Southwest
One state’s budget dispels big lie about school choice
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For years, opponents of school choice have been predicting that Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts policy would “bankrupt” the state. Instead, as the state’s education budget surplus demonstrates, school choice has reduced costs.
This won’t surprise Arizonans who have become accustomed to the empty scaremongering from Chicken Littles claiming that school choice would make the sky fall. But then again, they aren’t the target audience for this pernicious propaganda. Conservative lawmakers in other states are.
Over the past three years, Republican lawmakers in a dozen states have made all or nearly all K–12 students eligible for school choice. More red states, most notably Texas, appear ready to join them. To halt this progress, opponents of school choice have settled on a message intended to give conservatives pause: that school choice supposedly is a budget buster.
SCHOOL CHOICE BEING CELEBRATED IN FLORIDA AS TEACHERS UNIONS OPPOSE POLICY
“The universal school voucher program is unsustainable,” Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, claimed last summer, arguing that the program needed to be curtailed lest it “bankrupt our state.” Her proposed budget would have rolled back ESA eligibility, kicking out nearly 50,000 students.
The battle over school choice is taking a dramatic turn because Arizona shows it’s more affordable than scaremongers claimed. (iStock)
School choice opponents in other states have echoed Hobbs’s scaremongering. Texas Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, chair of the Texas House Democrats, claimed this year that Arizona’s ESA supposedly created a “nearly $1B[illion] problem of skyrocketing costs.”
Kentucky Lt. Governor Jacqueline Coleman recently warned voters considering a school choice ballot proposition, Amendment 2, that ESAs supposedly blew a “massive hole” in Arizona’s state budget. School choice advocates have heard legislators in several states express skittishness about the potential fiscal effects of expanding school choice.
Fortunately, Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature knows better. The typical ESA student receives about $7,500 annually from Arizona taxpayers, compared to the more than $12,000 per pupil that Arizonans give public schools through their state and local taxes alone.
Even looking only at state dollars, the ESA program typically costs taxpayers hundreds — if not thousands — of dollars less per child than the public school system. As students shift from public schools to ESAs, the state saves money.
In the first two years since ESAs went universal under then-Gov. Doug Ducey, Arizona enjoyed a massive overall state budget surplus one year, and a net savings in its state education funding formula (which includes ESAs) compared to what it budgeted the second. After lengthy budget negotiations this year, the ESA program’s universal eligibility emerged unscathed.
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ProPublica and the Grand Canyon Institute claimed that the ESAs were the main culprit for the $1.4 billion deficit Arizona faced this past year. However, not only has this deficit been eliminated, but the latest education budget figures tell a very different story.
According to Arizona’s nonpartisan Joint Legislative Budget Committee, the ESA program cost $92 million more than had been forecasted this past year. However, the surge in enrollment to more than 72,000 ESA students coincided with a reduction in public school enrollment that has reduced costs by $93 million below forecasts.
By the end of the 2023-24 school year, 62 percent of new ESA students had switched from a public school in the prior year. When factoring in shifts in student enrollment among the public district, public charter and ESA sectors, the JLBC estimated last month a net savings of more than $350,000 relative to the enacted budget for fiscal year 2024.
Fortunately, Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature knows better. The typical ESA student receives about $7,500 annually from Arizona taxpayers, compared to the more than $12,000 per pupil that Arizonans give public schools through their state and local taxes alone.
Moreover, these are conservative estimates. As the Goldwater Institute observed, the JLBC analysis reviewed only the basic state aid formula, and “did not address millions in additional ESA savings from all other sources” of state, local and federal funding.
On August 26, the Arizona Department of Education released its revised budget figures for the fiscal year, showing a surplus of $4.3 million.
The sky isn’t falling. Any budget woes Arizona faced this year were despite — not because of — the state’s school choice policy. Lawmakers considering school choice policies in other states would do well to ignore the Chicken Littles.
Corey DeAngelis is a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children and a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is the author of “The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools“
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A 23-year-old man from Long Beach is in custody following a deadly hit-and-run crash in Riverside County Saturday.
The crash happened around 8:09 a.m. near the intersection of Dinah Shore Drive and George Montgomery Way in the city of Rancho Mirage, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
Deputies responded and found one of the involved drivers, 57-year-old Teresa Bowlin of Cathedral City, dead at the scene. The other driver, Tyler Conant of Long Beach, ran from the scene of the crash, according to the sheriff’s department.
“During the investigation, it was determined that Conant was under the influence of alcohol [at the time of the crash],” the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said.
Conant was arrested and booked into the John Benoit Detention Center for murder and felony hit-and-run.
The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information about the crash is asked to contact Deputy Bret Meservey at (760) 836-1600.
