What's Going On Right Now

on Ranking 2nd in the Nation for educational freedom and school choice policies!

How All 50 States Rank on School Choice, VIVR, February 14, 2025, Warhammer

Florida ranks highest in the nation for its educational freedom and school choice policies, with Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Iowa following closely behind. This is according to a new report on school choice that the Arlington, Va.-based American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) published last week. 

“We are in the midst of an educational renaissance in America. At the time of writing, a record 12 states are empowering (or will soon be empowering) every family and every student with education freedom,” according to report author Andrew Handel, who directs ALEC’s Education and Workforce Development Task Force.

“These states recognize the unique needs of each student and that parents, not government bureaucrats, are best positioned to determine those needs and choose a school that best fits their student.”

The ALEC report analyzes what school choice options are available to families in each of the 50 states, including charter schools, home schools, virtual schools, and open enrollment laws.

The report, titled the 2025 ALEC Index of State Education Freedom, highlights what it says are major school choice reforms in seven states last year:

• Alabama: Gov. Kay Ivey signed the Creating Hope & Opportunity for Our Students’ Education (CHOOSE) Act. The program creates Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) available to all students in the state starting in 2027.

• Georgia: Gov. Brian Kemp signed the Georgia Opportunity Scholarship Program into law, which creates an ESA program for students attending the bottom 25% of public schools in the state.

• Louisiana: Gov. Jeff Landry signed the Louisiana Giving All True Opportunity to Rise (LA GATOR) program into law. State officials will eventually make this ESA program available to all students in the state, with the exact timeline for universal eligibility still undetermined by the Louisiana Department of Education. 

• Missouri: Gov. Mike Parson signed an expansion of the Missouri Empowerment Scholarship Account Program into law. Previously, this ESA program was limited to students in the most populated parts of the state who had a household income below 200% of the level for free-and-reduced-price lunches. The legislature voted to expand the program to remove the geographic requirements, permit siblings to use the program, raise the income threshold to 300% of the level for free-and-reduced-price lunches, and increase the funding cap from $50 million to $75 million.

• Oklahoma: Gov. J. Kevin Stitt signed legislation into law that expands the state’s open enrollment program to include interdistrict transfers. The expansion, Handel wrote, makes Oklahoma’s open enrollment law the strongest in the country.

• Utah: The state legislature voted to expand funding for the Utah Fits All Scholarship Program. The program, which is available to all students in the state, saw massive demand amongst families, Handel wrote. As a result, the legislature doubled the funding cap from $40 million to $80 million for the program.

• Wyoming: The state legislature passed a significant ESA program this year, but Gov. Mark Gordon line-item vetoed some of its provisions to reduce eligibility. As a result, this new ESA program is available to students with a household income below 150% of the federal poverty level. The ESA, Handel wrote, is Wyoming’s first education freedom program ever created.

The ALEC report ranks each of the 50 states by a letter grade for education freedom.

The states that earned an A rating: Florida, Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, West Virginia, Indiana and Utah.

The states that earned a B rating: Louisiana, Ohio, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Missouri and New Hampshire.

The states that earned a C rating: Tennessee, Georgia, Idaho, Colorado, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Nevada, Montana, Texas, South Dakota, Michigan and Kansas.

The states that earned a D rating: Wyoming, Vermont, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, California, Delaware, Alaska, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Washington, New Mexico and North Dakota.

The states that earned an F rating: Kentucky, Rhode Island, Oregon, Massachusetts and New York.

Why choose STAY?

Not all children are the same.

STAY works with Arizona’s tax credits to help create scholarships for children who otherwise could not get the educational opportunities they need. By partnering with STAY, you are helping hundreds of students gain access to the school that is best suited to help them THRIVE in your community.

You can be a part of a life-changing opportunity for a student in need!

How? Corporations and Individuals can donate and claim a dollar-for-dollar tax credit against their Arizona income taxes. At no cost to you, you can choose to donate what you would otherwise pay to the state in taxes. STAY then, essentially, converts your tax credit into scholarships. It’s that simple!

Each donation helps a child reach their unique potential whether it is a disadvantaged child who needs a school that best meets their unique needs, a displaced child who is in Arizona’s foster care program or a child with a variety of learning obstacles who needs specific help to function to their fullest capacity.

You can give families hope and lead by example in providing the children of Arizona school choice opportunities.

We all win when the children in our communities THRIVE!

You can visit our website to make a tax credit donation here: https://azstay.org/individual.html

Thank you in advance for supporting education in Yuma!

