Over the last four years Governor Katie Hobbs, the teachers’ unions, and their allies in the corporate media have been relentlessly attacking Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) program, the most popular and successful school choice program in the country. Over 106,000 kids are currently using an ESA scholarship, with thousands more signing up each year.
Their most recent assault began last March, when the unions filed their ballot initiative in an attempt to gut ESAs. If passed, over 30,000 kids would have immediately lost their ESA scholarship or had their scholarship funds revoked because of the new restrictions. Another 400,000 children would have been permanently barred from participation in the program. The National Education Association (NEA) poured $7 million into this fight, hiring an army of paid circulators that were willing to say, and sometimes do, just about anything for a paycheck.
Interestingly, there were two different responses to this most recent threat. The response from most of Arizona’s school choice organizations and ESA families was a full-throated defense of the program. Within days, the AZ school choice coalition launched a countercampaign and made clear that ESAs would not go undefended. They fundraised, developed messaging, deployed grassroots “decline to sign” efforts, and crafted legislative countermeasures to put the unions on their heels.
And after the initiative was filed with the Secretary of State in July, a petition review was launched by the Goldwater Institute, which our organization helped support. That petition review revealed that thousands of signatures were either invalid or unlawfully collected by convicted felons. The result was that we proved in court that the NEA and Save our Schools was short of qualifying by nearly 15,000 signatures, and we knocked them off the ballot.
It was a pivotal victory in a long line of big wins for school choice in Arizona.
However, during this battle against the radical left, an alternative response to this attack emerged from the shadows: a belief that the only way to save the ESA program was to enact punitive regulations on the families that use the program. Rather than fighting back against the false attacks being levied against ESAs by the unions and the media, they preferred to make concessions that would make the program politically “attack-proof” in the future.
Sadly, this strategy has been tried in the past when dealing with the unions, and it almost resulted in irreversible disaster for our state.
Conceding the Issue to the Left Is the Quickest Way to Defeat
Our organization has seen this coordinated attack from the left before. Different issues, different talking points, but the same trajectory that involves goading us into accepting the other side’s terms of surrender…
The Arizona Republican Party is targeting Democratic state House candidate Hollace “Holly” Lyon over school choice, circulating a graphic accusing the Legislative District 17 candidate of seeking to take educational options away from families.
In a post to X, the party wrote, “#LD17 voters shouldn’t let the sweet little grandma look fool them….” The accompanying graphic depicts Lyon carrying a bag of money in front of children and a school, with the message, “She Wants To Rob Your Family Of School Choice.”
The graphic’s disclaimer identifies the Republican Party of Arizona, LLC, as its sponsor and states that it was not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s agent. It does not cite a specific proposal or statement from Lyon supporting its characterization.
Lyon’s campaign website lists a pledge to “Strengthen public education and hold ESA vouchers accountable” among her legislative priorities. Her published platform does not specify whether she would seek to repeal universal eligibility for Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program.
In an interview with Blog for Arizona, Lyon criticized the Republican-led Legislature’s adoption of “universal vouchers” for families whose children already attended private schools. She also accused lawmakers of failing to address fraud, waste, and abuse in the program.
Asked about other campaign priorities, Lyon said, “Fully funding our public schools (regardless of the ESA program) is a primary responsibility for the Legislature.” Her interview emphasized greater accountability and public school funding.
In a separate report in the Tucson Spotlight, Lyon said she supports increasing the base-level school-funding formula, improving teacher recruitment and retention through more competitive compensation, and restoring fiscal transparency to the ESA program.
“While funding alone will not solve every challenge in education, we cannot expect schools to succeed without making serious investments in students, teachers, and classrooms,” Lyon said.
The Arizona Department of Education administers the ESA program, which allows participating families to pay for private school tuition, curriculum, home education, tutoring, and other eligible educational expenses.
Under A.R.S. § 15-2402, parents participating in the program must agree to provide instruction in required subjects and use account funds for authorized expenses. The law also generally bars participating students from simultaneous enrollment in a school district or charter school and prohibits accepting a school tuition organization scholarship concurrently with an ESA in the same agreement year.
Craig Harris of Channel 12 is out with another story cunningly designed to make Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program look like a runaway subsidy for private schools. Regular readers will recognize the pattern: take real numbers, arrange them to imply a conclusion the numbers don’t support, and omit every fact that would undercut that conclusion.
We’ve documented this pattern before. For example, Harris’s fabricated 20% fraud claim that the Arizona Department of Education directly refuted, or the misread auditor general sample Harris falsely presented as a program-wide “34% misspending,” despite the auditor general specifically saying it was not a random sample and hence “not intended to be projected to the entire population.”
Most damning, Harris was caught coordinating by text message with anti-school choice activists at the Capitol — advising them where to position themselves for “maximum political impact” on the very legislation he was supposedly covering neutrally.
Channel 12 has never corrected the record on any of it.
Harris’s latest piece continues the tradition. Among numerous falsehoods in the piece, three stand out.
1. Big Numbers With No Denominator
Harris tells readers that $719 million in ESA funds flowed to “just” 190 private schools since 2022, and that Gilbert Christian Schools alone received $34 million – letting the insinuation behind the word “just” do a lot of work.
