They’re Baaaaaack…
AZ Legislative Preview

Full Weekly Education Report HERE - now hosted on Substack!

Opening Day: The Arizona Legislature will begin its 57th session this Monday, January 13, and Gov. Hobbs will deliver her third State of the State address. Join us as we dust off our crystal ball 🔮 and preview what this session may bring. 

Challenges & Renewed Efforts: The next two years will present many challenges for public education advocacy — as well as some new paths forward. While education advocates lost important legislative allies and a few right-wing lawmakers who might have been willing to work toward compromise, Arizona voters delivered a strong mandate for public education that all lawmakers would be smart to heed.

From passing 73% of bonds and overrides statewide to electing pro-public education school board members across our districts, Arizona voters overwhelmingly support public schools and want them fully and equitably funded. 

The Veto Queen Strikes Back: Republicans are looking at their narrow victory as a mandate, and we should expect them to double down on their bad ideas — like book bans, attacks on LGBTQ+ kids, voucher expansions, and political gamesmanship around K-12 schools. However, Gov. Hobbs has vetoed these bad bills before, and we need to make sure she does so again. We should take heart in knowing our field efforts prevented a veto-proof majority. However, the session is already shaping up to be a three-ring circus of conspiracy theories and extremism. See "Bills in Committee" below for more 🔽

What’s Next for K-12 Schools: One of the top education issues for 2025 is the renewal of Prop 123. This school funding measure, first passed by Arizona voters in 2016, resolved a lawsuit by directing more than $300 million a year to K-12 public schools. The current funding expires July 1, and very little time is left to negotiate a renewal. The state’s nonpartisan budget analysts are assuming the state’s general fund will pick up the tab, and lawmakers are discussing a renewal as extra money on top of that obligation. This takes the pressure off lawmakers to quickly agree on what a renewal would look like, and we all know our public schools desperately need the new revenue — but Republican lawmakers are blindly clinging to the ideas that torpedoed last year’s negotiations.  

SOSAZ also continues to advocate for a full restoration of last year’s cuts to higher education and opportunity funding. However, with former Gov. Ducey’s budget-busting tax cuts and universal vouchers in place, Arizona has extremely scarce resources and diverse funding needs that range from K-12 to water to healthcare to roads to higher education (all slashed in last year’s budget). The state’s fiscal picture is stagnant at best, despite claims of a “surplus.” And with an incoming legislative majority that’s openly hostile to public education, we know better than to hope for major reforms this year to the runaway universal ESA voucher program. 

Here are our 2025 Legislative Priorities:

1. Educator Pay: Raise teacher and staff pay across the board, making Arizona competitive with neighboring states.
   
   
2. Poverty Weight & DAA: Restore and double the $37 million K-12 Poverty Weight and $29 million for K-12 additional assistance (DAA) which were slashed in last year’s budget (for a total of $132 million). These critically needed funds provide supports and resources for students most in need so they can thrive.
   
   
3. SPED & CTED: Increase investments in special education and career and technical education (CTED) in order to create stronger pathways for success for diverse learners. 
   
   
4. Prop 123: Pass a clean Prop 123 that will benefit students and educators, without any gimmicks or voucher schemes.
   
   
5. ESA Voucher Reform: Rein in the off-the-rails ESA voucher program by passing income caps and increasing accountability and transparency for taxpayers. ESA vouchers have become coupons for the wealthy that are siphoning hundreds of millions from our local public schools, forcing massive budget cuts and school closures. 

Email Gov. Hobbs & your lawmakers to urge them to do their constitutional duty and invest in Arizona’s public schools! Our easy-to-use, one-click email tool is preloaded with SOSAZ’s legislative priorities, but we also encourage you to customize your email for maximum impact. 

Full Weekly Education Report HERE - now hosted on Substack!

Bills in Committee

SB1028, sponsored by John Kavanagh (R-3), would reinstate high-stakes testing to graduate from high school. In 2015, when Republican lawmakers overwhelmingly chose to repeal the requirement, they stated that "the test has no meaning behind it" and that "placing all the responsibility and stress on individual students for the success of our educational system is unfair." Just six states still require high school exit exams; states that have repealed them caution against conflating a measure of learning with “a meaningless hoop to jump through.” The bill exempts CTED students and those with IEPs and 504 plans. State Supt. Tom Horne promoted a similar bill last year, which failed to pass. Scheduled for Senate Education Committee, Wednesday. OPPOSE. 

HB2022, sponsored by Selina Bliss (R-1), would allow K-12 public and private schools to authorize employees to carry firearms on school grounds. The school would have to notify law enforcement of how many (but not which) employees are carrying, ensure the employees have a certification from an ADE-approved list of training programs, and keep their names confidential, including from parents at the school. The bill also gives these employees immunity from any liability if they are "acting in good faith during active threat events." Arizona's Republican state lawmakers have long tried to force guns into schools. Scheduled for House Education Committee, Tuesday. OPPOSE. 

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Save Our Schools Arizona
PO Box 28370
Tempe, AZ 85285
United States

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