Arizona’s public school system has ranked worst across the 50 United States of America for some time.
Scholaroo set out to find the most and least educated states in the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to determine the best and worst school systems per state, the scholarship-centered website compared three key factors:
Student Safety – Arizona ranked 45 out of 50
Student Success – Arizona ranked 44 out of 50
School Quality – Arizona ranked 50 out of 50
According to Scholaroo, Arizona ranks 47th for the least educated, 38th for educational attainment, 48th for school quality, and 48th in the number of colleges/universities per 100,000 adults.
The AZ Schools Report card provides a myriad of statistics. For the most part, Arizona’s public schools are failing miserably with around a 50% proficiency in Mathematics and English among graduating students. Part of the problem is qualified teachers. As an example, Buena High School has 25% of its teachers as non-certified and/or teaching outside of their area of expertise.
I don’t believe it is a lack of funding for the schools. Arizona’s statewide average per-pupil spending for everything is $10,729 in the fiscal year 2022. This marks a nearly 8% increase in spending from the prior fiscal year. But surprisingly, with more students joining the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program, the state surplus has increased by over $1.4 billion. The ESA program has reflected a cost-savings program for the state because each ESA student receives half of what the state allocates for students per year. Therefore, ESAs are saving tax dollars while providing opportunities for parents to select the education source for their children.
When parents elect to move their child to another school or to homeschool, that does not increase the total cost of education. It simply shifts funding to another educational option. I believe parents should be allowed to determine which educational institute provides the best education for their child.
If the public schools want to increase enrollment, they will need to trim overhead, reduce the administrative burden on teachers, and make the education of the students a priority. If they wish to be competitive, they have to make radical changes. Students who cannot complete the basic aptitude tests for their grade level should be held back and tutored.
What does the ESA program offer? It allows parents to use the money allocated to educate their child, to pay for the education model determined by the parent. The state’s expanded ESA program provides up to $7,000 to participating students. Parents can use these funds to pay for private school tuition or to purchase home education courses, tutoring, materials, and supplies. After the COVID-19 debacle with schools closed for almost two years, tutoring to bring students up to the proper grade level is critical and should be a goal for every public school.
Why am I concerned since my children and grandchildren have grown? I see the deleterious effects of their education, and I do not wish that on any future generations. Too many children are being indoctrinated to accept things like socialism and communism, and a lot of that is taking place in our public schools. If we want to save our country, we must start with the education of our children.
I have been pushing for school choice for 40 years. I believe the public education system is ruled by the teachers’ unions, which need to be abolished, and plenty of leftist bureaucrats. Our students are being dumbed down by the current system, and until we get some competition among schools, the public school system will continue to fail our students. I believe there are many teachers who have not been corrupted by things like Critical Race Theory and want to be good teachers. But until we challenge public schools and make other alternatives for parents, the system will continue with their woke agenda. It’s time to take back the education of our children and stop the bureaucratic interventions in our lives. The ESA Program is a great start.
Steve Conroy is a retired military officer and has been actively involved in his community for over 30 years.
Save Our Schools Arizona (SOS) and some Dem lawmakers were up in arms last week. And anytime that happens, you know you’re probably doing something right.
Last Wednesday, the Republican-led legislature passed the $17.8 billion budget, and it was a big win for students, parents, school choice, and Arizona’s taxpayers. Despite the fact that Governor Katie Hobbs made it clear that she planned to dismantle school choice for all with a full repeal of the beloved Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA), Hobbs signed the budget without any cap or restrictions on the historic program. This should be cause for celebration—unless, of course, you’re SOS or certain Democrat lawmakers.
Predictably, SOS got right to work on spreading lies about the popular ESA program, claiming it would drain K-12 public schools of funding, hurt Arizona’s economy, and even bankrupt the state. That last lie is particularly absurd, but then again SOS has a history of such desperation when its back is against the wall. (Can you imagine being this bent out of shape that children from all walks of life can get an education that best fits their needs?)
The reality is that the ESA program has absolutely exploded during this fiscal year…
The state budget sits at $2.5 billion, an unanticipated increase, despite a leap in school choice enrollments.
