Report: Arizona’s Voucher Report Card Shows Much Room For Improvement
From Forbes.com
At Forbes.com I take a look at a Save Our Schools Arizona report on the state’s budget-busting voucher program, and how they got there.
The vouchers were expanded several years until 2017, when Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill to create vouchers available to any Arizona students, with a cap to allow 30,000 students to take advantage. But when legislators moved to make vouchers truly universal, grass roots group collected signatures and forced the measure to go on the November 2018 ballot.
Researchers found that the vouchers were being used not by poor students escaping failing schools, but students “leaving wealthier, high-performing districts.” State auditors found $700K in voucher money being spent on cosmetics, clothing, and other inappropriate items.
The proposal to expand vouchers was heavily defeated at the ballot box (no state’s voters, given the choice, have ever approved a school voucher program).
The voters having spoken, the Arizona legislature simply ignored them and in June of 2022 passed the most expansive school voucher program in the nation.
Save Our Schools Arizona, one of the groups involved in the 2018 referendum, has released a report looking at the results of the newest version of vouchers in Arizona, “The Impact of Universal ESA Vouchers: Arizona’s Cautionary Tale.”