Hall Pass: Your Ticket to Understanding School Board Politics, Edition #164

By

Ballotpedia staff

Welcome to Hall Pass, a newsletter written to keep you plugged into the conversations driving  school board governance, the politics surrounding it, and education policy. 

In today’s edition, you’ll find:

  • On the issues: The debate over Alpha Schools  
  • School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
  • School board authority across the 50 states series (Week 3): How does school board authority over charter schools differ by state?
  • Arizona Department of Education approves new guidance for private school choice program
  • Extracurricular: education news from around the web
  • Candidate Connection survey

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On the issues: The debate over Alpha Schools

In this section, we curate reporting, analysis, and commentary on the issues school board members deliberate when they set out to offer the best education possible in their district. Missed an issue? Click here to see the previous education debates we’ve covered.

Alpha Schools are private K–12 schools that use AI tools to give students 1:1 personalized education in about two hours of instruction time per day. The remaining time each day is spent on enrichment activities and life skills. Eighteen locations exist across the country serving various grade levels.

Stand Together—a philanthropic network founded by businessman Charles Koch—writes that one-on-one AI instruction is more effective than traditional models. The organization says Alpha Schools could model an innovative approach for other K-12 schools and give students more time to learn and practice their passions.

James O’Hagan writes that Alpha Schools select top students from high-income families through rigorous admissions processes and expensive tuition. O’Hagan says Alpha Schools are unlikely to provide scalable solutions for more diverse groups of students, and recommends greater skepticism toward the unproven model.

Could children learn in a third of the time they do now? | Staff, Stand Together

“For more than a century, traditional public schools have followed the same formula: One teacher standing in front of a classroom of kids — for hours on end. And it’s not working. … What does work? Learning science confirms one-on-one learning is most effective. But how can one teacher provide personalized instruction for 20-plus students? They can’t. But AI tutors can. … The result: Students are learning twice as fast as kids in traditional classrooms and excelling. Alpha School students regularly place in the top 2% on standardized tests. … If kids only spend two hours a day on academic work, what do they do during the rest of their time at Alpha School? Amazing things — things they’re passionate about, things that make them great learners. They learn life skills through workshops, where they can code self-driving cars, make pasta, and even manage an Airbnb. … Alpha School is just one example of the groundbreaking innovation transforming education today, setting a brighter course for the future of learning.”

Innovation Without Critique Isn’t Reform. It’s Marketing. | James O’Hagan, Medium

“I’ve lived the mess. I’ve tried the same experiments. But the difference is, I didn’t filter who walked through the door. Which is why I can’t sit silent while a $40,000 boutique model built on exclusivity is held up as proof that public education is broken. Especially when it’s done through media platforms that should be asking better questions. … I know what real equity actually demands. It’s not curated admissions. It’s not IQ tests used to gatekeep who gets to teach. It’s not a motivational speaker with a product roadmap. And it sure as hell isn’t turning pedagogy into a branded platform you can license like software. Equity is messy. It’s public. It’s (sadly) underfunded. It’s serving kids who don’t come with clean data and predictable outcomes. If your model can’t hold that, it’s not a solution. It’s a luxury. … If we’re going to reimagine school, let’s do it rooted in pedagogy. In transparency. In care for the teaching profession. Let’s build something rooted in public good — not a polished illusion that depends on people not asking hard questions while the licensing deals roll in.”

School board update: filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications

In 2025, Ballotpedia will cover elections for more than 30,000 school board seats. We’re expanding our coverage each year with our eye on covering the country’s more than 80,000 school board seats.    

  • Aug. 5—Kansas, Washington
  • Aug. 12—Minnesota, Utah
  • Aug. 26—Alabama
  • Sept. 16—New Hampshire

Arizona Department of Education approves new guidance for private school choice program

On June 23, following a yearslong debate over how to interpret state law, the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) voted 8-1 to approve changes to the state’s 2025-26 Empowerment Scholarship Accounts handbook. The Empowerment Scholarship Account program provides families with taxpayer-funded accounts for private educational expenses. The ADE added language allowing for stricter oversight of some educational expenses to the handbook but rejected proposed spending caps. 

