A Senate Democrat has proposed a bill to repeal the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit, which passed in President Donald Trump’s budget bill last year.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, made numerous disputed claims in an op-ed announcing the Keep Public Funds in Public Schools Act, including the accusation that school choice is “busting our state budget” and forcing public schools to close.
Jenny Clark, a school choice advocate and former member of Arizona’s State Board of Education, called Kelly’s claims “completely embarrassing.”
“First of all, there was a surplus last year in the Department of Education, and the ESA program is only $7,500 per student, while Arizona public school students receive closer to $15,000 per student,” Clark said in a video posted to X. The education savings account program is 90% of state funding per public school pupil and does not include federal money, “so every time a kid goes on an ESA, taxpayers save, and the money for the ESA program was already part of the Arizona K-12 budget. There’s no budget busting here.”
Clark then addressed claims that students using Empowerment Scholarships to attend private schools are causing public schools to close. Data shows most students are transferring to other public schools, not private schools.
Kelly called the program a “failed experiment” that should not be taken national, but Clark cited its growth to more than 100,000 students, which “sounds wildly successful to me.”
Kelly also claimed “most working...
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