Sign the SOS Petition to Repeal Universal Vouchers

There will be a table with petitions to stop the voucher expansion at the following locations this week:

There will be a table with petitions to stop the voucher expansion at the following locations this week:

All dates will be from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm.

Himmel Park Library
Saturday, 8/6

Nanini Library
Saturday, 8/6
Wednesday, 8/10
Thursday, 8/11
Saturday, 8/13
Wednesday, 8/17
Thursday, 8/18
Saturday, 8/20

Oro Valley Library
Saturday, 8/6
Monday, 8/8
Wednesday, 8/10
Friday, 8/12
Tuesday, 8/16
Wednesday, 8/17
Additional times on 8/17, 1:30 – 3:30 pm
Thursday, 8/18
Saturday, 8/20

1. This law defies the will of the Arizona voters, who have already voted down an earlier version of voucher expansion. That should not be surprising because Ducey, the Republicans at the Arizona State Legislature, and their appointed cronies on the State Supreme Court did everything in their power to defy the people by crippling the funding for Proposition 208-Invest in Ed.
2. This law is not about choice. If it were, children could go to any private school of their choice and not have to pay one dime. The way the law is written, private schools can still pick whomever they want to admit and charge tuition above the $7,000 scholarship. This legislation is nothing more than a tax cut for the Governor and Republican’s plutocratic cronies. They are looking for ways not to use their money to pay for their child’s private school tuition and open for-profit schools to line their pockets.
3. There is no accountability mechanism for these private schools to prove academic or ethical excellence. No parent would want to send their child to an educational institution if they do not know how the students fare on any academic assessments or rubrics.
4. With no accountability protocols, this creates an opportunity for extremist-xenophobic-homophobic-white nationalist-MAGA groups to develop their own little Hitler Youth Academies to indoctrinate impressionable minors. Turning Point USA is one such organization that has expressed an interest in taking advantage of this voucher expansion should it become law.

This legislation, designed to assist the well-to-do financially and enable the extremists of the fringe, will only harm the financial stability of traditional and charter public schools. It will drain millions from their public coffers and shift to these institutions that have no incentive to perform and behave to the public’s expectations.

To stop this Universal Voucher train wreck, many pro-education organizations led by Save Our Schools Arizona have launched a petition signing drive to collect approximately 200,000 ballot signatures by September 14, 2022, to stop this educationally regressive law from going into effect and referring the issue to voters to decide in the 2024 elections.