What it’s really all about
Robots, grandfriends and poetry … Vouchers for all … And that was a Trumptastic thread.
We spend a lot of time talking about what politicians and education officials are doing, often focusing on the culture wars that use education as a proxy.
But it’s graduation season at Arizona’s schools — and we could all use a break from the political fights and doom and gloom.
So today, we’re turning the spotlight on all the great things students are doing.
We’re happy to report that there’s a lot to report!
We poked around local news stories, school district newsletters, and school competitions and found students overflowing with creativity, shockingly smart high schoolers, and much more. Arizona students are a bright, ambitious bunch, and this graduation season, we want to take a minute to celebrate that.
But don’t worry — we’ll also get you up to speed on what the politicians and other grownups are doing for those of you who need that dose of doom.
Let’s dive in!
A 14-year-old from Peoria is way ahead of the game. At an age when most of her peers would just be starting high school, Abigail Zagala graduated from Arizona State University last week with a degree in social and behavioral sciences, KJZZ reports. Zagala learned to read when she was 2 years old and tackled college-level algebra when she was 8.
“I was inspired by my grandpa who served 34 years in the U.S. Air Force,” Zagala said. “He protected people’s rights, and I want to do that too — just in a slightly different way as a human rights lawyer.”
A team of University of Arizona students is looking at the housing shortage from an interesting perspective: empathy-based architecture. They talked with unhoused people about what they need, checked on a similar project in Seattle, and partnered with local organizations. After all that, they designed a micro-shelter, complete with a wall of shelving and closet space that unhoused people requested.
"Everyone gets to experience the built environment, so I think everyone should get a say in it,” one of the students, Souhayla Farag, said.
A high school student in Mesa is diving into cancer research this summer. AnnaMaria Delgado is heading to Vanderbilt University’s Summer Academy to work with their cancer research team, the Mesa Tribune reports. Delgado, an 11th-grader at Arizona Connections Academy, has wanted to be a doctor since she was 5 years old.
The hard work of two students is paying off. They earned full-ride scholarships to the UA, the Arizona Luminaria reports. Jeanette Mendoza, a part-time mariachi singer and violinist, and Tae Esperanza Cooper, who has taken classes at Pima Community College since she was in the seventh grade, earned Flinn scholarships, one of the most prestigious awards in Arizona.
High school students in Chandler qualified for a worldwide robotics championship. The “Knights” team from Arizona College Prep High School went to Dallas to compete this month. They finished 13th out of 86 teams from around the world.
Making “grandfriends” was just one part of a project Mica Mountain High School students undertook with residents of Park Senior Villas in Vail, KGUN reported. The students interviewed older adults and then painted portraits based on their stories and personalities.
“I’m hoping that when people look at my portrait of him, they want to learn more about him because he’s a very interesting person, and I think you can get a lot from him,” student Elise Labelle said about her portrait of Wally Du Melle.
Fifth-graders at DeMiguel Elementary School took a turn as news anchors for a history project. They researched pivotal moments of the Civil War and put together news packages, which not only taught them about history, but also helped them learn some cool tech skills.
Too much screen time could lead to depression for young people and dementia later in life, so a high school student in Glendale surveyed her peers at Mountain Ridge High School to see if they already were suffering from “digital dementia,” 12News reported. While acknowledging that a person’s mental health is complicated, Anjali Chokshi found many students reported a connection between scrolling endlessly through apps like TikTok and memory loss.
Where do we sign up? Students at Desert Wind Middle School and Maricopa Wells Middle School participated in probably the best debate on the planet: the Great Pizza Debate. They were tasked with rating their favorite pizzas to help the Child Nutrition Department decide which ones will make it onto future menus.
Poetry isn’t just words on a page. It’s an art form of interpretation when spoken out loud. Liam McLaughlin, a junior at Gary K. Herberger Young Scholars Academy won the Arizona Poetry Out Loud State Finals and represented Arizona at the national contest in Washington, D.C. earlier this month. You can watch McLaughlin recite three poems: “We Used Our Words We Used What Words We Had” by Franny Choi, “Songs for the People” by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and “El Olvido” by Judith Ortiz Cofer.
The news isn’t just words on a page, either. It takes a lot of hard work. If you want us to keep at it, all you have to do is click that button!
