The GOP Has Kicked a Hornet’s Nest in Arizona

The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision today dealt a serious blow to the Protect Education Act—and to the hundreds of thousands of Arizona voters who signed petitions in just 14 weeks.

Those voters were asking for something pretty straightforward: accountability.

They wanted guardrails around Arizona’s roughly $1 billion Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program. They wanted basic transparency, meaningful oversight, and responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. They wanted a rapidly expanding public program to meet a standard that should apply to every government program: Arizonans should be able to see how their money is being spent and hold elected officials accountable for the choices they make.

And they wanted public education dollars to prioritize public schools—the schools serving more than a million Arizona students.

Instead, because of the Court’s ruling concerning duplicate signatures, those voters will not get to decide the issue at the ballot box. After legal challenges and signature review, the initiative came up roughly 3% short of the required signatures.

That’s a bitter outcome, but it is not the end of the conversation.

Accountability Shouldn’t Be Controversial

Arizona’s ESA program has changed the way the state spends public education dollars. What began as a limited program has grown into a roughly $1 billion effort covering private-school tuition, homeschooling expenses, educational materials, and unfortunately, left a wake of fraud, waste, and abuse.

That kind of growth invariably comes with both risks and a basic responsibility: taxpayers deserve to know where the money is going and whether the program is delivering what lawmakers promised.

Accountability is not an attack on parents. It is not an attack on private schools. And it is not an argument against educational choice. It is simply a recognition that:

Public dollars – the dollars belonging to all of us — require public accountability.

At the same time, Arizona’s public schools educate over one million of the state’s students. They serve every community and every kind of student—including students with the greatest needs. If we are serious about Arizona’s future, those schools need the resources to do their job.

Arizona’s School Funding System Is Failing Students

Arizona’s Constitution makes education a fundamental responsibility of the state. Yet for years, the Legislature has failed to provide public schools with the resources necessary to meet the needs of Arizona students.

When the state does not adequately fund schools, districts turn to local bonds and overrides to make up the difference. These tools can be important, but they also expose a fundamental weakness in the system: a community’s ability to fund its schools depends in part on the wealth of the community itself.

Wealthier communities have a larger property-tax base and can raise more money locally. Lower-income communities are limited in their ability to do the same. That is not a funding system designed around children. It is a funding system designed around property wealth and it favors the wealthy at the expense of the rest.

We should not rely on local property values to determine whether students have adequate teachers, facilities, technology, extracurricular opportunities, or other essential resources.

The state has a responsibility to make sure every Arizona student has a fair shot.

That means:

• Adequate and equitable base funding for every public school.
• Less reliance on local bonds and overrides for essential needs.
• Additional support for students and communities with greater needs.
• Responsible oversight of every education dollar, including money flowing through the ESA program.

Maybe we can’t have everything, but we can ensure all our schools have enough of what they need to produce a high-quality outcome for all our students. This policy best serves our children, our families, our communities, and our state.

Follow the Money. Follow the Votes. Follow the Results.

None of this is inevitable. Not school funding. Not the state budget. Not ESA policy. Where we are today is a result of choices made by our elected officials. ELECTED officials. Yes, voters and non-voters made those choices too—choices that led directly to where we are today. 

Want better? We must do better. The Arizona Legislature has been held by the GOP for 60 years. Voters have a right—and a solemn responsibility—to connect the  people they elect to the results those people achieve. 

If lawmakers expand a program while failing to adequately fund the public schools serving the overwhelming majority of Arizona students, remember that vote.

If they refuse to fix a funding system that forces communities to rely on bonds and overrides—and perpetuates disparities based on local wealth—remember that vote.

If they reject meaningful accountability for billions of dollars in public education spending, remember that vote.

Then, when the next election arrives, ask a very simple question: did the people I elect deliver the education system they promised?

That’s What Accountability Looks Like.

The bottom line is that if we want different results, we have to elect people who will produce them.

So this November, look beyond campaign slogans and party labels. Get informed and ask questions of candidates. How would they fund public education, how will they work for a more equitable funding system, and what will they do about ESA accountability?

And, most importantly, look at their records. Look at what they actually did when they had the power to make these decisions.

Then vote accordingly. As Lotte Scharfman, a WWII refugee from Austria and former president of the MA Legaue of Women Voters said, “Democracy is after all, not a spectator sport.”

The Arizona Supreme Court may have closed the door on the Protect Education initiative. But it did not close the door on the movement for better schools, fairer funding, and accountable government.

That door is still open and we can walk through it together. Yes, the GOP kicked the hornets’ nest. But…the earthquake is coming.