Supporters of Arizona’s program said ADE overstepped its authority when it sought to place additional requirements and restrictions on how participating families could use the Empowerment Scholarship Account money. ADE officials, including Superintendent Tom Horne (R), said the stipulations were necessary because some families were using the money for extravagant purchases with no discernible educational benefits. 

Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program enrolls more than 83,000 students, making it one of the largest private school choice programs in the country. Approximately 1,150,000 students are enrolled in Arizona’s K-12 public schools. 

Why it matters: The wrangling over how to implement Arizona’s law, the first in the country to expand eligibility to all K-12 students, provides a window into the broader challenges state education departments are facing as they implement private school choice programs. 

  • As of July, 18 states had enacted private school choice programs with universal or near universal eligibility. 
  • Fifteen of the 18 states have Republican trifectas, while three—including Arizona—have divided governments. Twelve of the 15 states with Democratic trifectas have no private school choice programs, and none have universal eligibility. 

Zoom in: The ADE added a number of considerations to the 2025-26 handbook it will use to evaluate reimbursement requests. State law requires annual updates to the handbook, but ADE declined to make any changes to it in 2024 after some parents and state lawmakers balked at proposed caps on some expenditures.

  • Under the new handbook, ADE will now consider factors that include “whether the Department has previously approved of the expense or item for the qualified student or for another qualified student in similar circumstances” and “the cost or quantity of the expense or item is not greater than what meets the student’s education needs and circumstances in relation to other readily-available and reasonable alternatives.”

What critics are saying: Critics have alleged ADE, which administers the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program, has approved unauthorized expenses since 2022, when the legislature expanded eligibility requirements. Students who aren’t attending a public school can receive up to 90% of the amount districts receive per pupil, typically between $6,000-$9,000. For students with disabilities, it can be much more.

Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) has called the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts a “billion-dollar boondoggle.”

In 2024, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) opened an investigation into ADE for allowing families to purchase “supplementary material” without requiring documentation. Mayes alleged the law required families to submit proof the purchases had educational value.

  • Horne told reporters he disagreed with Mayes’ interpretation of the law but instructed ADE to require supporting documentation anyway, saying he likely would have lost in court.  
  • Horne agreed some families were taking advantage of the program, saying ADE denied the following reimbursement requests: “A $5,000 Rolex watch. I suspect that was probably for a parent. A $24,000 golf simulator, probably also for a parent, believe it or not, a vasectomy testing kit.”

The other side: Advocates for the program have argued the new handbook will increase the bureaucratic hurdles families will need to navigate to use the program, and that the stricter requirements will fall most heavily on low-income families or those with disabled children. 

  • Angie Faber, whose daughter participates in the program and has autism and vision issues, said the new requirements are “expensive, time-consuming, and in many cases impossible to get. Medical providers aren’t going to write letters for specific school supplies, and Horne knows that. This isn’t about protecting taxpayer dollars, it’s about making the process so difficult that families give up.” 
  • Some families have complained they’ve waited months for ADE to approve reimbursement requests. 

Primary challenge: Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee (R), who is term-limited, announced in May that she would challenge Horne in the 2026 primary.

  • Yee criticized Horne’s handling of the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, saying, “There is full government overreach coming out of the Department of Education at the hands of the state superintendent.”
  • In April, state Sen. Jake Hoffman (R) said Horne was “the single greatest threat to nearly 100,000 students and their families that are utilizing those programs right now” and vowed to find a candidate to challenge him for the nomination. Hoffman endorsed Yee. 

Go deeper: In 2022, then-Gov. Doug Ducey (R) signed HB 2853, expanding Arizona’s existing Empowerment Scholarship Accounts to include all K-12 students. