.
“It was a hard time to be able to pay for homeschool; we would have had to put our kids in a public school, and it was really stressing us out,” said Andrea.
ESAs empower kids with scholarships for the best fit education.
Listen to this AZ homeschool mom share how ESAs empower her kids.
— AZ Women of Action (@AZWomenofAction) May 19, 2026
Andrea told America’s Women that the job her husband acquired following his job loss didn’t provide enough income to cover the costs of homeschooling. The prospect of forcing her children to enter “a one-size-fits-all system” worried her; Andrea said the ESA program allowed her to provide her children with unique opportunities and freedoms not available within public education.
“Homeschooling with ESA has opened doors beyond traditional education. Our children have the opportunity to learn through real-life experiences — hiking in nature, visiting museums, and engaging in hands-on learning that brings lessons to life,” said Andrea. “They can move at their own pace, receive one-on-one attention, and explore interests that will shape their future paths and careers.”
As of Monday, the ESA program reported surpassing 101,500 students. The program also reported the enrollment of 3,300 new students for the next school year.
The ESA program may undergo reforms from two propositions gathering signatures to make it onto the November ballot: the Protect Education Act and the Reform and Accountability Act. Each would need 256,000 signatures to make it onto the ballot.
The Protect Education Act would impose an income cap on enrollment in the ESA program, in addition to eliminating the rollover of funding. This proposition is backed by two big critics of school choice: the state’s main teachers union, Arizona Education Association, and the nonprofit Save Our Schools Arizona.
Under the reforms on this proposal, qualified schools and tutors would have to pay fees and register annually with the Arizona Department of Education (ADE). Qualified schools must be accredited or administer state assessments, and the state would have greater oversight of nonpublic schools receiving ESA funds.
The Reform and Accountability Act would mandate the ADE to establish an online marketplace payments system starting July 2027. The proposed system would limit ESA purchases to approved vendors. This would eliminate the current system, in which parents rely on reimbursements and debit cards.
The program would need to issue quarterly reports to the attorney general detailing vendor payments, family disqualifications, and recovered funds. As part of that crackdown on misspending, this ballot measure would permanently disqualify parents from the program who intentionally misuse school choice funding.
Students not enrolled full-time at a qualified school would need to participate in an approved examination to gain entry to the ESA program. Then, the ADE would need to maintain lists of approved examinations and curricula.
The American Federation for Children has backed this proposition.
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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.
Arizona’s trailblazing Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program enables the families of more than 102,000 students to choose the learning environments that work best for their children.
All Arizona K-12 students are eligible for an education savings account, which lets families direct their children’s education funding toward private schools, tutoring, curricula, therapies, and other educational expenses that fit their children’s unique needs.
Families love it. Three-quarters of parents of school-aged children in Arizona support it.
Yet, although the ESA program is very popular and highly accountable, special-interest groups pushing two separate ballot initiatives are seeking to curtail and regulate it. Advocates working on both campaigns have been caught on camera giving false information to voters whom they are soliciting to sign their petitions.
The initiative aims to regulate the Empowerment Scholarship Account program in several ways, including restricting eligibility to families earning under $150,000 annually—less than the median income of an Arizona firefighter married to a registered nurse—which could kick tens of thousands of children out of the program.
Although students with special needs would still be eligible, they would have to spend 45 days in a public school before getting access to the ESA.
As the Goldwater Institute detailed, the initiative would impose a host of unnecessary and harmful regulations on private schools and homeschoolers. It would also severely restrict what families can buy with their ESA funds, and it would confiscate any unspent funds remaining in a family’s ESA at the end of the year, punishing families who have spent wisely and saved. Those funds would be redirected to district schools that did not educate the ESA students.
The second campaign, Fortify AZ, is more surprising. It is backed by the American Federation for Children, a pro-school choice group.
Their initiative mostly mirrors the union-backed anti-ESA initiative, including a modified version of a provision that the Goldwater Institute has warned “[t]hreatens to block parents from buying basic school supplies and grind the ESA program to a halt with mindless bureaucratic red tape.” However, it would retain the ESA program’s universal eligibility and would not confiscate yet-to-be-used ESA funds.
Nevertheless, the American Federation for Children initiative is worse in other ways, as it would impose regulations and restrictions that the union-based initiative does not.
For example, it would require all ESA students to take a standardized test—something no school choice law in Arizona has required in three decades—and would eliminate two of the four ways that families can spend their ESA funds, leaving only direct pay and “Marketplace,” which is an online platform managed by ClassWallet.
The last provision is particularly puzzling, as the American Federation for Children claims its initiative is intended to “strengthen fiscal accountability and prevent fraud,” which it would supposedly accomplish through “an online marketplace payment system.” According to the Arizona Department of Education, only 0.3% of ESA funds have been spent on fraudulent or egregious purchases, and nearly all the fraud was in Marketplace.
Meanwhile, the two payment methods that the American Federation for Children would inexplicably eliminate—debit cards and reimbursements—have almost no fraud. It makes zero sense to eliminate the more accountable payment options in the name of “accountability.”
The American Federation for Children ballot initiative goes against the wishes of nearly every ESA family, 90% of whom say they support having ESA debit cards.