Long Beach will hold a pride festival this weekend after the one they originally had scheduled was canceled.
Long Beach city officials said the celebration was nixed after the nonprofit that organizes it, Long Beach Pride, failed to submit the required information for an event permit.
It was supposed to start on Friday and last through Sunday.
“Despite continued collaboration and multiple deadline notices, the City did not receive the required documentation needed to complete safety reviews, inspect critical event infrastructure, such as the stage, electrical systems and tent, and emergency exiting plans to ensure compliance with public safety standards,” the city of Long Beach said in a statement. “With event programming scheduled to begin on May 15 at 5 p.m. with Teen Pride and essential information still outstanding, there is no longer sufficient time to safely permit the festival this year.”
Officials noted that they were working to see if a “shortened event” could be held this weekend, and indeed, an agreement was reached to stage a one-day gathering on Sunday.
Billed as “Canceled? Never Heard of Her!” and emceed by comedian and drag queen Jewels, it will still bring the city’s LGBTQ community together after Sunday morning’s Long Beach Pride Parade, which was not canceled.
“Long Beach Pride weekend is a culmination of celebrations put on by our community, including our many vibrant restaurants, bars and businesses, and that will never change,” Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said in a press release issued late Saturday night. “Along with the Pride Parade, we are proud to join the party with this new event that reaffirms what this City has always stood for: that every person belongs here.”
“The festival may have been canceled, but Long Beach drag artists don’t cancel joy,” added Jewels Long Beach.
The one-day “Canceled? Never Heard of Her!” festival will take place at Bixby Park from noon to 7 p.m. Sunday. A free event, it will include music by several performers and a drag show.
More information can be found here.
Los Angeles, Ca
L.A. Jewish institution among targets of foiled terrorist attack, U.S. officials say
A Jewish institution in Los Angeles was among the locations targeted in a recently foiled terrorism plot, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton announced this week.
The thwarted terrorist attacks were the result of the recent arrest of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, an Iraqi national and senior member of Kata’ib Hizballah, U.S. officials said.
“Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, a commander for the terrorist organization, Kata’ib Hizballah, faces serious charges for his role in numerous attacks against U.S. interests across the globe, including his efforts to kill on U.S. soil,” Clayton said. “As alleged, for years, Al-Saadi committed himself to furthering the terrorist goals of Kata’ib Hizballah and the IRGC, two terrorist organizations dedicated to harming the United States and its allies.”
Al-Saadi recently attempted to carry out attacks in the U.S., officials said, including attacks at Jewish cultural places of interest in New York, Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Ariz.
“Al-Saadi attempted to disrupt American society through intimidation and violence,” a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office reads. “… Those who engage in or support terrorism against Americans and on U.S. soil should take note: the whole of the federal government is committed to dismantling terrorist organizations and bringing their members to justice.”
In a three-month period, Al-Saadi allegedly directed 18 terrorist attacks throughout Europe, including bombings, arson, and assaults targeting American citizens and points of interest. Prior to his arrest, national security officials say he was planning similar attacks on U.S. soil. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said that Al-Saadi “presented a serious threat to our national security.”
The European attacks included the bombing of the Bank of New York Mellon, an American bank, in Amsterdam on March 15. On April 29, two Jewish men, one of whom was a dual U.S.-British citizen, were stabbed and seriously injured in London.
In 2020, Al-Saadi took to social media, calling for others to attack and kill Americans in retribution for the deaths of Iranian military officer Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi military commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, U.S. officials said. In more recent months, Al-Saadi allegedly used social media to encourage the killing of Americans and Jews to further the terrorist goals of Kata’ib Hizballah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“In or about February 2026, for example, AL-SAADI posted on one of his social media accounts a message in Arabic, which read in part, ‘Do not abandon the blood of your Imam of the time, oh Shiites of Iraq. Kill everyone who supports America and Israel. Do not leave any of them remaining. Civil and military targets, as well as voices of discord, kill them everywhere.’” U.S. officials said.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch confirmed that one of the U.S. targets was a Manhattan synagogue. On April 3, Al-Saadi allegedly spoke to an undercover law enforcement officer whom Al-Saadi believed could carry out attacks in the U.S. That same day, Al-Saadi allegedly texted the undercover officers photographs and maps showing the exact location of a prominent Jewish synagogue in New York City.
Officials have not said what specific locations in L.A. and Arizona were targeted by the terrorist group.
Al-Saadi now faces numerous charges for these crimes in U.S. court. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
The case is under investigation by the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is comprised of investigators and analysts from the FBI, the NYPD, the FBI Washington Field Office, Counterterrorism Division, and more than 50 other federal, state, and local agencies. Investigators also received help from the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section, the Office of International Affairs of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
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