Teachers unions suffered yet another deserved but embarrassing defeat this week. In Arizona, the state Supreme Court found that not only did unions fail to submit enough valid signatures to get their anti-school-choice proposition on the fall ballot, but they also broke the law by hiring felons to collect signatures.
This is just the latest example of teachers unions wasting their members’ hard-earned money to fight against popular policies that most voters want. If it wasn’t clear before that teachers unions serve only their own narrow interests, not the public good, it should be now.
Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program dates to 2011, when lawmakers created the nation’s first education savings account program. Initially limited largely to students with disabilities, ESAs now allow families to take a portion of the state funding that otherwise would support a public-school education and use it for approved alternatives, including private-school tuition, tutoring, and textbooks.
Lawmakers repeatedly expanded eligibility as more and more families embraced the program. In 2022, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation making every Arizona student eligible. Demand exploded. Enrollment rose from about 11,000 students at the beginning of 2023 to more than 100,000 by January of this year, a tenfold increase in three years.
Teachers unions decided Arizona parents had too much choice, so they filed Proposition 212 to cripple the program with burdensome regulations and reporting requirements. The National Education Association poured nearly $7 million into this effort, yet still could not produce the 255,949 valid signatures necessary to qualify.
The Goldwater Institute deserves credit for scrutinizing the petitions, challenging invalid signatures, and exposing legally ineligible circulators, including felons. The Arizona Supreme Court upheld enough disqualifications to keep Proposition 212 off the ballot, preserving parents’ ability to choose the education best for their children.
Arizona is hardly alone. The Missouri National Education Association sued to stop $51 million for the MOScholars program; a state judge rejected the challenge in April. In Wyoming, the state teachers union won an injunction blocking the Steamboat Legacy Scholarship program, only to have the state Supreme Court unanimously reverse it in May, allowing scholarships of up to $7,000 to proceed while litigation continues.
Legislative attacks on behalf of the self-serving unions have fared no better. Tennessee Democrats introduced legislation to repeal three school-choice programs; the effort died, and lawmakers instead expanded Education Freedom Scholarships from 25,000 to 35,000. In North Carolina, Democratic Gov. Josh Stein vetoed legislation allowing the state to participate in the new federal tax-credit scholarship program, but lawmakers overrode him in June. In Iowa, Democrats introduced bills to restrict or repeal the state’s universal ESA program. None advanced.
EDITORIAL: BUILDING DATA CENTERS RIGHT
Why are teachers unions so hostile to school choice? Because it threatens the system from which they derive their power, in which all but the wealthiest parents are trapped, and prey to an unresponsive monopoly, while union leaders collect dues regardless of educational outcomes. School choice gives families a way out and, more importantly, introduces competition into a system unions have spent decades trying to control.
Parents and children need elected officials willing to resist unions, and they need institutions such as the Goldwater Institute willing to fight when unions turn to courts and ballot campaigns to take choice away. Arizona’s victory should be a model. Teachers unions have money and political muscle, but determined lawmakers and public-interest groups can make sure families come first.