Education advocacy groups push for reform of Arizona’s voucher program

Various education advocacy groups are looking to reform Arizona’s universal voucher program, as that reform could end up on voters’ ballots this fall. A recently released ballot initiative seeks income caps and other regulations on the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program.

Advocates say the reforms are necessary to pull back on the $1 billion being spent on Arizona’s voucher program. The “Protect Education, Accountability Now” initiative would require all voucher-funded schools to uphold the same rules public schools do. This includes maintaining background checks for all employees, as well as other health and safety standards.

Guidelines would also prevent ESA funds from being used on non-educational materials. While those purchases have already been banned by Arizona law, many reports show automatic approval for transactions under $2,000 that went towards jewelry, lingerie and luxury goods.

The State’s Department of Education recently released new data showing the program had approximately 100,000 students enrolled in 2025, and spent nearly $1 billion. In order to get the initiative on the November ballot, supporters will need to gather nearly 266,000 signatures by July 2, 2026.

Beth Lewis, Executive Director at Save Our Schools Arizona, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss this initiative.

“This was a group of educators and parents who came together to put this on the ballot,” Lewis said, “a really common-sense package that really focuses on taxpayer accountability, and then the rest of it really focuses on safety for students and then academic accountability for kids.”

Background checks for employees, health and safety standards and ensuring the physical sites are safe are just some of the measures they are pushing for.

“Unfortunately, none of those regulations exist right now, which I think is shocking for folks,” Lewis explained, “but this would just institute common sense reforms.”

Lewis’ initiative also calls for an income cap, as data from the program shows that the majority of individuals using the program have been from wealthier zip codes.

“The idea is, hey, a lot of these folks are already in private school; they were already able to afford that school choice,” Lewis said, “and so why are we the taxpayers paying for that as a subsidy when we’ve got our public schools funded at 48th in the nation.”