For more than a decade, the teachers’ unions and their allies at Save Our Schools (SOS) have made their mission clear: stop school choice in Arizona. They fought the expansion of our state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program at every turn. And after the program was made universal in 2022, they have endlessly pushed to repeal the expansion—including a failed ballot initiative where their signature count was off by more than 50,000. (Yes. These are the people pushing public education.)
With another election around the corner, SOS and the teachers’ unions have once again launched a ballot initiative designed to cripple ESAs. But a funny thing has happened in their efforts to get on the ballot. SOS and the teachers’ unions are suddenly claiming that the initiative isn’t about “eliminating the program.” And they’re pushing a talking point that their only concern is that the program isn’t “functioning properly.”
It’s a remarkable rewrite of history—and Arizona voters shouldn’t buy it.
Just consider the record. Leaders of Save Our Schools have spent years attacking ESAs as harmful “vouchers” that drain money from public schools. Not only have they tried to repeal the program, but they’ve pushed to cap it while continuing to demand that it be overturned, even after their previous ballot initiative failed.
On top of that, they’ve been quick to get activist reporters in the legacy media with ties to the Red for Ed teachers’ union to consistently push false claims about Arizona’s school choice program.
And if that’s not enough, SOS and its Executive Director Beth Lewis repeatedly blast the ESA program on social media. (See here, here, here, and here for just a few examples.) Beth even goes so far as to proudly feature the hashtag “#VouchersHurt” on her Twitter/X profile.
That’s not exactly the language of someone who simply wants to make sure the program “functions properly.” But for SOS and the teachers’ unions, opposition to ESAs has never been subtle or nuanced. It’s been loud and relentless.
So why the sudden attempt to rebrand themselves as concerned stewards of the ESA program?
The answer is obvious. They know that school choice has become wildly popular in Arizona. With more than 100,000 students now enrolled (and counting), families across our state rely on the ESA program to give their children better educational opportunities. SOS and the teachers’ unions know that if voters understood that this ballot initiative isn’t actually about “eliminating fraud” but rather an attempt to force kids back into failing district schools, support for their measure will crater.
So, now we get the SOS school choice makeover. For the next eight months, they will pretend to be the true caretakers of ESAs and that this initiative actually “helps” the parents and kids that are utilizing the program. But voters shouldn’t be fooled. This ballot initiative is nothing more than a Red for Ed power grab funded by a Washington, D.C. teachers’ union and designed to dismantle school choice in our state.
Now it’s up to us to make sure Arizona voters know the truth about this initiative. In the months ahead, as SOS and the teachers’ unions push their deceptive message, we need to meet them at every turn just like we did in 2022. School choice is the civil rights issue of our generation. We must do everything we can to protect it for decades to come.
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