What Harris doesn’t tell readers is what any of that means in context.
Arizona’s public school system — district and charter combined — spends roughly $14,673 per pupil, a record high, according to the nonpartisan Joint Legislative Budget Committee. The ESA program, by contrast, reports that three-quarters of scholarships fall between $7,000 and $9,000 a year — roughly half what a district or charter school spends on the same child.
Total annualized ESA spending as of the most recent quarterly report is about $1.1 billion — against total Arizona K-12 public school spending of roughly $15.9 billion. ESAs represent about 7% of what Arizona spends educating children, despite educating 9% of Arizona’s K–12 students. That’s not the runaway spending Harris implies.
The Gilbert Christian figure is even more telling once you run it against the alternative. Gilbert Christian’s enrollment grew from roughly 1,377 students in 2022 to 2,300 in 2026. Had those same students attended a district school instead, at Arizona’s average per-pupil cost, taxpayers would have spent well over $100 million educating them over that period — versus the $34 million ESAs actually paid out.
Harris presents the $34 million as an alarming number. He never mentions the number it’s replacing. Again: the context that undercuts his narrative is conspicuously absent.
2. Omitting ESA Data on Special-Needs Students
For his next two attacks on the ESA program, Craig Harris quotes Tulane economist Douglas Harris (no relation) of Tulane University. For those unfamiliar with the latter’s work, Douglas Harris is the Craig Harris of school-choice research.
For example, in a brazen attempt to smear school-choice philanthropist Betsy DeVos during her confirmation hearings for U.S. Secretary of Education, Douglas Harris wrote an op-ed in the New York Times claiming that that charter-school sector in Detroit (which DeVos supported) was a “disaster.” As proof, he relied on a study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO). The only problem was that the study showed that Detroit’s charter schools consistently outperformed Detroit’s traditional public schools, and CREDO called Detroit’s charter school sector a “model to other communities.”
In the latest Channel 12 salvo against ESAs, Douglas Harris is cited claiming that school choice programs nationwide serve students who “typically have fewer needs” than public school students.
Arizona’s own data say the opposite.
The most recent Arizona Department of Education (ADE) quarterly report shows 21% of ESA students have a disability, compared to 15% in Arizona’s district schools. That’s not a program skimming the easiest kids to serve. It’s a program serving a higher share of students with disabilities than the district school system.
Of course, those data don’t appear in the Channel 12 story. That would undercut Harris’s crooked narrative.
3. Omitting ESA Data on Sector Switchers
Douglas Harris also claims choice programs nationally serve students who were “already attending” private schools before receiving public support. That’s not true nationwide, and it certainly isn’t true in Arizona today.
ADE’s most recent quarterly report shows 58.6% of new ESA students newly enrolling this year came directly from a public school the year before — up from 57.3% last year and 47.6% the year before. Moreover, these figures undercount the number of switchers because they don’t factor in students moving from out of state or students who would have attended a public school in the absence of an ESA program.
Those figures are harder to calculate, but at the very least, an objective reporter would give readers ADE’s published data on this very question.
But yet again, Craig Harris chose to omit any data that would undermine his anti-ESA narrative.
A Pattern of Omissions and Distortions
None of these are subtle errors a careful reporter might miss once. They are the same style of omissions and distortions that have become the hallmark of Craig Harris’s career—anti-school choice advocacy wearing a press badge.
Arizona families deserve real reporting that provides the context necessary to understand what the numbers actually mean. Until Channel 12 starts doing that, Arizonans should get their news elsewhere.
Jason Bedrick is a Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
One Republican is competing against two Democrats for two seats in the highly competitive Arizona House of Representatives race in Legislative District 9.
Bradley (Brad) Bettencourt is facing off against Democratic incumbent Lorena Austin and Democratic newcomer Jacob Martinez. Bettencourt fell right in the middle of the pack for voter turnout in the primary election. Austin received about 11,200 votes, Martinez received about 9,300 votes, and Bettencourt received about 10,400 votes.
Bettencourt believes his banking career and budgeting prowess — which he says are evidenced by his role in fixing over $1.5 million in budget errors at his Dobson Ranch community — can bring the Arizona budget off life support and onto the path of recovery.
“I’m running because the numbers have to add up: for our state budget and for the families who live here,” said Bettencourt in a recent news release. “I stepped up when my own community of 5,000 homes discovered more than a million and a half dollars in budget errors and helped get the finances back on track. Arizona families are dealing with rising prices while paychecks struggle to keep up. They deserve a representative who will bring practical solutions, not games or extremes.”
Along with the budget, Bettencourt has his eye on strengthening approaches to the biggest issues facing the state today: water security, housing affordability, educational outcomes and choice, legal immigration, and border security.
Bettencourt generally advises more aggressive government action on Colorado River negotiations, cuts to bureaucratic red tape that impact housing, border security, legal immigration pathways, first responder funding, increased penalties on certain crimes like fentanyl distribution, regular infrastructure improvements, and tax cuts to incentivize family growth.
