Recording: Key lobbyist opposed voucher-program accountability, touted financial benefit

One of Arizona’s most influential lobbyists spoke candidly to private school allies last winter about her goals for last year's expansion of the state’s controversial school voucher-style program.

The program should come with as little student accountability as possible, with schools not required to report their students' test scores to the state, Cathi Herrod, Center for Arizona Policy president, told those on the conference call. And private schools could get $4,500 per student to expand their schools — or create new campuses, she suggested.

Herrod's frank remarks, captured in a 30-minute recording obtained by The Arizona Republic, were made a day after GOP lawmakers put forward a proposal to make all of the state's 1.1 million public students eligible to use tax money for private school tuition.

At the time, Herrod and other school-choice allies were trying to marshal support for the proposal, which could fundamentally reshape Arizona’s education system and is now the subject of a November referendum.

Asked Monday about her remarks, Herrod said she was upset they had been recorded "without my knowledge" and shared with The Republic. "To use this recording of me in a private phone call with Christian school leaders as somehow being newsworthy at this point in time? I fail to see the news value," she said.

The audio offers a rare, behind-the-scenes view of efforts to shepherd controversial and closely watched legislation. The fight over expansion of the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, a potential boon for private and religious schools, has focused public interest on how Gov. Doug Ducey and other elected officials are funding the state's public education system.

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"Most of you know that I come to this issue with a long history of opposing any government regulation of students and private schools, government regulation of private schools, and especially testing," Herrod says on the recorded phone call. "I've tried to approach it with, 'My hill to die on,' as I've told members, to preserve private school autonomy — that there's no government designation of acceptable tests."

Herrod further explains her position: “As I had one dad tell me recently, ‘It’s not like I’m writing a $10,000 check without holding the school accountable for what’s going on with my children.'”

She then tells private-school operators on the call the average taxpayer subsidy for ESA students' private-school tuition. “So when you talk about trying to expand your schools or open new schools with ESA students, it would be $4,500” per student, she says.

LISTEN TO THE RECORDING

Thomas Holyoke, an associate professor of political science at California State University-Fresno, who studies interest groups and lobbying, said publishing the recording is in the public interest.

"It is certainly interesting for this kind of information to be caught in the way that you've caught it," Holyoke said. "And it probably does the public good to hear about that sort of thing so the public does have a better understanding as to what lobbyists are doing and how they're doing it — especially on sensitive issues that concern the public interest, like education."

Lax oversight

The expanded Empowerment Scholarship Account program, heralded by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and other school-choice advocates, gives parents 90 percent of the funds that would have gone to their local public school district to spend on private and religious school tuition, as well as educational materials and therapies.

Other states have adopted voucher-style program based on Arizona's model.

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But the program has been criticized for a lack of accountability in how parents spend the tax dollars and weak requirements for schools to report student performance.

A 2017 Republic investigation found lax oversight allowed parents to misspend money, while the state was powerless to get the money back. The investigation also found expansion of the ESA program has been driven by special-interest groups — not parents.

The Empowerment Scholarship Account program is currently limited to certain students, including those with special needs and those from poor-performing schools.

Under the expansion legislation that the Republican-controlled legislature narrowly passed and Ducey signed into law last year, all public students would be eligible to apply. The program would be capped at about 30,000 students by 2022.

'One voice'

The Arizona expansion legislation required a limited amount of testing.

Children in grades 3 through 12 who attend private schools with ESA money must take either a national standardized achievement examination, advanced placement exam in reading or math, Arizona statewide assessment or university admissions exam that tests reading or math. The results must be reported to the parent.

Some states with similar programs require the results to be reported to their Department of Education.

Only schools with 50 or more students who receive ESAs would be required to report scores publicly. And they would report only aggregate test scores for all students at the school — not just those receiving ESAs.

Few private schools statewide are likely to meet the 50 ESA-student threshold to make their test scores public, but Ducey's spokesman, Daniel Scarpinato, said that could change if the program is allowed to expand.

