The results of November’s down ballot races for the Arizona House and Senate could affect where tens of thousands of children go to school or how well their schools are funded.
In 2022, Arizona’s Republican lawmakers voted along party lines to grow the state’s small school voucher program and make it one of the most expansive in the country by letting any family use tax dollars to pay for private school tuition or homeschooling expenses.
There are now more than 78,000 students enrolled in the voucher program, up from around 12,000 before the expansion when eligibility was limited to specific categories, including students with disabilities and those attending underperforming public schools.
For parent Chelsea Ellison, the expansion has been a success after her daughter struggled in public elementary schools.
“It took us a little bit of last year to get her where she should have been, in general, and now she's thriving,” Ellison said. “She loves school.”
But critics blame vouchers — which carry a median annual cost of $7,409 annually — for siphoning money away from Arizona’s public school system, which ranks near the bottom nationwide in per pupil funding, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
“I feel like the vouchers definitely take away from the critical dollars that the public schools need to keep providing the excellent schooling that they are capable of providing,” said Miriam Hoban, whose child attends a public school in Scottsdale.
The voucher program, which became a model for other Republican-controlled states, cost the state $718 million last school year, $93 million more than projected, according to the Arizona Department of Education..
Hoban, the public school mom, said teachers or parents are forced to pay out of pocket for basic necessities like pencils and markers.
“I notice that the amount of resources available to the teachers, directly, it just is not there, any kind of funding for improvements at the school is not there,” Hoban said.
Ellison, the voucher mom, expressed similar concerns but said they predated the voucher expansion while her daughter was still in public school. She said voucher parents like her pay taxes, too, and she appreciates the ability to use that money to pursue a better educational fit for her daughter.
“There was larger class sizes, more budget cuts,” Ellison said. “We had no STEM teacher, we had no music teacher, we had no art teacher.”
She said vouchers allow her to spend her tax dollars at local businesses, like art studios or a local theme park that provides physics lessons to schools and other educational groups.
The results of Arizona’s legislative elections could determine whether Ellison can continue to use her tax dollars to fund her child’s homeschooling in the future.
In Arizona, Democrats have made reigning in the voucher program — or rolling back the expansion altogether — a major part of their agenda.
“The previous legislature passed a massive expansion of school vouchers that lacks accountability and will likely bankrupt this state,” Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs said at her state of the state speech in 2023, months after her Republican predecessor, Gov. Doug Ducey, signed the voucher expansion into law.
And Republicans have been just as vocal about their intent to block any attempt to make substantial changes to the program.
Critics like Hobbs argue not every voucher parent is a responsible steward of that taxpayer money, pointing to headlines focused on questionable expenses like private lessons in luxury cars and ski resort passes, which were supposedly part of a child’s education.
And, they say, a disproportionate number of vouchers are subsidizing private school tuition for families that were already paying for it without assistance. Hobbs' office estimated in January that nearly 50,000 students in the program had not attended public schools before.
Ellison, the voucher mom, said her family did try to make it work in public schools before opting for the voucher program, but acknowledged that her family could afford to pay out of pocket to homeschool her children.
“Are we in a position where we could still do it? Yes, we are. Would it be harder for us? Yes, it would,” she said.
For Democrats to win enough seats in the legislature to make changes to the voucher program, they might have to temper their goals for scaling back the program, Arizona pollster Paul Bentz said.
“I don't expect that they could mount a full fledged repeal,” Bentz said. “I think that would be challenging for some of the swing areas for Democrats, but I certainly think at a minimum, there would be regulation on it, and probably some definite changes to the program.”
Bentz said the handful of swing districts that are truly up for grabs in the state have plenty of parents like Ellison.
“So I've watched them learn more and want to be part of learning since,” Ellison said. “Before it was fighting to do homework.”
She said she supports putting additional guardrails on the program to make sure the money is spent appropriately but does not want to upend the progress her children have made at home.
