When his own Empowerment Scholarship Account Director recommended common-sense reforms to the ESA handbook that included greater regulations like increased oversight of potential “luxury items” purchase requests, Arizona Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Horne persuaded the State Board of Education to defer revisions to the handbook until next year to allow for greater community feedback.
One has to wonder if the Superintendent intends to do the same with Title One Public School families, educators, and community stakeholders after notifying those educational institutions that they may face a twenty percent cut in funding for the 2024/25 school year.
The reasoning, chronicled in reporting from news organizations like AZ Central and 12 News is that the federal government has not yet issued the final numbers states will receive in Title One allocations and the Superintendent and his team want to be proactive and conservative in their budget projections.
In their estimates, the Arizona Department of Education currently projects an across-the-board ten percent cut for Title One Schools. In addition to that, they forecast a seven percent reduction because of the same number drop in the Grand Canyon state’s poverty level. An additional three percent cut is justified as a “cushion.”
Where this attitude was when funding increased budget-busting access to Empowerment Scholarships Accounts is anyone’s guess.
It is also telling, according to AZ Central reporting that other states with similar or greater reductions in poverty like purple Georgia and Nevada are not planning any budget cuts for the schools that serve their community’s poorest.
Suffice it to say, this calling for a potential twenty percent cut has met with condemnation from public school advocates.
In a statement from Arizona Education Associaton leader Marisol Garcia, she wrote:
“These cuts in preliminary funding are alarming. Canceled summer and afterschool programs, fewer staff in schools to support kids – the impact of this decision will be felt directly and immediately by children in poverty and their families.
The constant instability in school funding is one of the factors driving Arizona’s educator retention crisis. It’s exhausting and distracting and it needs to stop.
We need answers from Superintendent Horne on how this decision was made. And now that Congress has passed a funding bill for this year, with Title I funding slightly up, we need answers on how soon that money will be moved to districts.
In the meantime, districts need to keep programming and staff in place instead of making hasty changes that will hurt students, families, educators, and communities.”
January Contreras, the head of the Arizona Children’s Action Alliance, responding to a request to comment, offered:
“All children in Arizona deserve the opportunity to succeed, and the quality of their education and supportive services is an important part of the K-12 equation for success. For too many children, poverty creates challenges that interfere with their academic success. Title I funds were designed to overcome these challenges. It is vital that the Department of Education deploy and restore Title 1 funds to schools to advance the important work of closing the achievement gaps many children face.”
Finally, the Arizona Senate Democrats at the State Legislature made their sentiments known by posting on social media:
Arizona should be fully providing full funding for all Title One Schools and expanding it if possible, not allocating monies to the welfare for the rich and MAGA base scheme that is the Empowerment Scholarship Account Program.
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The great thing about GQP_GOP MAGAmorons like Horne, JGCK and others of their ilk is they’re stupid enough to drink their own kool-aid and believe there are people who believe them. Keep shitposting your nonsense and even the most clueless trumper will eventually see through your lies.