Nearly 40,000 students have joined Arizona’s universal school choice program; 7,000 have joined this year alone. Prior to the Education Savings Account (ESA) Program extension to all students, there were just over 12,100 students enrolled. At present, there are over 51,800.
Yet, this addition of tens of thousands of students didn’t hurt the state budget; the surplus has only increased as ESA Program enrollment increased. The surplus hit $2.5 billion this month, where last June it was $1.1 billion.
The ESA Program has also reflected a cost-saving measure for the state. Each student in the ESA Program receives scholarship funds of about $7,000 — about half of what the average public school spends on each student. Based on current program participants, that means that these students originally cost the state $725 million on average while in public schools, whereas they cost just over $362 million within the ESA Program.
Following these latest figures, ADE opened up enrollment for the ESA Program for the 2023-24 school year.
Arizona’s first in the nation ESA program is officially open for the 2023-2024 school year! Every child deserves a quality education no matter their zip code, and ESAs allow parents from any income level to choose what is best for them! #InParentsWeTrusthttps://t.co/mEm56eKYd7
— Arizona Department of Education (@azedschools) April 17, 2023
Gov. Katie Hobbs has rejected the cost-saving argument of the ESA Program. Shortly after taking office, Hobbs proposed rolling back the ESA Program, making the argument that universal school choice would bleed the state of $1.5 billion over the next decade. Yet, the Arizona public school system takes about $15 billion annually, or $150 billion over the next decade.
The Goldwater Institute, a public policy think tank who pointed out this disparity in an analysis defending universal school choice, argued that Hobbs’ arguments of frugality weren’t intellectually honest.
“To argue that taxpayers can afford the latter, but somehow not the former, defies basic common sense,” stated the organization.
We have a constitutional responsibility to fund our public schools. If we continue down the current path, we will not be able to fulfill that responsibility. That's why my budget called for a rollback of the ESA program to ensure Arizona has a sustainable https://t.co/JnVBGtxuvl…
The state legislature also increased public school funding by $600 million for this year. Anti-school choice activists continue to claim that the schools don’t receive adequate funding.
🔥 States across the nation are rejecting ESA voucher scams 👏 AZ's catastrophic rollout of universal ESA vouchers has become a cautionary tale — and in many states, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are waking up ⏰ #AZVouchersHurt#AZVoucherWatchpic.twitter.com/awhwjIdC21
The Common Sense Institute found that the state saved $500 million annually after about 31,000 students exited the public school system from 2019 and following the COVID-19 pandemic. They also projected an $8 million end-of-year surplus based on enrollment trends.
According to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) report issued last week, base revenue growth is projected at nearly nine percent – a nearly two percent increase from January’s forecast, or $750 million.
JLBC noted that this year’s fiscal growth rate reflected a 64 percent increase in corporate income tax collections, much higher than the 10 percent increase in the federal collections. Additionally, individual income tax refunds increased by 54 percent.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Arizona’s bet on universal school choice is already paying off. At the same time that enrollment in the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program is surging, the state’s revenue surplus has gone through the roof.
In the first four months of 2023 alone, enrollment in Arizona’s ESA program has soared by 7,000 students, bringing the total number of children served to over 51,000. And now, new data released this past week by the nonpartisan Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) show that over a similar period, the state’s estimated revenue surplus has surged by an extra $750 million, putting the total state budget surplus this year at $2.5 billion.
Before Arizona’s historic universal ESA expansion took effect, just 12,000 students were participating in the program. This means that during the first school year where every family in the state can use their child’s public education dollars to customize that student’s schooling, nearly 40,000 new students have received ESA support for private or at-home learning opportunities. And all this is happening as state coffers have overflown with over $1 billion dollars more in revenue than originally forecast.
Sources: Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) FY 2023 Appropriations Report: $1,077,036,700 projected FY 2023 ending balance based on enacted budget. Arizona JLBC Finance Advisory Committee April 2023 Briefing Materials: $2,530,157,100 projected FY 2023 ending balance (revised). Arizona Department of Education ESA Program 2022 Quarter 4 Report: 12,127 ESA students. Arizona Department of Education ESA Program Homepage as of April 17, 2023: 51,849 ESA students.
