by Daniel Stefanski | Jul 26, 2023 | Education, News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Arizona’s Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction and Democrat Attorney General are again at opposite ends of the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program.
On Monday, Superintendent Tom Horne responded to Attorney General Mayes’ recent comments about the ESA program, setting his department’s record straight.
Earlier in the day, Mayes issued a press release to “provide information about rights forfeited leaving the public school system.” The Attorney General first addressed parents of children with disabilities, stating, “Families should not be denied admission or kicked out of private schools because of a child’s disabilities. To make matters worse, private schools often refuse to share the educational records behind those decisions Because Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) and the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) don’t apply to private schools, families have no recourse under federal law. It’s important for Arizona families to be aware of the rights they give up when they leave the public school system.”
Horne pushed back on the Attorney General’s notice, saying, “(Mayes) raised several issues, one of which centers on special education students. Under the ESA program, special education students receive the same funding as they would attending a public school.”
Mayes broached another issue on her consumer alert – this one about the ESA program and its vendors as a whole. The Attorney General’s Office wrote, “If using ESA funds for private school or schooling at home is the preferred educational choice, families should make sure they choose reputable schools and vendors. Even still, families should know that when they accept an ESA, they lose protections from discrimination related to a child’s learning abilities, religion and sexual orientation.”
The Attorney General said, “As a mom, I know how important a child’s education is and I know that, as parents, we all want what is best for our children. I want families to know that if vendors or private schools take advantage of this, the Attorney General’s Office will investigate to the fullest extent of our authority.”
Horne didn’t leave this part of Mayes’ release alone either, making sure onlookers understood his administration is dedicated to following the law. Horne stated, “In regards to the other concerns raised, under my Democrat predecessor as schools chief, the law was not strictly followed and ESA funds were used for non-educational purposes. One of my first acts when I took office was to hire from the Arizona Auditor General an internal auditor for the Department of Education. This person makes sure that every ESA transaction is conducted according to the law and all funding is used appropriately. There have been significant protests against me from people who were used to the old lax system, but I am insisting that every law is strictly followed and that every penny of these funds is used for valid educational purposes.”
The state’s top prosecutor received accolades for her statements from at least one Democrat legislator, Representative Nancy Gutierrez, who tweeted, “Thank you Attorney General Mayes for making it clear that private schools do not give students and families the same rights as public schools.”
The Arizona school chief’s response to Mayes follows two other significant battles between the two since they entered office this past January. Just last week, Horne called a recent formal opinion from Attorney General Mayes on a Structured English Immersion law “ideologically driven.” He also pushed back against Mayes when she went on television to say that “there are no controls” on the ESA program, “no accountability,” that “they” (presumably parents) are “spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money,” that this “needs to be looked at,” and that it’s (her) “responsibility to do that” as Arizona’s “top law enforcement officer.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Daniel Stefanski | Jul 14, 2023 | Education, News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Americans’ support for school choice is on the rise.
A recent poll from Real Clear Opinion Research showed that school choice has the support of 71% of the 1,000 registered voters who participated in that survey. This number was a seven-point increase from an April 2020 poll.
In this June 27-30 poll, support for school choice came from 80% of Republican voters, 66% of Democrat voters, and 69% of Independent voters. Though the Republican and Democrat support was up from April 2020, the 9% increase in favor from Independents was the most among the political parties.
The question presented to voters on the survey was as follows: “School choices gives parents the right to use the tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs. Generally speaking, would you say you support or oppose the concept of school choice?”
The CEO of American Federation for Children, Tommy Schultz, lauded the news about the growing support for school choice around the country, saying, “School choice support is here to stay, and politicians who ignore this reality do so at their own peril. Parents are the new interest group in town, and legislators would be wise to keep responding to their needs. The days of the old one-size-fits-all model are numbered, welcome news for the countless students who need something different to learn and thrive. AFC is thrilled to continue standing behind parents as they gain more options for their children’s education.”
Arizona has been at the front lines of the surge in school choice support. Last year, the Republican-led Legislature passed a historic expansion of the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program, allowing any child in K-12 to apply. According to a June 30 update from the Executive Director of the ESA Program, Christine Accurso, 62,005 Arizona students have now been enrolled.
That same update also showed that the program, under the direction of Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, had largely caught up with the backlog and influx of reimbursements to ESA account holders. As of June 30, the ESA Program only had 1,195 Reimbursement Orders in the queue – down from 24,409 on February 8.
When asked about the increasing support for school choice in Arizona and around the nation, Superintendent Horne told AZ Free News, “We have a lot of excellent public schools in Arizona. But no matter how good a public school is, it may not be able to meet the needs of all students. Rich parents have always had the ability to choose the best school to meet the needs of each of their children and people at all economic levels should have the same ability. In addition, competition improves public schools. The United States has been prosperous, and the Soviet Union was poor, because we had competition which drives people to do their best, while they were a government monopoly. As they used to say in Poland, ‘We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.’ The same applies in education. Competition causes everyone to do better.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Daniel Stefanski | Jun 11, 2023 | Education, News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Advocates of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) are responding to recent attacks on the program.
Last week, Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs launched a political assault on ESAs, reacting to a recent memo from the Arizona Department of Education, which detailed the expected cost for the upcoming fiscal year. Hobbs tweeted, “the school voucher program in its current form is not sustainable, and Republican legislators need to explain why they are forcing this runaway spending on Arizona taxpayers. We need to bring an end to this out of control and unaccountable spending, and I will work tirelessly to make that happen.”
