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In the state Senate, where Republicans hold a narrow majority, it's unclear if the expansion legislation will muster enough votes to advance.

Byanca Carrasco is helped by her mother, Ramona, during an exercise in a musical-therapy session led by Lorena Hernandez on Feb. 3, 2016, at Musical Surprise in Surprise. Byanca, who was born with Down syndrome, is able to attend the musical-therapy program with her mother through the Empowerment Scholarship Account program.(Photo: Danny Miller/The Republic)

Republican lawmakers in the Arizona Legislature areattempting to fast-tracka plan to eventually offervouchers to every public-school studentand, in separate legislation,privatize oversight of the public money given to parents to pay private-school tuition and other expenses.

Beginning Thursday, the Legislature will train its sights on the plan to broaden eligibility for Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, a school-choice program created six years ago for disabled children. Under the legislation, all of Arizona's 1.1 million students would be eligible for the program by 2020.

Sen. Debbie Lesko, of Peoria, and Rep. John Allen, of Scottsdale, have introduced identical bills to expand the program in their chambers, amove intended to expedite passage. ESAs allowfamilies touse public-school dollars on private-school tuition and other educational expenses.

ESAs would be offered to four grades in 2017-18 and incrementally to all public-schoolstudents by 2020-21. The first hearing on the expansion bills will be Thursday at 9 a.m. by the Senate Education Committee.

Senate Republicans have also introduced another bill that would privatizeoversight of the program and force the state Department of Education to deposit money into ESA accounts as soon as the parent agrees to the terms of the program.

Betsy DeVos speaks during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Jan. 17, 2017.(Photo: Jack Gruber/USA TODAY)

The proposal comes as the school-choice movement has been thrust into the national spotlight, as one of its chief advocates nationally, Betsy DeVos, was confirmed this week as U.S. Education secretary.

ArizonaRepublicans say their effort to expand the program may be buoyed by the confirmation of DeVos, a Michigan billionaire whose organization until recently advocated for the voucher-style program here and elsewhere. The group, American Federation for Children, sought to influencestate legislative races forcandidates it deemed supportive of its agenda,and is advising Republican Sen. Steve Smith, of Maricopa, on his legislation to change the way the ESA program runs.

Republicans also note their support last year of Proposition 123, which puts $3.5 billion over 10 years into public schools. They abandoned an effort to expand ESAs last year,in partbecause it interfered with the governor's desire to garner voter support for Prop.123, which settled a long-standing lawsuit over state leaders' underfunding of schools during the recession.

Senate President Steve Yarbrough, a pro-school-choice Republican,said the political climate is now favorable to phasingin an expansion of the program.

"A lot of us did all we could to make (Prop.) 123 successful worked on it before it was introduced, and (I) did everything in my power to help it move successfully through the process," he toldThe Arizona Republicon Wednesday. "This could be a good time to take a shot at it, and my friend just got confirmed as the United States secretary of Education."

The expansion legislation renews thelong-standing debate over how far Arizona should go in allowing parents to use tax money to customize their kids' education through private schooling, therapy, homeschooling,tutors, college savings, and other programsoutside traditional public district schools.

Arizona was the first to create an ESA program. Ithas since been adopted inother states, including Nevada, Florida andMississippi.

Arizona'sEmpowerment Scholarship Account program was initially created to help students with special needs get tailored therapies,educational resources and curriculum. Republican lawmakers have since expanded the program to include the children of active-duty military parents or guardians, siblings of those in the ESA program, students who attend public schools with a state grade of D and F and others.

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About 3,200 children participate in the program, which is currently capped at about 5,000 students. This years' ESA budget is about $40 million, according to the state Department of Education, which oversees the program.

Critics say expansion of the program would siphon away too much money from public schools, that too much money from the program is being misspent, and that the program would subsidizebetter-off families, while poorer families would be unable to use the program because they may not be able to afford the remaining costs ofprivate schooling, including tuition and transportation.

