Arizona educators push for vouchers on November ballot
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Public school teachers and administrators in Arizona are working to require more accountability for parents who use taxpayer-funded vouchers for private and homeschool education.
They're pushing for a measure on the November ballot that would change who can qualify for the state's Empowerment Scholarship Account program. Parents who use Arizona's ESA can receive about $10,000 each school year for every child. That money can be used for private school tuition, homeschooling curricula, and other school-related materials. But the definition of what can be considered "education-related" has been broad, and there have been cases of financial abuse.
Raina York, an eighth-grade science teacher for Marana Public Schools and president of the Marana Education Association, said the proposed ballot measure would require student academic achievement tests and implement safety requirements for ESA recipients, among other things.
"Like fingerprint clearance for anybody who is working with kids," she said. "We're asking that funds for non-educational luxury items are banned. We're also asking for a cap on families that participate in it – their income be capped at $150,000."
The ballot measure would exempt the income cap and assessment tests for special-education students who use ESA funds. Organizers must collect nearly 256,000 signatures by July 3 for the measure to reach the November ballot.
York said she's not against giving Arizona parents a say in how they choose to educate their kids, but added that taxpayers deserve to see how that ESA money is being spent, especially when it comes at a cost to public school funding.
"You know, 90 percent of Arizona students choose public schools, and of the 10 percent that are choosing these vouchers, most of them were already in private schools, and so this is taxpayers funding that private school choice," she said. "And so if that's going to happen, there have to be some guardrails."
As it stands, ESA recipients receive about 90 percent of what the state spends to educate a child in a public school classroom. Supporters point out that they are not being fully funded for the cost of educating their kids and still incur other expenses for private or homeschool education.