The first-year governor has been working tirelessly to assuage angry members of her own party since she agreed to a negotiated state budget last month with Republican leaders of the Arizona House and Senate. Though she railed against ESAs on the campaign trail and leading up to the budget compromise, Hobbs signed the package that left the historic school choice expansion untouched and uncapped, leaving Democrats and interest groups opposed to ESAs to question her commitment to adhere to such a prominent platform of her administration.
Proponents of Arizona’s ESA program were ready for Hobbs’ – and other Democrats’ – attack, publishing national and local opinion pieces to assure people of the facts. Jason Bedrick and Corey DeAngelis, two national leaders of the school choice movement, wrote a commentary for the Wall Street Journal, entitled “School Choice Saves Arizona Money.” The advocates clarified the cost for ESAs in Fiscal Year 2024 ($900 million) “is barely 2% of total Arizona state spending of $80.5 billion in 2022. Arizona public schools spend about $14,000 per pupil, or $1.4 billion for 100,000 students. If the department’s enrollment projection is reached, school choice would serve roughly 8% of Arizona’s students for 6% of the $15 billion that Arizona will spend on public schools.”
They pointed to a report published by the Common Sense Institute, which found that “current enrollment in Arizona public district and charter schools combined is over 80,000 students below pre-pandemic projections,” saving Arizona $639 million.
Another opinion piece, written by Jon Gabriel for the Arizona Republic, stressed that “the critics of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts keep claiming the program is too expensive. At the same time, they insist the state spend far, far more on education.” Gabriel highlights that “an ESA student is only allowed 90% what that student would receive in a traditional public school,” arguing that Democrats “are galled to see education funding going directly to students and parents instead of to bloated public school administrations and teachers’ unions.”
Matthew Ladner took his defense of ESAs to Twitter to make a comparison with the Mesa Unified School Direct. He posted, “Mesa Unified was budgeted for $1.3 billion last year to educate 54,000 students. I’m having a hard time getting too excited about less money for 100,000 students. Let’s call ESA ‘a bargain for taxpayers.’”
As of the Arizona Department of Education’s update on June 2, 58,253 students are currently enrolled in ESAs.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jun 10, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
We all know it’s been a rough start for Governor Katie Hobbs as Arizona’s Chief Executive. Along with high-profile staff exits and breaking the veto record after killing the bipartisan “Tamale Bill,” Hobbs alienated many Democrats when she signed the budget sent to her by the Republican-led legislature.
Not to be outdone, Attorney General Kris Mayes has come along since taking office with one clear message to Hobbs: “Hold my Bud Light.”
Mayes has been occupying the AG office for a couple of months, and she has already figured out a way to abuse her power and violate her attorney client obligations. All driven by her desire for headlines and trying to claim the mantle as top Democrat demagogue in the state.
Her antics began in April when she decided it was a good idea to threaten action against the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR)…
>>> CONTINUE READING >>>
by Corey DeAngelis | Jun 6, 2023 | Opinion
By Jason Bedrick and Corey DeAngelis |
Democrats claim a new program will bankrupt the state. The opposite is true.
Is school choice bankrupting Arizona? That’s what Gov. Katie Hobbs and Democratic legislative leaders would have you believe, but simple math says otherwise.
Arizona’s choice program, Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs), “in its current form is not sustainable,” Ms. Hobbs tweeted last week. “We need to bring an end to this out of control and unaccountable spending, and I will work tirelessly to make that happen.”
With an ESA, parents can use a portion of their child’s state education funds—typically about $8,000 a year—to pay for private-school tuition, tutoring, textbooks, online courses, home-school curricula, special-needs therapy and other expenses.
Ms. Hobbs’s declaration came in the wake of the Arizona Department of Education’s latest projection that the program, which has about 58,000 participants, will serve 100,000 students by the end of fiscal 2024 at a cost of roughly $900 million.
“Without reform, Empowerment Scholarship Accounts will bankrupt our state & our public schools,” tweeted Rep. Andrés Cano, leader of the Democratic caucus in the Arizona House. He omitted the portion of the department’s letter noting that “many of the students that are enrolling now are coming from the public school system, which in the end saves the state money.”
That $900 million is barely 2% of total Arizona state spending of $80.5 billion in 2022. Arizona public schools spend about $14,000 per pupil, or $1.4 billion for 100,000 students. If the department’s enrollment projection is reached, school choice would serve roughly 8% of Arizona’s students for 6% of the $15 billion that Arizona will spend on public schools.
A new report by the Common Sense Institute finds that “current enrollment in Arizona public district and charter schools combined is over 80,000 students below pre-pandemic projections,” producing a savings of $639 million. Arizona’s population is growing, so the vast majority of those students left for private or home schools, for which they could avail themselves of Arizona’s two private choice policies. In addition to the 58,000 students using education savings accounts, last year school tuition organizations issued more than 32,000 tax-credit scholarships.
The attacks on school choice are more than a public relations campaign. When Ms. Hobbs’s budget retained last year’s school-choice expansion, Arizona’s Attorney General Kris Mayes used the “bankrupt the state” talking point as a pretext to threaten a lawsuit. In a public letter to Ms. Hobbs and the Legislature, Ms. Mayes decried the “catastrophic drain on state resources caused by universal Empowerment Scholarship Accounts.” She later went on television and threatened to investigate participating families for “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Ms. Hobbs lacks the legislative support to roll back school choice, as Republicans have slim majorities. But she’s signaling what she would do if she could. Arizona families should take note.
Mr. Bedrick is a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Mr. DeAngelis is a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children.