Critics also say state leaders should instead focus on putting more money into public schools, through teacher raises, all-day kindergarten and other programs.

Chris Kotterman, who lobbies for the Arizona School Boards Association, said the state should focus on adequately funding public education.

"It's just a fundamental, philosophical issue: The state's first and only responsibility is to fund public education," he said. "When you have funding issues like we have teacher retention, and basic things like that it's not responsible to funnel general-fund dollars into private schools."

Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association, said the expansion of ESAs is really an attempt to privatize education. "There's no way in the world we need to be taking away from public schools and giving it to private schools," Thomas said.

State Sen. Debbie Lesko, of Peoria, supports the school-voucher legislation.(Photo: Special for The Republic)

But Lesko, who introduced the expansion bill in the Senate and said she is confident it will pass, countered that the state can do both. She said parents should have more control over how to spend their child's taxpayer-generated education money, and that ultimately, they are responsible for their child'seducation.

Under Senate Bill 1431 and House Bill 2394, third-graders through 12th-graders who are not disabled would be required to take standardized tests and the results would be reported to the parents. Student achievement of ESA recipients is not tracked by the state.

"I think we can increase funding to K-12 (public) education, and expand ESA eligibility," Lesko said, noting Gov. Doug Ducey's budget calls for $114 million in new spending. "Ibelieve that if this bill passes out of the Legislature, the governor will sign it."

Lesko said she has talked to gubernatorial staffers about the bill, but has not spoken directly with the governor.Ducey refused to say last week whether he would sign the legislation.

In addition to the expansion effort, a separate bill, Senate Bill 1281, would require the Department of Education to contract with a private firm to manage oversight of the ESA accounts. It also requires the Department of Education to fund the ESAs immediately after parents sign ESA paperwork,and prevents the department from delaying funding of the accounts

Smith said his legislation, which advanced through the Senate Education Committee last week,is intended to help parents who have had problems with the program, including missed payments by the Department of Education.

It just provides even more transparency, he said. Its the ultimate transparency bill for ESAs.

Asked if he trusts the Department of Educationto run the program, he said, Thats why a provision of this bill allows for third-party vendors to kind of come in and help with that. I think theres some concern there." A recent auditidentified $102,000 of misspending over six months in the ESA program; only 15 percent of that money was recovered, the audit found.

Jonathan Butcher, education director for the Goldwater Institute, said in an email that "to more effectively serve students and families, the application process and financial transactions ...should be outsourced to entities that specialize in these services." He said contractors should be required to submit reports to the Arizona auditor general.

State Sen. Kate Brophy McGee, of Phoenix, opposes the school-voucher legislation.(Photo: The Republic)

In the Senate, where Republicans narrowly control the chamber, it is unclear if the expansion legislation will muster enough votes to advance.

Republican Sen. Kate Brophy McGee, of Phoenix, opposes the legislation, and Republican Sen. Bob Worsley, of Mesa, told the newspaper he is concerned the legislation is too aggressive.

Worsley said he is concerned about "whether or not the financial system would break" if lawmakers send "ESA money out the door in an unlimited way."

Republican Sen. John Kavanagh, of Fountain Hills, has no qualms with expanding the program, saying it would ensure parentshave better control over their child's academic performance. He said expansion of the program would help more low-income students who could not otherwise afford private-school tuition,and could save the state money since students would get 90 percent of what they would receive if they attended public district schools.

"We started with competition between charter and public schools, then homeschooling, and now it's private schools and religious schools," he said. "Let them all compete competition lets them all perform better."

Tucson Sen. David Bradley, a Democrat, said he would only support expansion if schools that accept ESA payments acceptall students, no matter their academic performance or disability.

"The public-school system has to take all comers, whereas a private school can say, 'We can't handle this kid,' " said Bradley. "My belief is, in the long run, the poor get left behind in this deal."

Republic reporter Alia Beard Rau contributed to this article.

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