Arizona School Choice Advocates Oppose Both Initiatives
“The entire Arizona school choice coalition opposes both anti-ESA initiatives,” explains Jenny Clark, the founder and executive director of Love Your School, a local school choice group.
“These initiatives have the potential to disrupt the education of tens of thousands of students,” warned Clark. “They would make it harder for families to use their ESAs, impose unnecessary regulations of private schools and homeschoolers, and even throw children out of the program and potentially out of the schools that serve them.”
Dan Kuiper, the executive director of the Arizona Christian Education Coalition, agrees. “These initiatives were crafted and funded by out-of-state special interest groups without any input from Arizona families or education providers.”
Kuiper worries that if either initiative were to pass, it “would force education providers who serve even one ESA family, including those who serve children with disabilities and special needs, to become part of the government bureaucracy that has already failed many of these families, causing them to seek the alternatives that the ESA offers their children.”
National school choice organizations are also weighing in. EdChoice, the nation’s premier school choice organization, also opposes both ballot initiatives because they would impose “new restrictions” that “would do little to improve accountability while directly reducing the flexibility that families value most.”
Caught on Camera: Initiative Backers Misleading Voters
Under Arizona law, citizens can bypass the Legislature by collecting enough signatures to place a measure directly before voters. Once enough valid signatures are gathered, the initiative goes on the ballot, and a simple majority decides the law.
The ballot initiative process depends entirely on voters understanding what they’re signing. That process is undermined when activists give false or misleading information to voters.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what signature gatherers working for both initiatives are doing.
In one video taken by an ESA parent, a signature gatherer working on behalf of the American Federation for Children initiative made it appear as though the ballot initiative was creating a new school choice program rather than curtailing an existing one. She claimed erroneously that the ballot initiative was “to help out with the cost of charter schools, private schools, tutoring, for the kids.”
Not only do charter schools not charge tuition, but full-time charter school students are not eligible for ESAs.
Worse, the American Federation for Children signature gatherer appeared to encourage Arizona voters to also sign the other, union-backed anti-school choice petition, claiming that it is “the same thing,” albeit with an income cap. “This is just to help get it onto the ballot,” she explained, “either or, whichever one you sign.”
When the ESA parent challenged the signature gatherer, noting that the ESA program already exists, she had no response.
This was no isolated incident.
In another video, a signature gatherer working for the American Federation for Children erroneously stated that their initiative was “to keep the ESA scholarship for families.” Of course, no initiative is needed for that.
Even more troubling, the American Federation for Children signature gatherer misrepresented the initiative, falsely portraying it as “not restrict[ing] ESA funds.”
As in the other video, the American Federation for Children signature gatherer told the voter that she could “sign both” anti-ESA petitions.
In a third video, a pair of signature gatherers representing each of the two initiatives falsely claimed that their ballot initiatives expanded school choice.
When asked what the ballot initiative would do, one signature gatherer misrepresented that it was “to support the children so that they get the funding … to receive the funding and expand the Empowerment Scholarship program.” The second gatherer also fraudulently asserted it was “to expand the [ESA] program.”
When the voter asked the first signature gatherer how the initiative would expand the ESA program, she replied, “By adding more funds.” That is false. The ESA program is already fully funded via the state funding formula. Neither initiative adds additional funding.
The series of false statements by the signature gatherers working for both anti-ESA initiatives could lead to legal trouble.
Arizona Revised Statutes § 19-116 states: “A person who is a circulator of an initiative or referendum petition and who induces any other person in the circulator’s presence to sign the initiative or referendum petition by knowingly misrepresenting the general subject matter of the measure is guilty of a class 1 misdemeanor.”
Likewise, Arizona Revised Statutes § 19-119.01 states that “any fraudulent means, method, trick, device or artifice to obtain signatures on a petition” constitutes “petition signature fraud.”
Whether Arizona’s anti-school choice attorney general actually prosecutes the fraud is an open question. But one thing is certain: Both anti-ESA ballot initiatives would hurt the children who currently benefit from the ESA.
“Neither of these initiatives deserves to reach the ballot,” said Clark. “If you’re approached to sign either one, the right answer is simple: Decline to sign.”
Jason Bedrick is a Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
In a party-line vote on Wednesday, the Arizona Senate approved a bill to expand the state’s K-12 school choice scholarships: the Arizona Equal Opportunity Education Act.
SB1657 expands Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program eligibility by allowing more classifications of students to participate. That includes those with: disabilities identified by public school systems in other states; a parent that is a veteran, first responder, or full-time health professional; income that qualifies for federal free and reduced-price lunch programs; a household that receives benefits from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or Section 8 Public Housing Assistance; participation in federal Title I services for low-income students under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA); residence in the attendance boundary of a school that qualifies for schoolwide Title I Program funding under ESSA or whose governing board submitted a plan to the School Facilities Oversight Board within the last two years requesting additional construction or funding due to exceeding existing capacity; or current or past participation in the Education Recovery Benefit Program, Open for Learning Recovery Benefit Program, or any successor state grant program. It also would entitle participating children to access Classroom Site Fund (CSF) dollars.
