Empowerment Scholarship Accounts remain the focus of the Nov. 3 election, even without the No. 1 booster of Arizona’s school choice program in the race for superintendent of public instruction.
Republican Kimberly Yee and Democrat Teresa Leyba Ruiz are vying to be Arizona’s top education official. The winner will serve a four-year term starting in January. This Nov. 3 general election is the first in decades without current Superintendent Tom Horne (and ESA promoter) on the ballot. He was seeking a fourth term as state superintendent but lost to Yee in the primary.
By summer, the high-profile race was already the most expensive in decades.
As the state spends about $1 billion a year on the ESA program, which supports about one-tenth of Arizona’s students, management of the voucher program is in question. When it was revealed that some families used their vouchers on trips, lingerie, recreational vehicles and more, much of the superintendent race became about scrutinizing the program and its future.
The candidates have spent more than two months differentiating themselves from one another on this issue.
Yee, 52, was a prime sponsor of the first legislation that created ESAs when she was in the Legislature. She later helped expand the program to support low-income, foster care and military families. Now, the current Arizona State Treasurer would like to manage the program with updated technology, she told Arizona Luminaria via email.
“I would ensure better management of the ESA program, both fiscally and operationally, using more updated technology for the financial platform that provides the educational marketplace for ESA families — creating a user-friendly system for participating ESA families while ensuring accountability of our taxpayer dollars,” Yee said over the summer. She also aims to reign in automatic approval of a family’s first $2,000 in reimbursement claims, she told voters during the Sept. 15 debate.
The last point is the one they both agree on.
Leyba Ruiz, 60, says she would regulate the ESA program — reverting to its original intent before it was universal. She has called for more transparency with an ESA dashboard to track spending, to end the automatic approval of expenses under $2,000, include an income cap for families making over $150,000 and wants a program audit.
What are ESAs and why do they matter?
The ESA program allows a student to use taxpayer funds for anything they need, including private school tuition, tutoring, homeschooling or education materials. The program was created in 2011 for K-12 students with special needs, who lived on tribal lands, whose parents were in the military, who attended failing public schools or were in the foster care system. In 2022, it was expanded to include any student.
ESAs redirect taxpayer money to private education with an average voucher of about $7,400 per student. Expenses under $2,000 were automatically approved beginning in 2024.
State money that’s set aside for our education system — which typically meant local, public schools — now also goes to the ESA programs. Public school districts say this system has caused them to lose money and students, resulting in school closures and consolidations. Families and some private schools say the system created choice and students can get an education at a school they select.
Voting FAQ
What you need to know to participate in this election.
Key dates
Oct. 23 – Last day to request a mail-in ballot
Oct. 27 – Recommended deadline to mail back your ballot
Nov. 3 – Election Day
Register to vote or check your registration details:
Pima County Recorder’s Office
For the school year ending in 2025, there were 1.1 million public and charter school students in Arizona, according to the Arizona Department of Education. At that point, about 87,000 students were enrolled in the ESA program.
As of mid-September, the number of ESA students was 105,579. In 2022, it was about 12,000 students.
About 76 school choice programs exist in 35 states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. Nearly a year ago, Congress passed the first national school voucher plan as part of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy bill. States must opt into the program, which will begin in January 2027. Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill in mid-April that would have made Arizona one of 28 states in that national voucher plan.
ESA issues that did not make the ballot are also noteworthy: Proposition 212, which would have added guardrails for Arizona’s school voucher program was struck down in court in August. Two other education-related propositions initiated by Arizona Republicans were also eliminated by the courts last summer: One that would have shielded the ESA program from the guardrails in Prop. 212 and another that would have greatly limited labor unions.
Those stakes and that responsibility are why Arizona Luminaria built this guide to serve voters who want to know more about the candidates as they campaign to be the person overseeing public education in this state.
About the superintendent of public instruction
The Arizona superintendent of public instruction is part of the executive branch of state government and is elected to head the Department of Education. Superintendents are limited to two consecutive terms and serve four years for each term.
Their job is to enforce the State Board of Education’s policies and create and achieve state standards (think testing) for all Arizona public schools, distribute state education funds to counties, certify teachers, determine the course of study and instruction, budget for school transportation, audit school officials accounts with the auditor general and issue school materials and supplies.
Every state has a chief official who heads K-12 instruction and the title varies by state. Only 12 states elect their superintendent. The other 38 appoint the position. Arizona pays its superintendent the least in the country — about $85,000 a year. Maryland is the highest at $337,000 as of 2023.
About the candidates
Leyba Ruiz and Yee have distinctly different backgrounds. In addition to ESA plans, they have also discussed education fundamentals, teacher retention and rural school support.
Terry Leyba Ruiz
Terry Leyba Ruiz has a current state teaching license. She has worked in education for 35 years — first as a math teacher and most recently as president of Glendale Community College.
