An attempt by teacher unions to repeal a new law that would have expanded Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) to all 1.1 million of the state’s K-12 students on Saturday has failed due to a tremendous shortfall of referendum petition signatures.
Late Monday, the director of the political action committee which tried to block the opportunity for students and their families to access nearly $7,000 a year for educational opportunities admitted the group did not turn in enough signatures last week to get the matter on the 2024 ballot.
Now the question is whether Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs will drag out her office’s official “review” of the insufficient number of signatures or if she quickly announces the referendum effort’s failure so that the ESA expansion can immediately go into effect.
The ESA expansion signed into law this summer by Gov. Doug Ducey makes available about $7,000 per K-12 student per year to assist families in customizing a child’s education experience to best meet their needs through private school tuition, homeschooling expenses, educational therapies, tutoring, and other expenses in exchange for not attending a public school or receiving a tuition tax credit.
More than 10,000 students have already applied for ESA benefits in anticipation of the new law, on top of the 11,000 which were already utilizing an ESA earlier this year. But the ESA expansion was put on hold Sept. 23 when the Save Our Schools AZ committee filed what were claimed to be 141,714 voter signatures on referendum petitions.
Hobbs is responsible for determining within 20 days if at least 118,843 of the petition signatures are valid. If so, the ESA expansion approved under HB2853 remains on hold until voters get their say in 2024 on the new law.
But by Monday afternoon it was clear from a review of the 8,175 petitions that the referendum effort fell short of the minimum signatures (each petition has space for 15 signatures but hundreds of pages were submitted with far fewer).
The Goldwater Institute was one of the first organizations to recognize last Friday’s announcement by Save Our Schools AZ was grossly overstated. Its review showed only 88,866 signatures were submitted.
ESA supporters are now concerned that Hobbs will withhold her report for the full 20 days she is accorded by law for the validation process. This would leave the ESA law on hold through mid-October and leave students and parents unable to move forward with educational plans utilizing the expanded ESA option
ESAs were created in Arizona more than a decade ago by the Goldwater Institute and the Center for Arizona Policy. The state’s ESA program initially served 100 students in 2011 but grew to 11,000 earlier this year.
“The preliminary results make it clear: Arizona families have rejected special interests’ attempts to take away their ability to choose the education that best meets their child’s unique needs,” Victor Riches, President and CEO of the Goldwater Institute said Monday.
It was the popularity of ESAs in recent years which led Arizona House Minority Leader Ben Tom (R-Peoria) to introduce House Bill 2853 as a way to expand eligibility.
“School choice is increasingly popular with Arizona parents, especially those whose children are stuck in a failing school, so I find it baffling that anyone would try so hard to take that choice away from parents,” Toma said Monday. “Proponents of the failed referendum built their effort on the fallacy that public schools are harmed by Arizona’s ESA program. That of course is untrue.”
Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy Action, was pleased to see the referendum effort failed to secure enough petition signatures.
“Arizona families want choice in education. That is clear by the preliminary low signature count,” said Herrod. “ESAs are the end of the one-size-fits-all education that works for some, but not for many others.”