Big-time questions
Hashing out the budget … Lists, letters, and lowered standards … And that’s one picturesque tunnel.
The answers to the big questions about funding education in Arizona are about to arrive.
But they’re not here quite yet.
Lawmakers are still working out the details of a roughly $17 billion state budget, after spending the last few weeks on a legislative spring break.
For the moment, local school officials are stuck waiting for lawmakers to decide how tight to pull the purse strings. But a July 1 deadline is looming. Plus, a key Republican lawmaker has to get to Italy for his June 22 wedding, and he’s bringing his House entourage with him.
So deal-making was in the air at the Capitol this week as lawmakers considered competing proposals from Republicans in the House and Senate and cut deals with the governor.
They also squabbled at each other at marathon hearings, including an exchange yesterday that didn’t exactly inspire confidence in lawmakers working together.
The big questions on the table are how much money will the state Legislature set aside for education? What’s going to happen with the school voucher program and Prop 123? And will lawmakers remove some of the obstacles that trip up local school officials every year?
And, of course, what last-minute shenanigans are going to come out of this week’s hearings?
No final deals have been made yet. But we can get the gist of where lawmakers are headed by looking at a budget proposal House Republicans put out last week, and a separate proposal that Senate Republicans negotiated with Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and released on Monday.
The Senate proposal was crafted to avoid Hobbs’ veto stamp and is pretty close to a done deal, Republican Sen. John Kavanagh, the head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told Capitol Media Services’ Bob Christie.
“Everybody realized that we’re not getting everything, (A) because there’s not that much money, and (B) because we kept the really toxic red meat for the base items out of the budget,” Kavanagh said.
With that in mind, here’s where education funding appears to be headed:
Schools are going to get more money. The Senate proposal adds $100 million to the education budget for K-12 schools. That includes increases for basic aid to schools and money for maintenance and instruction, ABC15’s Manuelita Beck reported.
“We don't have a tremendous amount of extra cash, but education got its fair share, and maybe a little bit more,” Kavanagh said.Republican lawmakers won’t tie the renewal of Prop 123 to school vouchers. Last month, they floated the idea of renewing Prop 123, which provides $300 million annually to schools, as long as they would get a constitutional amendment protecting vouchers. The idea was met with swift resistance from Hobbs, who vocally opposes the voucher program that already ballooned to cost roughly $1 billion annually. The push for a constitutional amendment died down and it didn’t make it into the Senate proposal. Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee approved a voucher-free Prop 123 renewal that asks voters to keep using state land trust money, but only for teacher pay increases. Democrats want other school support staff to be eligible for the money. Plus, lawmakers might not have time to hammer it out amid the budget chaos.
The voucher program won’t see any major changes, except for maybe looking a little more closely at how parents spend their voucher money. The House proposal includes hiring 12 people, at a cost of $2 million, to help the Arizona Department of Education vet purchases made by parents whose kids are enrolled in the voucher program. But that didn’t make it into the Senate proposal.
Lawmakers will waive the aggregate expenditure limit, a yearly sticking point that leaves school officials wondering if they can spend all the money at their disposal. It’s a constitutional requirement that causes headaches every year. The Senate proposal would waive the limit for fiscal years 2026 and 2027.
Dreamers will still get in-state tuition. House Republicans wanted to ban Dreamers (immigrants who entered the country without authorization when they were minors) from getting in-state tuition, but the Senate proposal didn’t include that ban.
Those are the broad strokes so far, but there are plenty of other smaller-scale issues in the budget proposals. If you’re in the mood to nerd out, feel free to dive into the nitty-gritty with these documents:
The Senate fact sheet for K-12 education.
The Senate fact sheet for higher education.
The Joint Legislative Budget Committee fact sheet on the Senate proposal.
And if you want to wrap your head around the budget as a whole, not just education funding, then head on over to our sister newsletter, the Arizona Agenda. They’ve got you covered.
The easiest way to stay on top of education in Arizona is right at your fingertips. Just smash that button and subscribe to the Education Agenda!
While state officials haggle over how much education funding to include in the budget, school districts throughout Arizona are trying to make ends meet any way they can.
Lunch money: Now that federal pandemic-era funding is drying up, the Scottsdale Unified School District is raising prices for school meals, J. Graber reports for the Scottsdale Independent. The district’s governing board approved the increase, the first one in eight years, last week. The prices will jump from $1.75 to $2.50 for breakfast, while lunches will go from $3.10 to as high as $4.95. Students who qualify for free or reduced price lunches won’t see any change in cost, since those meals are covered by state and federal funding.
Vouchers taking over: The tiny public school district in Colorado City is taking a big financial hit from school vouchers, 12News’ Craig Harris reported. The program is so popular there that the 783 households in the town use 476 vouchers. The district lost more than $900,000 in state funding after 40 students left the high school and another 40 to 50 students left the elementary school.
