Arizona Capitol Times Your Inside Source for Arizona Government, Politics and Business

The Arizona Supreme Court ended the nearly six-year bid by charter schools today to get funding for their students on a par with students from traditional public schools.

Gov. Doug Ducey wants increase the amount of money K-12 schools receive from sales of state trust land, which he expects to provide an additional $2.2 billion over 10 years without raising taxes or taking money from elsewhere in the general fund.

Officials at the University of Arizona are planning layoffs to help deal with budget cuts. The Arizona Daily Star reports the Arizona Board of Regents' finance committee Wednesday approved a $1.9 billion operating budget for the university and its two medical schools.

A new report by the U.S. Census Bureau affirmed public school advocates’ lament that Arizona is near or at the bottom among the states when it to comes K-12 funding.

Several district-sponsored charter schools were in a panic about the possibility that because lawmakers omitted a line in the state budget, they could be on the hook to repay the state millions of dollars of funding from previous years.

Arizona's top education official said Tuesday she has serious doubts about Gov. Doug Ducey's timeline for overhauling the state's complex school financing formulas.

The State Board of Education is asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas, calling it an attempt by the state schools chief to convince the courts to settle a political dispute.

A proposal for a ballot measure to cap tuition rates at the state’s three universities got a tepid response from the Arizona Board of Regents, the Governor’s Office and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

When lawmakers approved the state budget in March, they accidentally left out one key part. Because of the omission, several longstanding district-sponsored charter schools – public schools that have reorganized as charter schools to capture more state funding – will be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in back payments.

The Department of Education will ask the attorney general this week to issue a formal opinion on cuts to funds that support smaller schools.