As for the other priorities, Bettencourt proposed government actions that support the individual freedom to act, like protecting educational choice and increasing educational outcomes through competitive teacher pay and expansions of career preparation pathways for students, and opposing new restrictions or burdens on lawful gun ownership.
Bettencourt is an Arizona native that resided in other states and traveled through Latin America before returning to the Valley. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Arizona State University, and has previously resided in southern Arizona, where he worked for a bank in Yuma and Nogales.
So far, Bettencourt has been outraised by his Democratic opponents.
His campaign has raised more than $64,000, out of which $29,000 has come from himself.
The other top single donors to his campaign are the Freedom Club PAC, which gave $2,500; Michelle Masters, who gave $2,000; Gary Golka, who gave $1,000; the NFIB Arizona PAC, which gave $1,000; Veronica Law, who gave $1,000; and Don Tapia, who gave $1,000.
Austin has raised more than $104,000. Her top 10 donors are:
AFSCME People, $11,000
Elizabeth Simons, $5,500
Western States Regional Council of Carpenters Legislative Improvement Committee, $5,500
The Next 50 PAC, $5,500
Ross Boucher, $5,400
Jane Fonda Climate PAC, $5,000
Peter Francis, $3,000
Climate Cabinet PAC, $2,500
Int’l Ass’n of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers Local 359 PAC, or SMART PAC, $2,500
Arizona Education Association Fund for Public Education, formerly AZ PAC, $2,000
Martinez has also raised a similar amount at more than $100,000. His top 10 donors are very similar to Austin’s top 10:
AFSCME People, $11,000
Western States Regional Council of Carpenters Legislative Improvement Committee, $5,500
Joseph Rich, $5,500
The Next 50 PAC, $5,500
Jane Fonda Climate PAC, $5,000
Ross Boucher, $3,500
Int’l Ass’n of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers Local 359 PAC, or SMART PAC, $2,500
Climate Cabinet PAC, $2,500
Ironworkers Local 75 PAC, $2,000
United Food & Commercial Workers Local 99 PAC, $2,000
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Teachers’ union activists were once again dealt a serious blow after the Arizona Supreme Court issued an order effectively removing an initiative from the ballot that aimed to undo the state’s universal school choice program.
Nearly four years ago to date, a similar initiative was removed from the ballot for failing to have the required number of signatures. Katie Hobbs, secretary of the state at the time and now the governor, held out on invalidating the ballot initiative.
The court’s order to recalculate the signature totals using the trial court’s formula, issued on Tuesday, is projected to have brought Proposition 212, the Protect Education Act, below the required signature total following a legal challenge filed by the Goldwater Institute in Clark v. Fontes.
Protect Education Accountability Now, the political action committee (PAC) behind the Protect Education Act, confirmed that the Arizona Supreme Court order meant their initiative would not qualify for the ballot.
The PAC blamed “big money in partnership with Republican lawmakers and the anti-public education lobby” for the initiative’s demise.
A spokesperson for the PAC stated that the initiative should have been included on the ballot regardless of the invalid signatures.
“This does not reflect what Arizona voters want. It does not reflect the overwhelming support of educators, parents and public school advocates across the state who volunteered their time and demanded a voice in reforming a program that abused taxpayer money and pulled funding from their neighborhood public schools,” said the spokesperson. “Instead, the hard-earned resources educators raised to fund this were buried under a mountain of big money, political power, and a system that consistently sides with special interests.”
— Protect Education Ballot Initiative (@ProtectEdAct) August 18, 2026
Activists submitted around 420,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot. Pending a review incited by the Goldwater Institute’s court challenge, the number of valid signatures will fall to a projected total of approximately 245,000. The initiative needed approximately 256,000 to qualify for the ballot.
Nearly 70,000 signatures were invalidated due to their discovery as duplicates or having been collected by legally ineligible circulators, like felons. The court also upheld the trial court ruling which invalidated entire sheets of signatures due to the petition circulator providing an address at which they weren’t living.
The ballot measure would have rolled back the universality of the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program by imposing an income cap.
The union-backed Protect Education Act appears to have fallen short of the valid signatures needed to make the November ballot.
In this special Keep Arizona Free Update with @Darla4freedom:
➡️ The campaign submitted roughly between 416,000-421,000 signatures, but after trial… pic.twitter.com/l7886cgtT9
The court also agreed with a lower court ruling that the ballot language drafted by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes was false and misleading because it used the term “voucher” to describe the ESA program. Vouchers must be spent immediately and only at certain approved schools, whereas ESA program funds may be rolled over and applied to various schooling types and educational resources.
The PAC behind this second failed initiative to end universal school choice raised more than $7.5 million and spent more than $7.2 million.
More than $6.5 million, or 87%, came from the National Education Association. $810,000, or nearly 11%, came from the Arizona Education Association.
Other major donors included $50,000 from the United Food and Commercial Workers Active Ballot Club, the PAC of a D.C.-based union; and $50,000 from Arizonans for Quality Education, a corporation or LLC based in Phoenix.
The latter entity was formerly known as Friends of ASBA, with ASBA standing for the Arizona School Boards Association, and was registered as a domestic nonprofit corporation, according to Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) records.
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