Vouchers for all: School choice would get a big boost if the federal budget bill makes it into law, the New York Times reports. GOP lawmakers in the House included $5 billion in tax credits for federal school vouchers, which would make vouchers available in every state for the first time. (The move is in line with the Project 2025 blueprint we wrote about in March.) In Arizona, where vouchers already are available for every student, many of the students who use those vouchers aren’t coming from “failing public schools,” as former Gov. Doug Ducey framed it. Instead, they’re coming from some of the highest-performing public and charter schools, 12News’ Craig Harris reports. Harris found 45% of the 87,000 kids using vouchers never went to a public school, and most of the school districts that voucher recipients once attended are A-rated.
Separation of church and state: U.S. Supreme Court justices are considering arguments to allow the Catholic Church to establish the first religious charter school in the country, USA Today reports. The justices already ruled that religious schools couldn’t be excluded from voucher and scholarship programs, but the charter school in Oklahoma would be the first one directly funded by a government body.
Reversing course: Federal education officials rescinded a nearly $38 million fine against Grand Canyon University, AZFamily’s Peter Valencia reported. The fine set a record back in 2023 and came after federal officials said the university misled students about the cost of doctoral programs. Officials at GCU, a private Christian school, claimed the Biden administration was targeting them after they tried to get nonprofit status.
Out of their control: A state-appointed official overrode a vote by the Isaac School District Governing Board that would have kept two schools open, KTAR reported. The district has been in serious financial trouble, reportedly due to mismanaging federal pandemic funds, and the district’s receiver, who was appointed by the State Board of Education, decided the closures were necessary. To help their finances, the district is going to lease a building to the education company STEER for the next three years, at a monthly rate of about $10,000.
Charter expansion: An Arizona-based charter school company just got approval to expand to Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Voice reported. Learning Matters Educational Group will now run ThrivePoint online schools, which focus on students who’ve fallen behind, in five states.
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Tough times: The federal government is going to restart collections on defaulted student loans, including hundreds of thousands of older Americans who could see their Social Security checks garnished, the Associated Press reported. Linda Hilton from Apache Junction said she’ll survive, but she won’t be able to afford flights to see her children or any of the other pleasures of retired life.
Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Education Forward Arizona! We dig their newsletter. You can sign up for it here.
Negotiations over the future of Prop 123 are underway at the State Capitol.
While lawmakers are weighing many proposals, the seemingly leading one would not only renew the measure — which directs funding from Arizona’s State Land Trust to public schools — but would add unrelated constitutional protections to Arizona’s universal voucher program, known as Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs).
A vote to put the measure on the 2026 ballot could come in the next few weeks.
If Prop 123 isn’t renewed, the obligation to supply the roughly $300 million a year it provides would likely shift to the state’s General Fund.
That could have ripple effects across Arizona’s education landscape, straining resources for early childhood programs and postsecondary access efforts like Dual Enrollment and CTE, and scholarships like Arizona College Promise that help students from low-income backgrounds.
The details of the proposal are still evolving, but the stakes are clear: If Prop 123 is not renewed, Arizona’s leaders will face major, difficult questions about how to meet the state’s court-mandated education funding obligations.
To learn more about the history and future of Prop 123, check out Education Forward Arizona’s full breakdown here.
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Arizona officials are trying to one-up each other when it comes to attacking diversity, equity and inclusion at universities.
President Donald Trump posted on social media, “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!”
That prompted Karrin Taylor Robson, who is one of two candidates Trump endorsed for Arizona governor, to post:
“Any university that pushes radical DEI garbage, promotes antisemitism, and attacks American values shouldn’t expect taxpayers to pick up the tab. Harvard is one of the worst offenders, and President @realDonaldTrump’s move to strip their tax-exempt status is a HUGE win!”
Kari Lake, who lost her bid for governor and then Senate, even with Trump’s endorsement, asked Taylor Robson what she thought of Arizona State University President Michael Crow.
“Thanks for asking Kari!” Taylor Robson replied. “Yes, any university that pushes DEI garbage should lose tax exempt status. There is no place for that radical leftist ideology in our education system in Arizona or America.”
But that wasn’t good enough for Arizona Sen. Jake Hoffman, who for the past few weeks has been publicly weighing in on next year’s race for superintendent of public instruction.
Taylor Robson “thinks she can gaslight you to hide her real track record,” Hoffman wrote. “THE TRUTH? DEI at AZ’s public universities ran rampant while Karrin was on the Board of Regents — the governing body for the universities. KTR supported it. She never tried to stop it. Karrin is a fraud.”
When are KRT and KL gonna figure out that 40 years ago they would have been DEI hires. Opening up the government and industry to women came slowly and painfully. Unfortunately, they are too meritless and clueless to know.
I loved all the educational experiences from the schools you mentioned and the info on ESA’s who gets them and where many of those students came from. Great newsletter! I’ve sent it on.