In 2022, Arizona pioneered the largest school voucher program in the history of education. Under a new law, any parent in the state, no matter how affluent, could get a taxpayer-funded voucher worth up to tens of thousands of dollars to spend on private school tuition, extracurricular programs or homeschooling supplies. In just the past two years, nearly a dozen states have enacted sweeping voucher programs similar to Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account system, with many using it as a model.
Yet in a lesson for these other states, Arizona’s voucher experiment has since precipitated a budget meltdown. The state this year faced a $1.4 billion budget shortfall, much of which was a result of the new voucher spending, according to the Grand Canyon Institute, a local nonpartisan fiscal and economic policy think tank.
Last fiscal year alone, the price tag of universal vouchers in Arizona skyrocketed from an original official estimate of just under $65 million to roughly $332 million, the Grand Canyon analysis found; another $429 million in costs is expected this year. As a result of all this unexpected spending, alongside some recent revenue losses, Arizona is now having to make deep cuts to a wide swath of critical state programs and projects, the pain of which will be felt by average Arizonans who may or may not have school-aged children.
Among the funding slashed: $333 million for water infrastructure projects, in a state where water scarcity will shape the future, and tens of millions of dollars for highway expansions and repairs in congested areas of one of the nation’s fastest-growing metropolises — Phoenix and its suburbs. Also nixed were improvements to the air conditioning in state prisons, where temperatures can soar above 100 degrees. Arizona’s community colleges, too, are seeing their budgets cut by $54 million. . .
Beth Lewis, executive director of the public-school-advocacy group Save Our Schools Arizona, only a small amount of the new spending on private schools and homeschooling is going toward poor children, which means that already-extreme educational inequality in Arizona is being exacerbated. The state is 49th in the country in per-pupil public school funding, and as a result, year after year, district schools in lower-income areas are plagued by some of the nation’s worst staffing ratios and largest class sizes. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on vouchers to help kids who are already going to private school keep going to private school won’t just sink the budget, Lewis said. It’s funding that’s not going to the public schools, keeping them from becoming what they could and should be.
What about the performance of Arizona public schools? They continue to struggle, according to a Wallet Hub study just released:
Arizona ranked 49th in the nation in the study which considered dropout rate, standardized tests scores, high school graduation rate, teachers credentials, teacher-student ratio, amount of schools with a Blue Ribbon recognition, and their projected high school graduation rate increase between today and 10 years from now.
New Mexico ranks worst in the nation in the study, coming in 51st. The search goes on here for solutions but a voucher program has taken hold only in conservative circles in Santa Fe.
CONFUSING INFO
We had a blog item about NM third party presidential candidates Wednesday (since removed) that may have been confusing. Alex Curtas of the Secretary of State's office clarifies:
The Libertarian Party is qualified as a major party in New Mexico, and the Free New Mexico Party is a newly qualified minor party in New Mexico (following the June 27 filing day that also resulted in another new minor party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation).
There seems to be some intra-party fighting among state/national Libertarians and affiliated organizations that has resulted in a schism with their members. We don’t want voters to be potentially confused by the statements from the Free New Mexico Party on your blog.
Lars Mapstead won New Mexico’s Primary Election in June and is the presumptive Libertarian Party presidential nominee (I say presumptive because the Libertarian Party follows major party rules and will be sending us their official nominee soon, just as the Democrats will be doing after their convention).
Chase Oliver is the Free New Mexico Party presidential nominee.
Our candidate portal has a full listing of all the candidates in the 2024 General Election.
This is the Home of New Mexico Politics.
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