Dear Friends,

As we approach one week post-election, we want to thank you for praying and voting relative to the composition of the Arizona Legislature concerning school choice and educational freedom. The dust has settled and we now have a pretty clear picture of where things stand.

We are thankful that pro-school choice legislators appear to remain in the majority in both the Arizona House and Arizona Senate. Pro-school choice members in the House increased from 31 to 33 out of 60 total members. In the Senate, pro-school choice members increased from 16 to 17 out of 30 members. Of course, legislators do not always vote how they claimed they would as candidates, so it is important to view these numbers as estimates and not absolute.

While we invested heavily this election season in voter education concerning school choice, a stunning amount of money was also spent on behalf of candidates outspoken in their opposition to school choice. Fortunately, the latter group did not generate the desired flipping of our legislature to an anti-school choice majority.

Given Gov. Hobbs’ expressed opposition toward ESAs and tax credit scholarships, we are doubtful that any pro-school choice legislation will be signed into law in the next two years. On the other hand, we are hopeful that any hostile-to-school-choice legislation will not be enacted. Sometimes even a stalemate can turn into a blessing.

Clearly, proponents of school choice will remain a strong voice in Arizona. We give God all the glory for His provision and protection of both tax credit scholarships and the ESA program. Thank you again to each of you for your support whether you are a donor, a parent, or associated with one of our partner Christian schools.

Election Update courtesy of ACSTO/social@acsto.org.

For the past 28 years, Arizona’s legislature has been pro-school choice for the most part. This led to the advancement and protection of a variety of school choice options including open enrollment, charter schools, private school tax credit scholarships, and Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs). As a result, more and more families were able to afford Christian Education for their children and enrollment at Christian Schools in Arizona grew. In recent years, things have changed and forces hostile toward Christian Schools are now within a single seat in the House and a single seat in the Senate of being able to enact legislation which would be extremely harmful to school choice. A flip in our legislature to an anti-school choice majority, along with the like-minded Governor’s Office, would initiate an unraveling of 28 years of school choice progress in our state. With the November 5 general election rapidly approaching, it is time for Arizonans who believe in educational freedom to act. Pray – First, pray that God’s plan for Arizona includes the protection of school choice. Be an Informed Voter – The Arizona Education Voter Guide (azeducationvoterguide.com) will be available online starting October 3, or you can pre-order a print copy now. This guide will help voters know where the legislative candidates stand on issues of education in our state. Please share this guide with other voters.

VOTE – Whether you choose to vote by mail or in-person, plan now for any time needed to ensure your ballot is successfully counted.

Thank you for your commitment to preserving school choice in Arizona so parents can continue to exercise their freedom to select the educational option that best meets their child’s needs.

By George F. Will, The Washington Post, Columnist

PHOENIX — Fittingly, the youngest of the contiguous 48 states is leading the brisk pace of the national embrace of K-12 education’s future: school choice. Predictably, Arizona Democrats, including Gov. Katie Hobbs, seem determined to regulate into anemia a program too popular — especially with some traditional Democratic constituencies — to repeal.

In the state’s universal education savings account program, the money follows the pupil. ESAs provide an average of $7,143 for parents of children leaving traditional public schools to spend on alternatives, including home schooling. Arizona spends about $13,500 per public school student; if everyone opted for ESAs, the state would save money.

School choice came here in increments, first (in 2011) for special needs children, then for people in failing schools, then active duty military parents, then Native Americans on reservations. The great accelerant of healthy education policy was a virus. Republican Ben Toma, the state’s House speaker, says universal ESAs “wouldn’t have been possible without covid.”

The pandemic was an ill wind that filled the sails of the choice movement nationally. Children consigned to “remote learning” opened their laptops at home, and parents heard indoctrination served up as learning. And they recoiled against teachers unions that lobbied to keep schools closed, even though children were an age cohort essentially unthreatened by the coronavirus. Even before pandemic, an illegal teachers strike had Arizona parents (in Toma’s words) “fleeing the stupidity.” As the Goldwater Institute’s Timothy Sandefur has said, “The mystique of the public school teacher” is fading.

Ninety-nine years ago, the Supreme Court, declaring unconstitutional an Oregon law requiring children to attend public schools, affirmed parents’ right to “direct” their children’s education. Teachers unions, among Democrats’ largest donors, work tenaciously to attenuate this right with regulations and litigations about even schools’ minute operational choices.

