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School choice – educating students, building communities
Our nation has long struggled with the tension between embracing innovation and preserving what we love about our small towns. School choice proves that we can choose both, offering each family the opportunity to customize their children’s learning while bolstering the nonprofits, businesses, and institutions that are the heartbeat of our communities’ civil societies.
Number of failing schools fell; alternative schools headed the other way
The number of schools getting an F on the state’s annual report card has fallen sharply, going from 49 in 2019 to 24 this year, but the number of failing alternative schools rose over the same period.
Republicans are protecting the Arizona we love
When you think of Arizona, you can’t help but think of freedom. Freedom to keep the money you earn. Freedom to send your kids to the school you want. Freedom to start a business without layers of red tape. And freedom to work – our licensing reform has become a national model.
Arizona has more work to do to fund public schools equitably
As students in Phoenix and across the country continue to reel from the effects of the Covid pandemic, there has been a lot of conversation about the importance of students receiving the education funding they need. By March 2021, the federal government had committed an unprecedented $190 billion in extra funds to public schools—but by most measures, students are still far behind their pre-pande[...]
Q&A with House Speaker Ben Toma
In a recent interview with the Arizona Capitol Times, House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Peoria, discussed the highlights and disappointments of the 2023 session.
Lying about universal ESA vouchers won’t hide the truth
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” This political propaganda technique is the playbook for special interests pushing school vouchers in Arizona. But the “big lie” only works as long as its consequences remain hidden — and when it comes to vouchers, Arizona has entered the “lie big and find out” phase.
Voters strongly support educational options including ESAs
Arizona families and voters of all affiliations believe that more educational options – not fewer – is what we need.
Want the facts about Arizona’s ESA program?
Allowing Arizona parents to choose the educational option that works best for their children is proving to be a highly popular policy. Rather than sharing hyperbole and rhetoric that undermines the choices families are making, the state’s policymakers would be wise to heed this truth and continue to plan responsibly.
Arizona can still be the leader in school choice
Now is the time for Arizona, my home state, to continue its role as the leader in the movement to provide increased educational opportunities for its students.
When it’s working for students, let it work
At a time of urgent need for educational advancement, Arizona’s powerful student-based policies empower families and educators to take actions that create better futures for our children and for that state. We should follow their lead.
When it comes to school regulation, less is more
Let’s identify needless regulations and cut the red tape holding back our district and charter schools. Let’s free the education innovators, truly put parents in charge of their children’s education, ensure more of every dollar gets spent in the classroom instead of the front office and build the best possible education system for Arizona!
Pandemic, culture wars revive ‘school choice’ policy push
With memories fresh from pandemic-era school closures and curriculum battles — particularly over how matters of gender and race are taught — legions of parents are trekking to the marble floors of their state Capitols to fight to create education savings accounts, also known as ESAs. Such accounts exist in Arizona and West Virginia, though Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs argues the dollars would be b[...]
