August 31, 2022
School Choice in Arizona has made great strides.
But there’s still work to do!
The Arizona legislature recently signed into law groundbreaking legislation, HB2853, that will give parents greater control over their students’ education. The law expanded Arizona’s very effective and popular Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program, making it available to ALL Arizona students whose families choose a non-public education. Before this recent legislation was passed, most Arizona students did not qualify for the ESA. The universal ESA makes $6,966 of the $14,326 allocated per public school child available to parents to use for approved educational materials including private school tuition or curriculum and supplies for homeschool.
Unfortunately, a motivated and organized group made up largely of teacher’s union members and public school teachers called Save our Schools Arizona (SOS AZ) is trying to put the law on hold and refer it to Arizona voters in the 2024 elections. SOS AZ is pushing hard to collect the 118,823 petition signatures they need before September 24th so that they can limit parental control of education in Arizona.
In order to protect the universal Empowerment Scholarship Account program, we need to make sure our friends, neighbors and family know that signing the petition from SOS Arizona will take away parental choice for our children.
Additionally, there is an ever-growing grassroots movement, Decline to Sign, made up of committed parents that is working to inform the public about SOS Arizona’s efforts to quash greater school choice. Anyone who is interested in joining this grassroots effort over the next three weeks should contact Christine Accurso at ArizonaESAmom@gmail.com. Time is of the essence in this fight to support our kids and give them the best educational options. Any amount of help and support will make a difference!
Here is a recent OpEd on the subject: https://azfreenews.com/2022/08/arizonas-new-esa-school-choice-law-is-a-win-for-everyone/
More info on the ESA expansion is available here: https://www.declinetosignarizona.com/