For more than 30 years , charter schools — non-unionized public schools, exempt from bureaucratic calcification and conformity that stifles pedagogical experimentation — have brought cultural and curricular diversity to 45 states and D.C. Doug Ducey, a Republican who served as governor from 2015 to 2023, made Arizona the nation’s school-choice leader, which is one reason he won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote when winning reelection in 2018 against a Hispanic opponent. (Hispanics are the fastest-growing charter school cohort. The affluent have school choice in their checkbooks.) Ducey says that if Arizona’s 525 charter schools were the state’s K-12 system, his state would lead the nation in math, reading and science.

Today, more than one-third of all U.S. school children could participate in choice programs. Deep-blue Illinois, which recently killed its small school choice program (disproportionately used by minorities), spends 60 percent to 80 percent more per pupil than Texas, Alabama and Tennessee, where school choice is firmly planted and reading results equal those in high-spending Illinois.

Public schools’ educational results often move inversely with the spending that increasingly funds administrative bloat. Between 2002 and 2020, public-school employees increased by about 780,000, about three-quarters of them non-teachers, who in 2020 were 52 percent of schools’ employees. This occurred while the number of pupils plummeted, partly because of union-driven pandemic closures. In deep-blue Connecticut, between 2002 and 2020, public school staffing increased 14.1 percent while enrollments declined 8.2 percent.

Now, unions are demanding money to combat the learning loss their closures caused and talking about teacher shortages while pupil-teacher ratios reach historical lows, partly because of the flight from public schools. Not, however, in red Florida, where teacher pay has increased to cope with the growth of the under-18 population by 120,000 children since 2020.

Because Arizona attained statehood in 1912 — a populist moment, with Theodore Roosevelt’s third-party presidential candidacy — it adopted a constitutional provision for repealing laws by referendum. In 2022, the teachers union failed to get even enough signatures to put repeal of universal ESAs on the ballot.

In purple Arizona, Republicans have only wafer-thin majorities in the House (31-29) and Senate (16-14). So, in effect, school choice will be on ballot in November. Might the high stakes of contests down the ballots — for state legislative seats — cause ripples upward?

Americans are in an à la carte mood, rebelling against constraints on their choices (e.g., cable television “cord cutting”). And they sense that what is emanating from schools today validates this music educator’s axiom, “Mediocrity is like carbon monoxide: You can’t see it or smell it, but one day, you’re dead.”

Schools are, for many Americans, where contact with government is most intimate. And most unsatisfying. It is, however, much more satisfying here than it was before Arizona chose choice.

Thank you, YACS, for inviting us to share in your special event and to their graduate for this thoughtful Certificate of Appreciation. Congratulations, Melissa! We know your path ahead is very bright!

As you likely have heard, Governor Hobbs released her budget proposal earlier this year. Several of her points are summarized here:

• Implements a requirement that students receiving an ESA must have previously attended a public school for at least 100 days at any point during their K-12 education.
• Repeals Universal ESA beginning in fiscal year 2025.
• Repeals the entire Student Tuition Organization (STO) income tax credit beginning in tax year 2025.  

For over 25 years, School Tuition Organizations (STOs) have helped thousands of students attend a private school of their choice because of the Private School Tax Credit Laws – Governor Hobbs wants to take this away from them! Many of these students would never have had the opportunity to receive a private school education if it were not for the scholarships they received from the STOs.

We believe that EVERY student deserves to be in a learning environment that best meets their needs so they can succeed and parents are the ones who should make those decisions, whether that is public school or private school.

How to Take Action:

• Write or call your Legislators and urge them to oppose the proposed changes to the ESA and STO programs. Share your personal stories – they really do make a difference. If you do not know who your legislator is for your zip code, you can find it here.
• When you go to the ballot box in November, make sure you know where the candidates stand on the issue of School Choice. If Parental Choice and student success is important to you, please vote for candidates that support School Choice.

STAY is a member of the Arizona School Tuition Organization Association (ASTOA) who promotes and defends Arizona’s private school choice programs and the thousands of families that depend on them by educating the community and by providing mentorship, resources, and critical support to Arizona’s STOs.

Our voices need to be heard and we need to come together to support school choice so parents can continue to decide what is the best academic environment for their students. 

For more information visit SAVE SCHOOL CHOICE here.

SEE YOUR DONATIONS HARD AT WORK in our community through Environmental Stewardship:

Fueled by the support of generous corporations who fund STAY, like you, these young environmentalists collected trash, planted 15 trees, and created lasting memories. Your contributions made it possible for them to be part of something truly special.

The trees they planted will stand tall for years to come, providing shade, oxygen, and habitat for wildlife. Each sapling represents hope for a greener future, a legacy that will outlast us all.

Thank you for continuing to support students in Yuma with your tax credit donations so they can continue to flourish in our community!