Indeed, this extraordinary economic momentum comes in the wake of Arizona enacting the nation’s first fully universal ESA program. Sponsored by state Representative Ben Toma and signed into law by former Governor Doug Ducey last summer, the new legislation took effect in September 2022.
Since then, leftwing activist organizations such as Save Our Schools (SOS) Arizona have attempted to portray the program as financially ruinous. Yet this same organization—whose leaders were forced to admit that they had miscounted the number of signatures they collected in opposition to the program last fall by more than 50,000—has again opted for partisan wish-fulfillment rather than numerical reality.
With a typical ESA scholarship award around $7,000 per student—that is, about half of the roughly $14,000 spent on average per student in a public district school—the ESA program now serves roughly two kids for the cost of each one in a traditional public school district.
Unsurprisingly, when compared to the roughly $15 billion now spent each year on Arizona public schools, the ESA program makes up only a sliver of total K-12 spending. Scholarship awards for students who’ve joined the program under the universal ESA expansion amount to roughly 2% of the total spending on public school students. In fact, despite claims by SOS and other opponents of school choice that ESAs have drained public schools of funding, state lawmakers increased ongoing public school funding by more than $600 million in the same year that the universal ESA expansion took effect.
In short, the ESA program makes up only a small share of the state’s spending on education, but with over 50,000 participants and growing, it will continue to provide a lifeline for all students in need. It’s already done just that for students with special needs and other vulnerable populations ever since Goldwater created the nation’s first ESA program in Arizona more than a decade ago—delivering life-changing results at lower costs than public school offerings.
Despite such real-world impacts on families, critics have doubled down to suggest that the program’s success is a sign of failure and financial unsustainability. Indeed, teachers union-aligned groups have suggested that because more students have opted into the ESA program than originally estimated, it must be too expensive. (Note the sharp contrast to their usual take on education spending, which is only ever portrayed as an investment, rather than a cost.)
It is true that demand for ESAs has already beaten initial estimates, and it is true that the expansion, which passed in the final days of last year’s legislative session, was enacted separately from the state budget—meaning ESA awards were not incorporated into the projected costs of the original budget. But ESA award amounts have already been factored into the state’s updated budget projections released this January for the current and upcoming fiscal year. In fact, it’s the very same state budget analysts who assume that the program will grow even further to 57,000 students by the end of this school year who also report the state is now sitting on a $2.5 billion cash surplus for next year. (Of note, that surplus is in addition to the state’s $1.4 billion rainy day fund, which former Governor Ducey and conservative lawmakers also accumulated to cushion the state from any future economic turbulence.)
The state budget analysts were characteristically cautious in their recommendations to spread out the massive war chest. They suggested that if all $2.5 billion were spent this year, the state budget would simply break even next year, before the balance increases again to an estimated $600 million surplus by 2026. But in any case, their projections make clear that the same Arizona lawmakers who unleashed universal school choice have helped steward robust economic vitality and have created a situation where Arizona lawmakers are again weighing how best to spend or return excess tax revenues. Indeed, as the JLBC analysts reported in January—even before the latest upward revisions—the state has enjoyed “an increase of $1.06 billion over the original revenue estimate included in the FY 2023 budget enacted in June 2022” due to “significantly stronger revenue growth than originally projected.”
There is no doubt that global financial uncertainty, the risk of fiscal and monetary mismanagement from Washington D.C., and warnings of mild or severe recessions should perennially weigh on the minds of state legislators. But when it comes to ESAs and the state’s financial solvency, one thing is clear: universal school choice and successful economic stewardship easily go hand in hand.
Arizona has just proven it.
Matt Beienburg is the Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute. He also serves as director of the institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy.
Who wouldn’t want more money in their pocket? As Bidenflation continues to crush the American people—and in particular the people of Arizona—our elected leaders should be looking for every way possible to provide relief.
Just look at the anti-tax mood among Arizona voters this past November. They rejected Prop 310, which would have increased the statewide sales tax by 0.1% to fund fire districts throughout Arizona. They voted down ill-conceived transportation taxes in Pinal County and Kingman. And they passed Prop 132 to protect against future tax increases. That should be proof enough that Arizonans want to ensure that their hard-earned dollars stay in their wallets.
Now, a new bill recently passed by the Arizona Senate would do just that…