A third-generation Arizonan, she is a parent of two daughters in their 20s. Both her parents graduated from Pueblo High School.
She supports universal pre-K and says she wants to retain more teachers through higher pay and increased educational access, expanding post-secondary education and training, saying education drives economic growth. She would immediately create an office of rural and small schools for a direct connection with the superintendent’s office and is endorsed by Save Our Schools Arizona — a public school nonprofit group.
Kimberly Yee
Kimberly Yee has been Arizona treasurer since 2018. She was the first Asian-American woman to serve in the Arizona Legislature, where she was in the House and then the Senate from 2010 to 2018. She says being a parent of school-age children has inspired her superintendent run.
A native Arizonan, Yee is 52. She supports oversight of the ESA program and would like it to remain universal. She is moving toward exploring other vendors of the ESA program after asking for a request for information to assess the market and improve ESA operations after poor auditing and misspent funds came to light.
She spoke at the National Convention 10 years ago and was endorsed in this race by Turning Point USA.
Their responses have been edited for length and clarity and are a combination of in-person and email interviews along with insights from their Sept. 14 debate.
On ESA restructuring:
Yee: “I’ve already worked as state treasure to ensure that we have a better, more sophisticated technological financial platform to be able to have not only an ease of use for parents who are currently using the system through the ESA plan, but to ensure that their purchases are flagged upon the point of purchase. So that if an expenditure is not a qualified educational expense, it gets flagged and does not go through the process. It gets denied upon that point of purchase. We’re not quite there yet.
“I believe that the growth of the system has not kept up with the actual system itself. And so we need to make sure that we provide financial platforms to get to a better accountable system for the taxpayers of Arizona.”
Leyba Ruiz: “Arizonans voted down the expansion of universal ESAs 2-1,” Leyba Ruiz said at the debate. “It’s written to be exploited and we see that that’s happening. That’s taking choice away from Arizona taxpayers. As far as funding goes, it’s hard to imagine that there’s a billion dollars a year being spent on an expanded ESA program when our public schools are last in the nation and per pupil funding. So if you’re going to bring choice, then if you’re going to have ESAs, you also need to make sure that you are bringing those resources to our public schools and that’s not happening.”
On improving baselines for reading and math:
Yee: “Getting back to the basics and academics. That’s what it’s all about. All of the other things come in line with it. So, getting back to reading and math instruction, the way it needs to be taught so that our students can pass their assessments,” she said. “And again, going back to workforce skills and the trades and ensuring vocational education is not only taught, but encouraged.
Leyba Ruiz: “I have a plan and actually I am the only candidate with a well thought out eight-point plan. You can find it on my website and my plan includes funding for early literacy and for math intervention,” she said during the debate. “We want to help make sure students are learning and I’m a math teacher. There’s a problem when only 73% of our eighth graders are not proficient in math. We need to fix that problem.”
On teacher retention:
Yee: “Teacher-related issues have to be at the top of the list. And as a daughter of a public school teacher who taught for 38 years in public schools, this is something that is just near and dear to me because teachers should be able to have the basic tools in their classroom. They should not be going to a garage sale to buy paper or to buy classroom supplies.”
Leyba Ruiz: “When I meet teachers who are leaving their profession, they don’t want to leave, but they are leaving because they’re disrespectful,” she said during the Sept. 14 debate. “They’re leaving because there’s low pay. They’re leaving for many reasons and the first thing I would do as superintendent of public instruction is I would change the tone. I’m a teacher. I spent 35 years in my career in education. I would change the tone. I would bring respect back to our educators. I would welcome our educators back in because every single day, I would be advocating at the capital to increase funding for our public education so that we can pay our teachers what they deserve. So, they don’t feel they have to leave their profession or travel into a neighboring state where they’re paid higher salaries.”
On supporting rural Arizona schools:
Yee: “I’ve already done this when I served in the Legislature, I was chairman of the education committee. I also served as vice chair of the House Education Committee and I offered legislation to support alternative pathways to teaching,” she said during the debate. “This allows for — especially in our Arizona rural areas where there are significant teacher shortages, especially in the trades and vocational education — to be able to teach in that classroom, even if they don’t have the teacher certification, they might be an expert in that field, a retiree, who knows that industry very well with a teacher on premises to be able to teach those very important skills to those children in an alternative pathway to teaching. I also support working with the business community and industry to ensure that we have an understanding of where those workforce shortages are.”
Leyba Ruiz: “Voters are really worried about the lack of teachers. Especially in rural Arizona,” she told Arizona Luminaria, adding she will immediately create an office of rural and small schools for a direct connection with the superintendent’s office and wants to retain more teachers through higher pay and increased educational access, expanding post-secondary education and training. “So I think that we need to focus on the condition of our schools and teacher pay to stabilize our teacher workforce.”
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
