Arizona is likely in its final months of school choice after one Republican successfully worked against efforts to save it.
The rest of Republican leadership is stuck without a solution to the threat to school choice, because the last pathway to preserve any remainder of universal school choice came to a crashing halt after a judge struck a legislative referral, HCR 2048, from the ballot on Wednesday. That measure would have invalidated any ballot measures that would strip military families of their school choice funding, to include one currently heading from teachers unions to voters.
Last year, following months of negative media coverage on the Empowerment School Choice (ESA) program — mainly by one mainstream reporter recruited from California with the specific purpose of churning out about 70 articles on ESA program demerits in a matter of months — the political environment was primed for Arizona’s largest teachers union, the Arizona Education Association (AEA) to act.
Their initial effort to stop universalization more than four years ago, when the ESA program had first been expanded to all students, had been underbaked and rushed. That AEA-backed initiative was rejected for an overwhelming lack of valid signatures.
Come last fall, however, 65% of voters signaled they were ready to accept whatever proposals for ESA spending guardrails came their way. By comparison, 10% of voters said they believed that parents should have unrestricted flexibility to spend ESA funds. Only 9% expressed confidence in the ESA program working as intended.
AEA moved to be the first and loudest in proposing those guardrails — and much more. The Protect Education Act emerged in February, representing the most significant rollback of school choice in the country. With voter approval, the ESA program would restrict enrollment based on income and discourage private school participation by imposing extensive regulations and compliance mandates.
The American Federation for Children launched their own ballot initiative, Fortify AZ, to counter the Protect Education Act.
The Republican-led legislature recognized the likelihood of voters approving the AEA-backed ballot initiative, and responded almost as quickly.
Lawmakers passed HCRs 2007 and 2040, which would have respectively required at least 60% of school districts’ operational budget to cover direct instructional expenses and would have impacted teachers unions’ negotiations and dues-collection mechanisms.
House Speaker Steve Montenegro also directed legislative staff to find a negotiations pathway that would end the ballot initiative.
Over the span of several weeks from early to mid-June, staff came to an agreement with AEA President Marisol Garcia outlined in HB 2142 to end their ballot initiative in exchange for termination of the Fortify AZ ballot initiative, legislative passage of a targeted ESA reform package, and an end to HCRs 2007 and 2040.
Guardrails would not have included the income limitations and new burdens on private schools. Instead, the ESA program would have received additional restrictions to prevent luxury-item purchases and caps on unused balances.
Montenegro worked with Senate President Warren Petersen to bring HB 2142 to a vote in the Senate.
Some within the pro-school choice world caught wind of the negotiations and mobilized constituents as they vocalized their opposition to the deal.
Nearly all Republicans understood the deal for what it was: manageable reforms that would preserve the universality and accessibility of school choice. All that was, except for one.
Sen. Jake Hoffman decided to try his hand at bipartisanship, successfully joining with his Democratic colleagues to kill the reform legislation 14-15. (Petersen also was registered as a “no” vote, though it was indicated this was to preserve the potential for reconsideration of the bill, which would require a motion from a member who’d cast a prevailing vote).
Reform talks were reattempted throughout the end of June to early July, with even school choice opponent Gov. Katie Hobbs attempting to salvage the deal, but Hoffman and the Democrats wouldn’t budge, the former disavowing the proposed changes and the latter demanding additional requirements of mandatory testing for students and ending rollovers of unused ESA fund balances in favor of sweeps.
Without that pathway to defeat the Protect Education Act, Republican leadership was forced to come up with an alternative: HCR 2048. As of a court ruling on Wednesday, however, that pathway is also now gone.
The AEA-backed initiative filed more than 420,000 signatures with the secretary of state’s office earlier this month — well beyond the 256,000 threshold to make the ballot. It is likely they will make the ballot.
Should voter sentiments remain consistent to last fall’s polling, by this November it will likely mean that voters will approve their only presented option for ESA guardrails, at the cost of universal admission and private school participation.
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