Watching the exodus: Officials at Gilbert Public Schools proposed a conservative budget last week as they watch enrollment drop, which leads to a drop in state funding, the Gilbert Independent’s Tom Blodgett reported. They’re expecting to lose at least 1,000 students, on top of the students they’ve seen leave over the past four years.
Reaching out to voters: Coconino Community College is putting a $100 million bond on the ballot for November, the Arizona Daily Sun’s Abigail Kessler reports. If voters sign off, the money would go toward construction projects, like adding a health building and new labs for dual-enrollment students at Williams High School. This is the first bond the college has put up for a vote since 1997.
Reaching out to voters (times two): The Flowing Wells Unified School District in Tucson also is considering asking voters to approve a bond, the Tucson Sentinel’s Blake Morlock writes. The $30 million that officials hope to raise would pay for school safety improvements, replacing old buildings, and an early childhood center, among other projects.
Reaching out to voters (times three): And the Chandler Unified School District just approved putting a $271 million bond on the ballot, the East Valley Tribune’s Ken Sain reports. At the top of their list is improving technology at schools, supporting schools that have more low-income students, and expanding a junior high school that’s located where a new housing development is going up.
This will go down on your permanent record: Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne isn’t happy with the Scottsdale Unified School District, KTAR’s Shira Tanzer reports. The district’s “woke” curriculum landed them on Horne’s list of districts that aren’t in compliance with the Trump administration’s anti-DEI policies, even though three federal judges struck down those policies.
Not an advocate: A half-dozen Native University of Arizona professors sent a letter demanding the university president fire assistant vice provost for the Office of Native American Initiatives, Tessa L. Dysart, saying she “is actively causing and has caused severe harm to the UA Native American community,” the Arizona Mirror’s Shondiin Silversmith writes. They say she lacks the qualifications to hold the job, and more than that, she has not supported student-led academic work on the Land Back movement, and she took the microphone away from a student at a tribal leaders’ summit. About 100 other people endorsed the letter.
Nurses incoming: Gila Community College got the green light to start a fully accredited nursing program, Peter Aleshire reports for the Payson Roundup. The Arizona Board of Nursing approved the college’s application as Arizona and the rest of the country deal with a nursing shortage.
Worth a look: The Washington Post put together a nice-looking rundown of the issues faced by schools across the country. They go through Supreme Court cases on students with disabilities, voucher programs, and a bunch of other political issues, all with appealing illustrations.
Thumb on the scale: Horne is trying to help out an online charter school that gets terrible grades from the state, 12News’ Craig Harris reports. Earlier this month, the Arizona State Board of Charter Schools voted to move ahead with revoking the charter status of Primavera Online after the school got “D” grades for three consecutive years. But Horne swooped in this week and decided the school will be considered an alternative school, which are held to lower academic standards. The owner of the school, Damian Creamer, who has made $24 million over the past few years, called it a “HUGE step in the right direction.”
Good news for once: Pima Community College’s new budget, which the board unanimously adopted, doesn’t raise tuition rates and yet provides small raises for faculty and employees. And the district lowered its property tax rate, the Arizona Daily Star’s Prerana Sannappanavar reports.
Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Education Forward Arizona! They gather an amazing amount of data on Arizona’s schools and co-own the Arizona Education Progress Meter, which you can peruse here.
Proposed federal cuts to GEAR UP and TRIO — and the closure of a key Head Start regional office — threaten to roll back hard-won progress in expanding educational opportunity, especially in rural and underserved communities.
These longstanding programs have helped thousands of students from low-income and first-generation backgrounds access college, receive academic support, and build foundations for lifelong success.
In Arizona, GEAR UP alone has supported more than 61,000 students, improving graduation and college enrollment rates in alignment with the state’s Achieve60AZ goal.
TRIO programs at Arizona State University report a 98% high school graduation rate and a 97% college enrollment rate for participants.
Meanwhile, while Head Start funding is currently maintained, the closure of the regional office serving Arizona has created significant challenges for programs delivering essential early learning and health services to more than 17,000 children across the state.
These proposed cuts and operational changes could jeopardize recent gains, undermining Arizona’s future workforce and economic growth.
These programs work — and they have enjoyed decades of bipartisan support for a reason. They create real opportunity for students and strengthen Arizona’s economy.
At Education Forward Arizona, we’re calling on policymakers at every level to stand up for these proven programs and ensure every student can succeed.
For a deeper look at how these programs support Arizona’s students — and what we risk losing — check out Education Forward Arizona’s latest education explainer.
If you’d like to sponsor an edition of the Education Agenda, get in touch!
A painting by Daniel Mu, a student at BASIS Oro Valley, will hang in the tunnel at the U.S. Capitol for the next year.
Mu won the Congressional Art Competition for Arizona’s Congressional District 6 with his painting “The Becoming,” Republican U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani’s office said in a news release.
The competition is designed to highlight visual artistic work from high school students from each congressional district.
If you want to add a little inspiration to your day, take a moment and browse the archive of the past winners.