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Neighborhood schools are closing across Arizona. It’s because of vouchers. Read and share our OpEd published in the Arizona Mirror this week. It’s a thoughtful, data-based inquiry into what has destabilized Arizona’s K-12 schools to the point of forced closures across the state. We are printing here in full because voters deserve the truth:

Arizona is facing an unprecedented school closure crisis.

Last school year, 20 Arizona schools were forced to shutter their doors, causing uncertainty and heartache for many Arizona families who rely on and choose their local neighborhood schools. Now, even more districts are being forced to make agonizing decisions about school closures this year, with Kyrene schools in Tempe considering shuttering one-third of its schools and Amphi schools in Tucson looking at closing 5 of its 12 elementary schools. 

Arizonans deserve the truth: It’s the vouchers. 

Instead of investing in local public schools to meet students’ needs and ward off school closures to ensure equal access to quality neighborhood schools, Republican state lawmakers voted to force through universal ESA vouchers, which are now draining a massive $1 billion a year to instead pay for private, for-profit models that pick and choose students. 

For decades, the Republican-led Arizona legislature has chronically refused to fund our state’s public schools, which remain 49th in funding in the U.S. This rock-bottom funding leaves zero cushion for school districts facing even moderate enrollment fluctuations or birth declines. 

Schools are already operating on shoestring budgets, without adequate resources or adults to meet students’ needs. Arizona’s public school classrooms are going without much-needed basic supplies. Teachers and parents must crowdfund for basics. 

For years, despite a mountain of evidence of the harms of underfunding schools and lawsuits and court orders demanding the state legislature make public schools whole, Republican lawmakers protested that they didn’t have resources to fully fund local schools. 

But in 2022, Gov. Ducey and Republican lawmakers forced a $1 billion-a-year, uncapped universal voucher program to fund private schools. They did so without budgeting for the program and with zero guardrails for oversight or accountability — all but ensuring maximum spend with no strings attached. 

Over 90,000 students are now enrolled in the ESA voucher program, a majority of which never attended public schools. Data shows that vouchers are predominantly being used by wealthy families who’d already been choosing private schools. This means well over half of the $1 billion that Arizona taxpayers will spend on vouchers this year will go to subsidies for wealthier families who were already able to choose (and afford) private education or homeschooling. 

Put simply, vouchers are draining desperately needed funds from low-income schools and forcing school closures, while lining the pockets of the rich. 

In Kyrene Elementary School District, which has said that school closures are necessary to make between $7 million and $12 million in budget cuts, vouchers are draining $12.1 million a year. Amphi schools are losing $13.7 million a year to vouchers — and 87% of voucher students in that district never attended public schools. 

Roosevelt School District shut down five schools to save a stated $8 million a year, while vouchers drain $8 million a year in the district. Paradise Valley Unified School District closed three schools to save $2.4 million a year, while vouchers drain $30 million a year there. 

The math is simple: Arizona doesn’t provide enough funding to adequately fund one school system, much less two — a public system open to all and a selective private system. Meanwhile, report after report shows many millions in fraud, waste and abuse of our taxpayer dollars via the voucher system — money that could and should stay in the public schools that are being forced to close against the will of the families and educators choosing these schools. 

We are far past the time for alarm bells; this is a full-blown crisis for our state. The Republicans who control our state legislature are intentionally underfunding Arizona’s schools, which serve 92% of families, in order to usher in a privatized, two-tiered education system where some children are “picked” as winners and many are left behind. None of us should be okay with this. Arizona has a moral imperative and a constitutional obligation to fund public education for all families. Speak up now, before we lose our public schools for good. 

PS – After our OpEd was published, yet another school district announced potential school closures — Scottsdale Unified School District is considering shutting 2 schools after this year. Vouchers in Scottdale’s boundaries are draining $37 million from local public schools, and 86% of students were never in public schools to begin with. That means they’re an entirely new cost to the state – a massive cost that is unavailable to SUSD to support keeping neighborhood schools open. 

Find out how much funding your school district is losing to vouchers here 👉 bit.ly/VoucherDrain

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