Landmark Win for AZ Public Schools 🎉
Judge rules Arizona’s school funding is inadequate and unconstitutional, WaPo explores how vouchers drain funding and lead to school closures & more
This week ushered in a historic win for Arizona’s public schools and over 1 million students, as a Maricopa County judge ruled Arizona isn’t adequately funding school facilities needs for its public schools and found the state’s funding was unconstitutional.
🏫 School funding deemed unconstitutional: In Judge Dewain Fox's 114-page ruling, the judge included several pictures of damaged roofs, cracked floors, and peeling walls from various schools across Arizona to emphasize how some districts "languish with substandard facilities for years." He wrote: "After carefully and thoroughly reviewing the record and considering the parties’ arguments, the Court concludes that the current public-school capital finance system does not meet the constitutional minimum standards established by the Arizona Supreme Court.”
🧑⚖️ An 8-year case in the making: The Arizona Education Association, the Arizona School Board Association, the Arizona School Administrators, and several school districts first brought this case 8 years ago in 2017, arguing that the state of Arizona wasn’t meeting the obligations from a 1994 school funding ruling and wasn’t meeting school districts' minimum needs.
After a 14-day trial in late June and early July, Judge Fox concluded that the state shorted public schools at least $2.2 billion for maintenance and construction costs between 1998 and 2013 — and likely billions more in the years since, after policymakers scrapped a formula for building repairs in favor of far less funding for competitive grants. Fox also noted that chronic underfunding was compounded by the Republican-led legislature reducing another school funding stream — District Additional Assistance (DAA), which covers shorter-term capital projects that don’t involve major construction or renovation — by at least $3 billion between 2009 and 2022.
🔥 “The state is failing to adequately or equitably fund our public schools:” The case finally went to trial in May 2024 and was represented by the amazing legal team at Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest. Executive Director Danny Adelman explained how state leaders haven't properly supported public schools: "We presented mountains of evidence proving that the current system fails to provide even the most basic resources needed for a quality education. The state is failing to adequately or equitably fund our public schools. This is not only wrong, it’s unconstitutional.”
🦺 School safety issues have piled up: AEA President Marisol Garcia expanded on how crucial the ruling is, despite reports of an appeal being a possibility: “Today’s ruling is an important step in our union’s fight to get Arizona lawmakers to invest even the bare minimum in public schools. In the eight years since this case was filed, school safety issues have piled up as a result of years of short-sighted underinvestment in public education generally and in our school buildings and facilities specifically. Our members – librarians, custodians, cafeteria workers, classroom teachers, and more – stand alongside district leaders and other community advocates in this case because we care deeply about the conditions where we work and our students learn. We hope this ruling will be a wake-up call for lawmakers to do their jobs and fully fund the great public schools that Arizona deserves.”
🎉💪 Celebrate & defend: This ruling is more than a legal victory: it’s a clear directive to invest in safe, well-maintained, and fully resourced public schools for the more than 1 million Arizona students who depend on them every day. Although we expect the Republican-led legislature to appeal, lawmakers must honor this moment, end decades of neglect, and ensure that every child learns in a school worthy of their potential. For students, educators, and the future of public education in Arizona, this is a win worth celebrating – and defending.
Recently, the Washington Post published an exposé: “Public schools are closing as Arizona’s school voucher program soars.”
😔 “It’s like a death:” The profile covers the Roosevelt Elementary School District in South Phoenix, which was forced to shut 5 schools last year (nearly ⅓ of its schools) in the wake of universal voucher expansion. At the Davis Elementary school goodbye party, the librarian Antionette Nuanez said, “It’s a grieving process for me. It’s like a death.”
Vouchers drain funding, triggering school closures: Here is an excerpt from the article: “The ramifications [of voucher programs] for public education have been particularly clear in Arizona, offering an early picture of K-12 education under the Republican vision of maximum school choice, or what proponents call education freedom. Here, public schools are starting to close. The challenge: more competition for the same number of students. For the past 15 years, the state’s school-age population has remained steady… ‘You’re taking the same size pie and cutting it into more pieces,” school demographer Rick Brammer said. “As we’ve created and funded alternatives, we’ve just emptied out school after school from the districts. In a tight nutshell, that’s the whole story.’ Districts of all income levels and test scores have seen enrollment declines, Brammer said. In the Phoenix area, at least 20 schools across several districts have closed in the past year or so amid enrollment drops. Last week, the superintendent of the Kyrene Elementary School District said the district would consider closing 7-9 of its 25 schools due to enrollment drops.”
📉 How is your local school impacted? See how much funding your local school district is losing to vouchers, and what percentage of students receiving voucher funding were never in public schools 👉HERE
🏆 Join us for Trivia Night! We're thrilled to be hosting our 3rd annual Trivia Night & FUNdraiser on Weds, August 27th from 6-7pm!
We hope you join us that night AND on a team as a fundraiser to support public education! We’ll have fun music and three exciting rounds of challenging and hilarious trivia, with prizes, of course. It's going to be our BEST trivia night yet!
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Check out some incredible pictures and stories from across the state that make us #PublicSchoolProud! Do you know a story we should spotlight? Post it on social media with #PublicSchoolProud or email leda@sosarizona.org to let us know.
🤩 Congratulations to the 15 2026 Arizona Teacher of the Year honorees and semifinalists from across the state! These incredible teachers were selected from over 200 nominations, and one of the semifinalists will be chosen as the 2026 Teacher of the Year and will receive a $15,000 award from the Arizona Education Foundation later this fall.
In the Flowing Wells School District in Tucson, Agriculture Teacher Caitlin Reynolds is fostering a learning environment where students want to be in class every day! Her class allows students to design their own “Supervised Agriculture Experiences” that inspire students, even those who may struggle in school. Caitlin is one of the semifinalists for the 2026 Arizona Teacher of the Year.
🍴 Through a partnership with Scottsdale Community College and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Scottsdale Unified’s Summer Meal Program served 135,000 meals to more than 9,600 children!
Congratulations to Samanatha from Tempe Union for placing 7th place internationally for her DECA Community Giving Project! Samantha led a donation drive that collected over 2,000 items for local groups like Tempe Action Agency and the town of Guadalupe. Way to go!
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