An impending school funding ceiling is one of the first hurdles on the Arizona legislative agenda, and while schools are facing nearly $1.4 billion in budget cuts if it isn’t lifted, Republican legislative leaders say they will take action — just not immediately. Read more» 
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Turning the Arizona Auditor General’s Office into an elections oversight unit will be a substantial undertaking that will require time and resources, and that means it won’t conduct election audits until after this year, a Senate committee was told Thursday. Read more»
As an effort to lift a spending cap for Arizona schools stalled in the state Legislature, local leaders warned that allowing the bar to take effect would result in a "catastrophic cut" to education. Read more»
When the Arizona Supreme Court ruled against an income tax hike voters approved last year, it illuminated another K-12 funding issue that could strip $600 million a year out of Arizona schools - an education spending limit voters imposed on the state more than four decades ago. Read more»
Prop. 305 gives parents a choice beyond one-size-fits-all schools but the referendum's opponents say will cost public schools money without proper oversight. Read more»
Opponents of Prop. 123 believe the initiative misleads voters into thinking it solves the state’s education funding crisis but in reality offers a short-term solution that creates worse problems in the long run. Read more»
The state’s failure to pay public schools hundreds of millions in court-ordered funding has chased competent teachers from classrooms, education advocates said at a demonstration Thursday. Read more»
Diane Douglas, about to take office as Arizona's superintendent of Public Instruction, said Tuesday that she supports restoring millions in school funding cut by the Legislature. "The courts have ruled that Arizona schools were deprived of increases guaranteed to them by a vote of the people," she said. Read more»
State courts have ruled that Arizona owes public schools a first payment of more than $300 million for failing to make annual inflation adjustments to base funding as called for by a voter-approved law. Over five years, the bill could be $1.6 billion. Read more» 1
The state's per-pupil spending fell 17.5 percent since 2008, a decline that trailed only Oklahoma and Alabama. Advocates said the cuts show up in the form of larger classes, fewer teachers and more. Read more»
Gov. Jan Brewer has said the state will appeal a judge's decision that Arizona must make a first payment of $317 million to make up for shorting school districts during the Great Recession. Read more»
