Arizona Officials Offer Heated Responses About School Choice Cost Projection

Arizona’s universal school choice program is estimated to see significant growth over the next fiscal year to 100,000 students with a price tag of $900 million. Opponents of the program say its cost will bankrupt the state but others say the expense will be offset.

In complying with state law, the Arizona Department of Education offered the Joint Legislative Budget Committee its annual estimate on what it would need to fund empowerment scholarship accounts for the upcoming fiscal year. With nearly 58,000 students already enrolled in the program, ADE projects the program will grow to 100,000 students in fiscal year 2024 at a cost of $900 million. 

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Kari Lake Blasts Katie Hobbs for Taking a Week to Reject a Referendum as Arizona’s Universal ESA Law Is Now Set to Go into Effect

Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake blasted her Democrat opponent, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, for taking a week to reject a referendum to stop Arizona’s universal Empowerment Scholarship Account law from going into effect, despite evidence already showing the motion failed.

“It is shameful that Katie Hobbs aligned herself with the radical unions’ effort to permanently trap Arizona’s kids in failing schools, then hung Arizona’s parents out to dry for a week by suspending the school choice program despite overwhelming evidence the referendum failed to get enough signatures,” Lake said in a statement to the Arizona Sun Times. “Katie Hobbs is on the side of corrupt, bloated school bureaucracies, but I will never stop fighting to give Arizona’s parents more choice in their children’s schools and more control over their children’s education.”

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