In Arizona, one of the top priorities of President Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is playing out and could set a precedent for national battles to come under the new administration. A pro-public education grassroots group called Save Our Schools Arizona is gathering signatures to refer SB1431 - the newly-passed universal voucher bill - to Arizona voters in 2018. The bill, which was already touted by DeVos as a “big win,” will expand the eligibility of empowerment scholarships, or ESAs, to any child who receives their education outside the public school system. In Arizona, ESAs were originally granted to geographically disadvantaged or disabled students to give them more opportunity to attend specialized and private schools that may better accommodate their needs. However, under the the new law, ESAs of $5,000 to $30,000 could be granted to any family wishing to send their children to private religious schools, parochial schools, homeschooling, or even some combination of those plus subsidized tutoring and “educational experiences.” Any family is eligible as long as their child had attended a public or charter school for a 100 days prior to applying for a voucher .
In the short run, SB1431 would create several new issues among the the state's already-starving public school system, ranked 48th in the nation for classroom spending and dead-last in both per-pupil spending and teacher pay.
First, public school budgets would decrease as money is diverted from public schools to for-profit private schools. Because of this, SB1431 is essentially another budget cut towards public education. As a result, the new law would further heighten issues that Arizona schools already face in providing services such as field trips, technology, arts, sports, clubs, therapy, special education, gifted education and counseling that most view as essential to a child's growth.
Second, the bill does not put in place effective accountability measures to see where public funds are going. Parents could essentially pull their children out of the public system to “homeschool” them for a few months, then, after pocketing public funds, resubmit them back into a public school. The public school system would still accept the child without receiving any additional funding.
Rural schools would be especially put at a disadvantage if this law takes effect. Due to the high fixed cost to maintain an adequate school system in sparsely populated areas, any cuts to the public system would have a disproportionate effect on the rural parts of the state - areas where private academies are not interested in opening to begin with.
In the long run, the law would do nothing to make a costly private education more attainable for low- and middle-income families who cannot afford to pay the difference nor accommodate the added burden of private transportation, uniforms and home technology requirements. Because private schools in Arizona can easily cost more than $15,000 per student, per year, the voucher expansion bill only makes these schools accessible to the wealthy.
Since students of these families have access to expensive tutoring and counseling and thus perform better, these private schools would become more attractive employers to teachers. As private schools would have the ability to hire only the most qualified teachers, the public school system would be limited to a select few. This law effectively hinders any chance for a decent education for those it claims to target.
To stop this law from taking effect, a group of pro-education advocates and organizations called Save Our Schools Arizona are attempting to collect the necessary 76,000 valid signatures to refer the bill to the ballot in 2018. This would stop the law from taking effect August 9, 2017 and would let the voters of Arizona decide whether to uphold a law that prioritizes private education for the few or veto the law and send a message all the way up to DeVos herself that the public values public education.
You fight back against Betsy Devos and her anti-public education agenda by donating $5 to SOS Arizona at SOSDonate