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

Arizona Educators United will hold a vote on whether to walk out of classrooms across Arizona this week.

A bill to eliminate the state’s four-hour-a-day English language learning requirement for students whose second language is English has reached the Senate with nearly unanimous support, but Senate President Steve Yarbrough may kill it.

Save Our Schools Arizona is not only gearing up for a possible referendum on whatever lawmakers may replace existing voucher expansion legislation with but also for a potential initiative to address public education funding shortfalls.

With all legal recourse exhausted, school choice advocates are weighing their legislative options to expand the state’s voucher program even as a referendum that could thwart their efforts looms.

The attorney for the man who sued to overturn Proposition 123 said Tuesday he's not buying the argument by Gov. Doug Ducey that last week's congressional action makes the withdrawal of more than $344 million from the state education trust retroactively legal.

In a statement released Monday, Klein gave no clear timeline for her departure or next moves, saying only that she would be leaving her position later this year “to take some time off before deciding what my next adventure will be.”

Gov. Doug Ducey inked his approval Monday to extending the 0.6-cent sales tax for education until 2041 as an education group which helped pressure for legislative action is mapping out what it plans to do to get some new money into classrooms -- including a possible strike.

The protesters included dozens of teachers from nine schools in west Phoenix and Glendale who called in sick in the first job action teachers have called since organizing earlier this month.

Arizona Senate President Steve Yarbrough said state lawmakers will fast track a bill to permanently extend a sales tax dedicated to public education through both chambers on Thursday.

Nothing in HB 2460 requires a school district to sell or rent to anyone. But the bill says that once a property is offered for sale a lease, the district cannot pull it off the market "solely because a charter school or private school is the highest bidder.''