Herrod on Monday pointed to those provisions as evidence she was "one voice in a broadly-based, school-choice coalition."

Of the reporting provisions in the bill, she said, "I accepted it. I did not oppose it."

Expansion vote on 2018 ballot

The expanded program was never implemented.

A mostly grassroots group of parents and public-education advocates known as Save Our Schools collected enough signatures to refer the expansion to the November 2018 ballot.

Dawn Penich-Thacker, spokeswoman for that group, said the Herrod recording exposes the ideology driving school-choice policies in Arizona.

"This is about private schools being able to expand and plan for their profit," Penich-Thacker said of the recording. "It’s about keeping accountability and testing and reporting as absolutely low as possible.

"In this moment, when the vast majority of parents and families are sending their kids to schools that are in disrepair, and teachers are leaving in droves, instead of getting creative and innovative and collaborative, we have lawmakers all the way up to the governor figuring out how to keep these vouchers alive and get money into the private system."

What's on the recording

Herrod opens the phone call with a prayer.

She thanks "school choice leaders," the "headmasters and school principals and superintendents who are standing in the gap who are providing just a Biblical worldview in education to the students in our state."

Among the identified participants are a principal from a Christian school in Tucson, and a pastor and chairman of the board of a Christian academy in Chandler.

Herrod prays that "every parent is able to provide the school setting that best fits their child’s needs," a familiar talking point in the school-choice movement.

She then answers questions about the legislation and sketches the political complications surrounding Senate Bill 1431, the expansion legislation. She predicts a brutal fight and implores the group to pray that lawmakers advance it quickly.

Herrod says she believes Ducey, a Republican, will lend "strong support" but opponents will "scream mightily."

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At that point, Herrod speaks at length about her belief that private schools should not be required to report to the state their test scores — the primary metric used to grade public school performance.

LISTEN TO THE RECORDING

She says there is a consensus among school-choice advocates — including the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think-tank, and the Arizona Catholic Conference — that some sort of "accountability provision" be included in the legislation to win over enough Republican lawmakers and Ducey.

There was disagreement among the coalition members over testing requirements in the legislation, she says, but they will show a “united front” in public.

"Some who want the test results reported to the government, it’s so they can show that private schools are doing better," she says. "I just think that’s a path that we don’t want to go down with the government.

"My concern is that if we allow government regulation of private schools, then we’re no longer private schools — we’re on our way to becoming governmental, you know, government schools."

Herrod later adds, "... And I will say — please don’t quote me on this, I need to be careful — but I think you know ... we do work with the governor’s team on some of these things."

LISTEN TO THE RECORDING

In commenting on the recording Monday, Herrod said Ducey's team was kept apprised of the legislation but did not help write it. "It's not unusual in the legislative process to keep the Governor's Office" updated on "what's happening" with certain legislation, she said.

Scarpinato, Ducey's spokesman, said Monday that the bill the governor signed included some testing accountability that Herrod is heard opposing in the recording.

Ducey has always supported private-school testing as part of an expansion of the ESA program, Scarpinato said, although he couldn't point to public remarks in which the governor had taken that position.

"He does support accountability. He supports testing," Scarpinato said. "And he would support added accountability as we look forward."

As Herrod predicts in the recording, the debate of ESA expansion was dramatic and furious.

Herrod tells the group that supporters of the expansion were careful in describing it. "You know, we’re not calling it a ‘universal voucher bill,'" she tells them. "We’re just saying that it expands eligibility."

"Vouchers" carries a negative connotation for people who view them as a system to take money from public schools to subsidize religious education.

On Monday, Herrod said Christian school administrators see the ESA program as a way to reach more families.

"I know of some that would like to build into communities and be able to start schools, and with the ESA program, they would be able to," Herrod said. "The point of that comment is that the ESA program would enable some communities that are underserved."

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Rob O'Dell have covered Arizona's school-voucher debate for two years. Their coverage was recently recognized with an honorable mention for the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting. Reach them at yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com and rob.odell@arizonarepublic.com.

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