Arizona group submits signatures to get ESA initiative on November ballot

Backers of comprehensive changes to the state's system of taxpayer funded vouchers for education submitted more than 400,000 signatures Thursday for their plan, setting the stage for what could be an expensive campaign.

The proposal by Protect Education would retool a system that has existed in Arizona since 2011 to allow parents to get vouchers to send their children to private and parochial schools and to fund home schooling. It includes everything from income caps and limits on how voucher dollars can be spent to new requirements for the state Department of Education to track how funds are used.

And it also would require that students getting the vouchers be tested – just like students in public schools – to see if they are making progress.

Campaign spokeswoman Olivia Fierro said if approved it would "bring meaningful reforms to the highly flawed and wasteful private school voucher program that our leaders have refused to take action on.''

All that, however, assumes it gets to the general election ballot.

American Federation for Children, a pro-voucher organization, is saying it intends to try to disqualify as many signatures as possible.

That includes the basic kinds of checks like whether people are registered to vote and whether paid circulators have registered with the Secretary of State's Office as required.

But Tommy Schultz, the CEO of the organization, suggested there will be other challenges.

"We are uniquely aware that the unions and their front groups appear to have acted improperly in the signature-gathering process,'' he said in a prepared statement. But Schultz offered no examples.

The petition drive will fail unless state election officials – and judges if it comes to that – conclude that at least 255,949 of the 421,451 signatures submitted are valid.

Even if it does qualify for the ballot, there's another hurdle: Republican lawmakers who oppose the Protect Education initiative have put a sort-of competing measure of their own on the same ballot.

It does not propose any changes to what are formally known as Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. Instead, it asks voters to approve a constitutional amendment to ensure that no future ballot measure can take away money that children of military families, who now get vouchers, have banked for college education. That is now a legal option – but one that the initiative would take away.

But the real key is a provision that says if the GOP initiative is approved, any other measure enacted that takes away that banking option is entirely void. That "poison pill'' is crafted to apply even to other measures approved on Nov. 3 – and even if the Protect Education initiative actually gets more votes than what lawmakers want approved.

At the same time, there is a lawsuit seeking to toss the GOP proposal off the general election ballot. Challengers say using the protection of voucher funds for children in military families to undermine the broader initiative is illegal. They say it violates constitutional provisions precluding ballot measures that force voters into a take-it-or-leave-it position where they have to accept things they don't want to get what they do want.

But the Goldwater Institute, which supports vouchers, has filed paperwork to intercede in the lawsuit and defend keeping the GOP-crafted measure – with its "poison pill'' – on the November ballot.

Two major factors are driving the initiative, which was crafted by the Arizona Education Association and Save Our Schools Arizona, and is largely funded by the National Education Association.

One is that, until 2022, vouchers were limited to students in certain categories, like those with special needs, foster children, children of military families and children attending schools rated D and F.

That year the Republican-controlled Legislature repealed all restrictions. The result was that the number of vouchers jumped from 12,000 to more than 100,000, with an annual cost exceeding $1 million.

One factor in that meteoric growth is that some families who had been paying for their children to attend private and parochial schools decided to seek the vouchers, which run about $7,500. The initiative would deny vouchers to any family with income of more than $150,000 a year, adjusted annually for inflation.

That concept is not new. In fact, Gov. Katie Hobbs made multiple unsuccessful attempts since being elected in 2023 to rein in universal vouchers with income caps.

The other big issue has been extensive reporting on the kinds of items that were being purchased, largely by parents who have been using the vouchers for home schooling options and tutoring.

Arizona law already limits such spending to legitimate educational needs like curricula and books.

But KPNX-TV found purchases that appear to go beyond what parents need to educate their children, like big screen TVs, lingerie, diamonds, wedding gifts and even condoms. The Phoenix NBC outlet also reported voucher dollars used to pay for trips to 44 states and 13 other countries.

So the initiative has a specific and extensive list of what expenses are forbidden.

Of particular note is that a group known as Fortify AZ, funded by American Federation for Children, had crafted its own alternative under the banner of Fortify AZ, and started gathering signatures. While it contained some provisions similar to the Protect Education measure, including the list of forbidden items, it had no income cap.

Fortify AZ scrapped its initiative amid unsuccessful efforts by GOP leaders to reach a compromise with the supporters of Protect Education. Now its focus is on killing the initiative.

"Gov. Hobbs and her union allies remain more than willing to seize the chance to rip away opportunities from families who need it,'' Schultz said in his statement.

"Strong, well-crafted school choice policies are popular and expanding nationwide for a reason,'' he said. "Parents have established their place at the table and will not be going back.''

But public feelings about universal vouchers remain unclear.

In 2017, the Legislature approved – and then Republican Gov. Doug Ducey – signed a measure to phase out income caps over a four-year period.

Those in opposition, led by Save Our Schools Arizona, gathered enough signatures to delay implementation until voters could get the last word at the 2018 general election. In the end, just 35.2% of those who went to the polls wanted to remove the income caps, with 64.8% opposed.

As to more current attitudes, Protect Education shared the results of a survey it commissioned, conducted last November, which said about two thirds of those questioned believe vouchers should be available only for "families below a certain income,'' though the poll does not list a specific proposed cut-off point.

It promises to be an expensive campaign.

As of the end of March – the most recent data publicly available – the Protect Education committee had raised nearly $5.6 million, virtually all of that from the National Education Association.

By that point it already had spent $2.7 million on consultants and petition circulators. The next report is not due until July 15.

Olivia Fierro, spokeswoman for the campaign, would not provide an estimate of what it is prepared to spend.

Fortify AZ got $1.3 million from American Federation For Children, with almost all of that earmarked for its own petition circulators. No one from AFC would comment on how much money it has now or its own budget.

Arizona was among the first states to enact vouchers in 2011. It also was the first state in the union to approve universal vouchers which now exist in some form in 18 states.

Approval of the initiative would be the first time such a program was eliminated.