Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program will be fully funded next school year after the Legislature passed the budget Friday.
The program is estimated to be funded at more than $880 million this year and that’s about 8% of all K-12 funding, Common Sense Institute Arizona says.
That means the ESA program will be 5% of the total Arizona state budget ($17.6 billion.)
For the school year ending in 2024, there were 1.15 million public and charter school students in Arizona, according to the Arizona Department of Education. At that point, just over 75,000 students were enrolled in the ESA program.
The ESA program allows a student to use taxpayer funds for anything they need, including private school tuition, tutoring, homeschooling or education materials. As of this week, Arizona’s ESA program had 85,561 students enrolled.
“From a policy point of view, there are compelling reasons to offer taxpayer-funded options (for students). Those options are probably going to cost more because you have two sectors (ESA program and traditional public school) instead of one,” said Deven Carlson, a University of Oklahoma professor and associate director for education at the Institute for Public Policy Research.
“Whether we want to incur those costs, it’s a political question,” Carlson told Arizona Luminaria. “Because it can be hugely expensive.”
The Empowerment Scholarship Account 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.
The ESA program expanded in 2022 to include all students and had about 12,000 students at that point.
About 76 school choice programs exist in 35 states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. On Thursday, Congress passed the first national school voucher plan as part of President Trump’s domestic policy bill. States must opt into the program, which will begin in January 2027.
“There are fixed costs baked into both (school options),” Carlson said. “You see (the cost) in the public school sector, but on the private side (the cost) is hidden from taxpayer view.
“Any time you are committing to funding two different education systems, it’s going to be more expensive than just running one education system.”
Turf to cover football fields at Pueblo and Sabino
The “crown” on the Sabino High School football field is legendary.
There’s a ridge. It slopes.
And soon, it will be gone — replaced with new turf and ready for action.
The Sabercats’ new field, along with one at Pueblo High School, are part of Tucson Unified School District’s $480 million bond that voters passed in 2023. Tucson High has the sole turf field within TUSD currently, but the district aims to turf all its high-school fields.
“We are doing a long-term plan to upgrade our high school fields with artificial turf,” said TUSD Bond Program Manager Charlotte Carter, adding that new goal posts will also be included in the upgrade.
Each new field will cost $1.9-2.3 million, depending on the school and has a minimum 15-year lifespan, she said. The bells and whistles include a cooling additive (to keep the field cool), a consistent playing surface which will be safer for athletes and will reduce water consumption, to abide by TUSD’s sustainability policy.
“This field will help our athletes with injuries, help them gain confidence,” Sabino football coach Ryan McBrayer said.
It will also cut down on the amount of hours, dollars and headaches it took to maintain the field with multiple year-round sports, said McBrayer, whose team won the 3A state championship in 2023.
Both fields should be ready for the first home games of the season Sabino on Aug. 29 and Pueblo on Sept. 19, Carter said.
The upgrade signifies growth, said Pueblo football coach Sly Lewis.
“This state-of-the-art field will help to create a new culture. This is a milestone for Pueblo High School football. It represents growth,” Lewis said. “It brings a sense of pride and professionalism signaling investment in athletics and our school facilities on the Southside of Tucson.”
Three questions with Tucson High’s new interim principal
Tucson High has a new interim principal after Jon Lansa was appointed last month.
Lansa is a former principal at Amphitheater High and most recently was the senior director for federal programs and school improvement for the Tucson Unified School District.
Growing up in Winslow, Lansa’s dad was a member of the Hopi Tribe. Lansa is now a father of four who attended Pima Community College and the University of Arizona as a first-generation college student.
Three questions for Lansa, 49, as he begins his new gig this week at Arizona’s oldest high school with 3,200 students:
Q: What do you want students, teachers and staff to know about you?
A: The biggest thing is the relationship piece — the commitment to Tucson High School to students, teachers and family. I want them to value it as theirs. And to the students: We are living together the majority of the day, every day. I want them to have an investment in the school, a relationship to teachers. … It is a staff with an excellent reputation and they are a foundational part of the school and being able to support them in doing excellent work and get out of their way, I want to maximize that. For the families, this is a partnership. I want to foster their input and presence.
Q: What stands out from your high school years?
A: My science teacher in high school was the first one that made me truly write down goals. On notecards. He asked where I wanted to go (in life), made me sit there and write down another piece of my puzzle. I never had anyone physically map it out. That’s the impact a teacher can have — not just graduation day, it’s the day after graduation. You prepare kids for the day after and have a plan, not for their lives but for the next year, next semester. That got embedded in me. My parents knew I needed to go (to college.) They did everything they knew. But nobody knew how to get me into and prepare for college. That’s where the responsibility falls on us. It’s the driving piece in my career.
Q: What will you do for fun this summer?
A: I will get out of town with my family. We go to the mountains in Colorado where we meet friends and go fly fishing and get out of the heat. We get on the Blue River and catch trout. I grew up hunting and fishing.
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Correction: The ESA program is about 5% of the total state budget. The percentage was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.
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