By admin 
PHOENIX — The coalition behind the “Protect Education Act” campaign, a voter ballot initiative hoping to reform the controversial Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program, dropped off signatures it collected Thursday morning.
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Protect Education Act campaign communications manager Olivia Fierro says the coalition collected 421,451 signatures, well above the required minimum of about 256,000.
The ESA program allows state money to be used for any educational purposes for Arizona students, including private, homeschool or religious schools.
Over the years, ABC15 has examined what millions of dollars are being spent on with the ESA program. An investigation in October of 2023 looked at $304 million in purchases, showing expenses were on tuition, but there were funds spent on trampoline parks and some purchases, such as driving lessons in luxury cars, which drew more criticism. The Arizona Department of Education has previously defended those purchases and said they were allowed.
For years, there have been some calls from the public to reform the ESA program; however, that did not happen. So, in March, the state’s largest teachers’ union, the Arizona Education Association, as well as public education advocacy group Save Our Schools, came together through a coalition to go to voters and ask for reforms under the Protect Education Act.
The ballot measure proposes several changes to the current ESA program, including:
- Putting an income cap for participants at $150,000 for universal families.
- Restricts use of funds on prohibited items, for example, jewelry or lingerie, or paying a student’s family member (except for students with disabilities).
- Requires teachers and staff at qualified schools or tutors to have fingerprint clearance cards.
- Requires qualified schools or tutoring services to register with the Arizona Department of Education and pay registration fees.
- Ensure that schools receiving ESA funds are accredited or administer testing on ESA students.
“We want to support public schools and we want to bring money back to the public education system and the ‘Protect Education Act’ is the way to do it,” Fierro said.
The campaign saw some turmoil in recent weeks as the teacher’s union tried to cut a deal with House republicans and failed. The deal they were trying to make included dropping the initiative in exchange of potentially having a special session to repeal some education-related measures set to go to voters; one included some restrictions on school unions.
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On Thursday, Fierro said the campaign was trying to move forward.
“Today, we are celebratory. We’re feeling fantastic. It’s moving forward. We exceeded our signature goal, and we’re really enthusiastic,” she said.
There have also been some groups and movements against the initiative. Families using ESA, whether universal or not, have been posting videos with the ‘AZ Loves ESAs’ group, asking people not to sign the Protect Education Act initiative.
“These anti-ESA initiatives would take many of those opportunities away from us and many hard-working families who simply are trying to provide the best education for their children,” said one mom on X.
The Protect Education campaign believes there will be some legal challenges coming forward but is confident they’d get through them.
They’ll also be fighting against the legislature’s ballot referral measure that would protect scholarship money for military families, including ESA. In that measure, there is also language that could block the Protect Education Act initiative, even if voters pass it.
The verification process for the signature will go through the Secretary of State’s Office, and a spokesperson said it could take more than a month.
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