Proposition to Amend Arizona’s School Voucher Program Removed From November Ballot

The Arizona Supreme Court on Aug. 18 blocked a ballot measure that would have allowed voters to limit the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program’s eligibility by income while subjecting private school employees to greater state oversight.

The court ruled that the petitioners didn’t obtain enough valid signatures, citing examples of duplicate signatures, addresses that were not attached to a residence, and addresses on the petition not written by the signer.

The Goldwater Institute filed the lawsuit challenging the validity of some of the 256,000 signatures required to put Proposition 212 on the November ballot and also alleged that proponents of the measure hired felons to collect signatures.

“Tens of thousands of parents and students across Arizona are breathing a sigh of relief today,” Doug Ducey, Goldwater Institute board member and former Arizona governor, said in an Aug. 18 statement.

“Today’s ruling should send a clear message to any other anti-parent, anti-school-choice organization: Arizonans overwhelmingly embrace school choice and will continue to do so, regardless of how many millions of dollars these groups waste trying to take it away.”

The Empowerment Scholarship Account program allows the state’s K–12 per-student funding allocation to follow the child rather than automatically be assigned to the local public school district.

It can be applied to private school tuition, tutoring services, homeschooling supplies, and other education-related costs. The program currently serves more than 103,000 students across the state, according to its website.

The Save Our Schools Arizona organization, which opposes the program and initiated Proposition 212, wanted to limit eligibility to households with incomes of less than $150,000.

It also said Empowerment Scholarship funds should not be used to pay family members who educate a child unless it pertains to students with disabilities. Additionally, the proposition said that teachers and staff at private schools that receive program funds must be fingerprinted and subject to oversight by the state board of education.

Save Our Schools, in an Aug. 18 statement, said the ballot measure sought to rein in the $1 billion program and add guardrails for safety, accountability, and transparency to “the private school funding program that’s bleeding Arizona public schools dry.”

Each side accused the other of unethical tactics, underscoring a deep divide in the universal school choice debate.

“The lengths that the voucher lobby went to invalidate signatures from scorched-earth legal objections shows just how terrified they are of Arizona voters actually having a say in how our tax dollars are spent, and how sure they were that Arizona voters would prioritize funding a robust public education system over private schools that pick and choose students and create a segregated system of haves and have-nots,” Save Our Schools said.

Following the state Supreme Court ruling, “public school advocates are shifting their efforts toward electing pro-public education candidates to the state legislature this November,” the group said.

Goldwater Institute president and CEO Victor Riches said Proposition 212 was funded by unions and “out-of-state special interests.”

“Despite spending an unprecedented amount of money in an effort to deceive voters into restricting school choice, the unions could not convince even a small fraction of Arizonans to sign their petition,” he said in an Aug. 18 statement.

“Instead, they had to resort to unlawfully collecting thousands of signatures to try to game the system and dupe their way onto the ballot.”