Gov. Doug Ducey on Thursday defended state laws that let parents use public funds to send children to private and parochial schools.

The coming year will be a critical time for the school choice movement in Arizona and nationally.

A U.S. Senate bill that would allow American Indian students in federal schools to use a state school choice program is set for committee debate Sept. 7.

Arizona state Sen. Carlyle Begay, R-Ganado, told a U.S. Senate committee on April 6 that a bill to give Native American students school choice is the “true essence of self-determination and self-empowerment” that tribes are seeking.

Tribal leaders were noncommittal Friday about a proposal that would divert Bureau of Indian Education funds into education savings accounts that individual Native American children could use to attend schools of their choosing.

Two decades after Arizona helped pioneer the charter school movement, enrollment data show the schools don’t match the school age demographics of the state and, in many cases, their neighborhoods. White - and especially Asian - students attend charter schools at a higher rate than Hispanics, who now make up the the greatest portion of Arizona’s school age population.

Near the spot where he took the oath of office last year, Gov. Doug Ducey celebrated National School Choice Week with students and their families from across Arizona. Organizing the event are the same groups that, over the past decade and before, disagreed over issues such as school funding and academic standards and in some instances even sued Arizona over how to provide a quality education for every child.

After campaigning on an education platform of increasing school choice and doing away with Common Core, many conservative Republicans in the Legislature are frustrated to find that they can’t make good on their promises to constituents.

School choice has fostered competition, and with that has come student recruitment, growing marketing budgets and branding for public schools.

A bill that would allow possibly thousands of students on public-school waiting lists to go to private schools on taxpayer funds has been introduced.