Arizona parents have flocked to apply for the state’s new universal Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, which let any family apply for state funds to pay for their child’s schooling, regardless of need. Read more»

Officials with Save Our Schools Arizona, who said Friday that they turned in thousands more signatures than needed to force a vote on an expansion of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, conceded this week that they “definitely got the numbers wrong.” Read more»

The effort to block school vouchers and let Arizona voters decide the program’s fate in 2024 is likely short of the number of signatures required to refer the new law to the ballot - a stark reversal to Friday's declaration by Save Our Schools Arizona, the group behind the petition drive. Read more»

Teachers and public school advocates on Friday submitted nearly 142,000 petition signatures to block the new universal school voucher program that was set to go into effect on Friday and let voters decide its fate in 2024. Read more»

Save Our Schools Arizona is in the home stretch of its push to collect at least 118,823 signatures to put the scholarship program on the ballot in 2024, delaying implementation of the law, currently scheduled to take effect Saturday. Read more»

With schools getting back to full swing, districts across Arizona continue to struggle with a severe shortage of teachers and administrators, but an innovative program to help recruit, prepare, support and retain teachers in elementary, middle and high schools is beginning to pay off. Read more»

Officials in school districts across Arizona are scrambling to figure out how to afford meals for students at a time when inflation nationwide is running at the highest level in decades - with even the rising cost of food storage putting the pinch on school districts. Read more»

Save Our Schools Arizona is currently attempting to gather 118,823 signatures by Sept. 24 to let voters decide if a law expanding the ESA program to all 1.1 million Arizona students should stand - work they have done before with success they hope to repeat. Read more» 1

A proposal to let all 1.1 million Arizona students get taxpayer dollars to attend private school cleared a state legislative committee on Wednesday with Republican support, but it won’t have the votes needed to win approval in the full House of Representatives. Read more»

Gov. Doug Ducey said Thursday that the state’s use of money to support schools that reject mask mandates is “well within” federal guidelines for the funds, despite a Treasury Department threat to take the money back - but Arizona educators said the governor needs to back down. Read more»

The Arizona House of Representatives wrapped up work Friday on a $12.8 billion budget that dramatically overhauls the state’s income tax code, shields some wealthy Arizonans from paying a voter-approved tax to boost teacher pay and mandates new civics curriculum in public schools while rejecting expansion of the school voucher program. Read more»

Schools across the state reopened Monday, and many were offering in-person instruction for the first time since being shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic last year. Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman expressed confidence that things will get back on track for students this year. “But by and large, the majority of our schools across the state will be offering in-person, either starting today, starting next week or by the end of March,” Hoffman said in an interview with KTAR News Monday. Read more»