What Will the Protect Education Initiative Do?
Arizona educators, parents, students, and community members have launched a citizens’ initiative called Protect Education, aiming to collect 256,000 valid signatures to put the measure on the November 2026 ballot. Find out what the Protect Education Initiative will do (and what it won’t do) by reading our newest blog.
What is the Protect Education Initiative?
The Protect Education Act will add safety, transparency, and accountability reforms to Arizona’s $1 billion universal ESA voucher program, which predominantly serves wealthier students. The Protect Education campaign’s stated goals are to protect students, stop waste, fraud, and abuse, and re-focus the voucher program on students with disabilities. The initiative does not eliminate the voucher program, nor does it take vouchers away from low-income families or students with special needs that rely on them.
Safety Measures: The Protect Education Act proposes to add new safety measures, including background checks for all school staff and teachers. It also tasks the State Board of Education with developing site safety requirements, which private schools and tutoring facilities receiving taxpayer-funded ESA voucher dollars will need to follow. This includes fire codes, food safety, securing heavy machinery, and installing pool fences, for example.
Accountability for Taxpayer Funds: The Act will cut down on waste, fraud, and abuse of ESA voucher funds by prohibiting the use of taxpayer funds for luxury items. Recent reporting has revealed the purchase of over $10 million in banned items — like diamond rings, expensive appliances, vacations, and even lingerie — in less than one year, with up to 20% of program users misspending ESA funds!
Transparency of Taxpayer Funds: Currently, the public cannot see how many tax dollars are going to which private school. The Protect Education Act will require the Arizona Department of Education to report how taxpayer funds are spent in a transparent manner.
Recover Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for Public School Classrooms: The initiative would return unused ESA voucher funds to Arizona’s Classroom Site Fund each year, and every two years for students with disabilities. The Classroom Site Fund directly funds teacher and staff salaries and classroom resources. Currently, over $350 million is sitting unused in ESA voucher accounts — dollars that could be used immediately to benefit Arizona’s 1.1 million public school students whose classrooms are significantly underfunded, ranking 49th in the nation.
Raise the Bar for Academic Accountability: The Protect Education Act would ensure that all private schools receiving taxpayer-funded ESA voucher dollars would either hold accreditation through a nationally or regionally recognized accreditation process, or the school could opt to administer the same test that public and charter school students take each year. The accreditation or testing results would be publicly reported so that parents can make more informed decisions.
End Subsidies for the Wealthy: The Protect Education Act would set an income cap for universal ESA voucher students at or below $150,000 annual gross income, adjusted annually and excluding all students who are eligible under non-universal categories (including students with disabilities, in foster care, in military families, on reservation land, etc.). The median Arizona household income is nearly half this figure, at just under $80,000, and ABC15’s “Data Guru” Garrett Archer says that less than 10% of ESA voucher users live in zip codes with a median household income greater than $150,000, meaning it is targeted to only the top wealth band of families using the voucher program.
Protect Students with Disabilities: The Protect Education Act would preserve the program for students with disabilities, for whom the testing requirement and the income cap would not apply. The ESA voucher program serves many families of students with disabilities well, and those students will continue to benefit from tax dollar-funded special therapies and tuition for specialized schools. Because over 90% of students with disabilities attend public schools in Arizona, there is also an emphasis on returning unused funds to public school
Why Are Groups Working to Pass the Initiative Now?
After universal expansion of the ESA voucher program, costs have skyrocketed to $1 billion, using over 50% of newly appropriated funds for K-12 education and draining Arizona’s budget for public schools, public safety, roads, healthcare, water, and more. In the meantime, Arizona has the largest class sizes in the nation, our educators are paid nearly the worst in the nation while self-funding basics for their classrooms, and many students are going without resources, programs, extracurriculars, and more.
In 2018, Arizona voters resoundingly rejected universal ESA vouchers by a 2-1 margin. Yet, in 2022 on the last day and the last hour of former Gov. Ducey’s last legislative session, the Arizona legislature forced through universal vouchers by one vote in the House and one vote in the Senate. The universal program was even more expansive than what voters previously rejected, with no income cap and no accountability measures. Joel John, the deciding vote for the expansion in the state house, has since stated that he has “regretted it ever since… It was such bad policy, I was embarrassed I supported it.”
Despite massive new costs to the state and rampant evidence of abuse in the universal program, the Arizona legislature has refused to pass any reforms to ensure student safety, transparency, or accountability of taxpayer funds.
It is important to note that a “yes” vote on the Protect Education Act will be voter-protected, meaning politicians cannot change the will of Arizona voters.
When Will Voters Weigh In?
In order to qualify for the November 2026 ballot, Protect Education must turn in nearly 256,000 valid signatures by July 2. Once these signatures are turned in to the Secretary of State’s office, an official review is conducted across all counties. Then, legal signature challenges will certainly be mounted and the campaign will need to defend any attacks from the well-funded special interests who often fund such lawsuits in Arizona, like Betsy DeVos’ American Federation for Children.
If enough signatures are declared valid, the measure will be put to voters this November. A “yes” vote will put in place the reforms listed above and task the Attorney General with enforcement. A “no” vote will keep the status quo of the program as is, introducing no fiscal, safety, or academic reforms to the program.
How Do I Get Involved?
The campaign is actively recruiting volunteers. If you would like to become a circulator, you can go to a depot to check out petitions or fill out the request for petitions form.