Gov. Doug Ducey late Thursday signed legislation to make all public school students in Arizona eligible to get state money to attend private and parochial schools.
But the plan, approved by the House and Senate hours earlier with no Democrat support and several Republicans in opposition, will not mean every child would be able to get one of these vouchers. The bill has a limit, though that could be removed by lawmakers in the future.
On paper, the legislation makes every one of the 1.1 million students in Arizona public schools eligible for vouchers, each worth about $4,400 a year for most students. But to get the votes, supporters had to agree to a cap of about 30,000 vouchers by 2021.
That’s very different than the original bill introduced by Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, who also authored the state’s current limited voucher program. She wanted to make universal vouchers available as soon as 2019, but Democrats and some Republicans objected, either because they philosophically oppose state aid to private schools or were concerned about costs. Lesko’s legislation would have increased the state’s cost by $25 million a year by 2021.
Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, crafted the final plan, which got the votes of 16 senators and 31 representatives — the bare minimum needed for final approval. A handful of Republicans dissented.
The final plan will reduce the tax burden by $3.4 million by 2021, depending on how many students actually leave public schools.
That provided little comfort to Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson. He pointed out it would take only a simple majority of a future legislature to remove the cap and create universal vouchers, potentially drawing off hundreds of thousands of children from public schools.
Worsley conceded the point.
“I think it’s the best deal we can get,” he said, adding that the next six years will be an “experiment” to show whether vouchers result in better education.
Vouchers were first approved in 2011 to help parents whose children with special needs could not get the services they require in public schools. Foes sued, claiming they violate a state constitutional provision barring public dollars from being used for religious worship or instruction.
But the state Court of Appeals said the money goes to the parents who decide how to spend it, making who ultimately gets the dollars irrelevant. And the judges said the vouchers do not result in the state encouraging the preference of one religion over another, or religion over atheism.
Since then, proponents have repeatedly added to the list of who is eligible. It now includes children of people in the military on active duty, foster children, all children in failing schools, and those living on Indian reservations.
Worsley said he’s neither a supporter nor foe of vouchers, formally called “empowerment scholarship accounts,” describing himself as a “pragmatic arbitrator.”
But Farley said Worsley’s “compromise” does not acknowledge there are many lawmakers who believe public dollars should not be used to send any children to private and parochial schools.
“This is no compromise at all,” added Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs. “This is lipstick on a pig.”
Worsley had another sales point for his amendment beyond the cap: Cash.
The current basic voucher is for about $5,600 a year. His new formula reduces that for most students who switch from public schools to $4,400.
What would have cost the state $25 million in 2021 under the old formula now will save $3.4 million, Worsley said. He said that’s nothing to be sneezed at, pointing out the $28.4 million swing is twice as much as Ducey — who lobbied in support of this plan — put into this year’s budget for teacher raises.
But much of the fight was over who will benefit.
There is some evidence that many of the 3,800 students who now get vouchers have moved from public schools in affluent neighborhoods. That leads to charges that vouchers don’t help the poor, but defray what parents pay to have their youngsters attend private schools where tuition can top $15,000 a year.
“They’re just having the taxpayers of Arizona subsidize that tuition,” said Democratic Sen. Sean Bowie of Phoenix.
Worsley did not dispute that, but said the cost to taxpayers under his plan would be no more than if the student stayed in public schools.
He added, “There are some on the ESA (voucher) side that feel that, regardless of your income, you pay taxes. And getting an equivalent amount of those taxes to apply to your choice for education is not immoral.”
The voucher cost reduction was enough to gain the support of Sen. Karen Fann, R-Prescott.
“I did not feel it was appropriate to ding the public schools,” she said, calling the new version essentially revenue neutral.
Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, said it’s wrong to see vouchers as a loss to public schools. He said if a child moves to a private school, that’s one less for the public school to educate, meaning its costs should decrease.
But Rep. Michelle Udall, R-Mesa, said she cannot support vouchers at this point.
“We need to properly fund our public schools before we pull money away from them into other programs,” she said.
Rep. Todd Clodfelter, R-Tucson, said his “no” vote is more basic. He said residents of his district do not support the bill.
The measure has a loophole of sorts: The requirement to switch from a public school does not apply to kindergartners, even if parents always intended to put that child into a parochial or private school. That child then would have his or her entire 13-year private education paid for with public dollars.
Sen. David Bradley, D-Tucson, lamented that private schools, unlike their public counterparts, can pick and choose who to take, and who to reject. But the Republican majority rejected his amendment to require private schools that want to be paid with voucher dollars to accept all students.
Democrats also complained the legislation lacks “means testing” to focus the dollars on students from low-income homes.
Worsley said he could not get supporters to go along with that. But there is a provision saying students from homes where income is less than 250 percent of the federal poverty level — or about $50,440 a year for a family of three — would get vouchers that are worth 10 percent more.
He also said his amendment adds accountability.
Schools that accept at least 50 students who are using vouchers will have to administer the same kind of achievement tests now required of students in traditional public and charter schools, and make the results public.