Additionally, permissible ESA expenditures would include public transportation services; educational devices such as calculators, laptops, telescopes, microscopes, and printers; and consumable educational supplies like paper, pens, and markers. The legislation also ensures that school districts cover expenses for independent educational evaluation from qualified examiners obtained by parents, like psychiatrists.
American Federation for Children (AFC) Arizona State Director Steve Smith asserted on “The Conservative Circus” that the legislation marked the largest expansion of school choice in state history. Smith cited polling numbers that 78 percent of minorities in Arizona support school choice.
“I’m still trying to figure out why Democrats voted against this,” remarked Smith. “We’re talking about the kids that need the help the most, the Democrats — who I’m told over and over again are always helping the downtrodden — continue to vote no.”
Smith called out the three House Republicans who killed a similar bill last year to expand school choice: State Representatives Michelle Udall (R-Mesa), Joanne Osbourne (R-Goodyear), and Joel John (R-Buckeye).
Steve Smith, the Arizona State Director of the American Federation for Children, discusses the largest expansion of https://t.co/ojUCfBTtWB
State Senator Paul Boyer (R-Glendale), the bill sponsor, argued in last week’s Senate Education Committee that opposition to the bill concerning a reduction in public school spending was reducing children to dollar signs. He cited that Arizona has invested over $8.6 billion into public education since 2016, and that the state set an all-time record with its latest per-pupil spending: well over $14,000.
“I can’t tell a parent, ‘Sorry, we haven’t done enough on the funding side,’ when we really have. And at one point we have to say, we have to let every child who wants to go to the school of their choice, they should have that opportunity, too,” said Boyer.
Boyer insisted that the greater issue at hand was allowing parents to choose the best educational options for their child.
As AZ Free News reported, the legislation earned the backing of NFL Alumni Association chaplain and Phoenix-based pastor Drew Anderson; he credited school choice for his escape from the school-to-prison pipeline. Anderson insisted that school choice defined a “civil rights movement of our era.”
BREAKING: Arizona Senate just passed a bill to fund students instead of systems.
Governor Doug Ducey refused to heed the Biden Administration’s warning that two of his programs rewarding mask-free schooling couldn’t be using federal COVID-19 relief funds. Almost immediately after receiving the Department of Treasury’s (USDT) request to pull back his programs, Ducey issued a public statement that he would continue to defend parents’ choice. He also questioned why President Joe Biden opposes programs designed to help children who fell behind due to COVID-19 measures such as school shutdowns, mask mandates, forced quarantines, and distanced learning.
“Here in Arizona, we trust families to make decisions that are best for their children. It’s clear that President Biden doesn’t feel the same. He’s focused on taking power away from American families by issuing restrictive and dictatorial mandates for his own political gain. After the many challenges of last year, it should be our top priority to get our kids caught up. That’s exactly what this program does — it gives families in need the opportunity to access critical educational resources. Why is the president against that?”
Here in Arizona, we trust families to make decisions that are best for their children. It’s clear that President Biden doesn’t feel the same. He’s focused on taking power away from American families by issuing restrictive and dictatorial mandates for his own political gain. 1/ https://t.co/oeoNIzgOtq
American Federation for Children’s Arizona State Director, Steve Smith, asserted that he stood by Ducey’s response. He pointed out that public schools with mask mandates have access to an overwhelming majority of the federal relief funds; essentially, Ducey’s two programs are a drop in the funds bucket.
“I applaud Governor Ducey for doing all he can to provide more education options for Arizona families through this unprecedented time. It is alarming that anyone, especially elected officials whose responsibility it is to advocate for Arizonans, would not only oppose these options but then actively lobby the federal government to take these resources away from families,” said Smith. “It’s all the more frustrating considering the fact that 97 percent of the $190 billion in federal relief funds have gone to public schools that in many cases, are still sitting on it.”
Ducey’s response addressed a letter issued Tuesday by USDT Deputy Secretary Adewale Adeyemo. He told Ducey it wasn’t permissible to use federal relief funds for either the $10 million school voucher program that covers $7,000 of tuition or other educational costs at schools without mask mandates, or the $163 million grant program in which only schools without mask mandates are applicable for the grant funds.
“The purpose of the [Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds] SLFRF funds is to mitigate the fiscal effects stemming from the COVID-19 public health emergency, including by supporting efforts to stop the spread of the virus. A program or service that imposes conditions on participation or acceptance of the service that would undermine efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 or discourage compliance with evidence-based solutions for stopping the spread of COVID-19 is not a permissible use of SLFRF funds.”
Adeyemo warned Ducey that he had a 30-day deadline to respond with proposals for remediation. Otherwise, USDT said it would recoup the funds.
Prior to his appointment, Adeyemo worked within the high ranks of BlackRock: the world’s largest and arguably most powerful multinational investment management corporation. Adeyemo served as senior advisor and chief of staff to CEO Larry Fink.
USDT began investigating Ducey’s programs at the request of Representative Greg Stanton (D-AZ-09) in mid-August. Stanton wrote to USDT Secretary Janet Yellen to issue an opinion on the programs.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
