Most voters believe Arizona is spending “too little” on K-12 public education, according to a recent poll by the Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News.
According to the poll, 74 percent of voters believe the state is spending “too little” on education. This news reaffirms that education is still a priority of voters. Another poll from the Morrison Institute of Public Policy and Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2015 showed similar results, with 74 of voters saying the state was spending too little on education, according to the Republic.
These results align with the Arizona Charter Schools Association’s candidate survey, which we conducted earlier this summer with every legislative candidate, including those who ran in the primary election.
According to the survey, 87 percent of respondents ranked education as their first or second overall priority.
When we asked candidates “What is the greatest challenge facing public education in Arizona today?”, funding was among the top responses, along with other topics such as teacher shortages and overregulation.
As Arizona’s largest charter support organization, the Association is ready to tackle the challenge of fixing Arizona’s broken school finance system, and working with state leaders and other organizations who will implement financial reforms and invest funds critical to ensuring student achievement.
We believe education should and must be the top priority for lawmakers this session. It’s encouraging to know that both political candidates and Arizona voters agree as we strive to improve resources for our hard-working educators and students.
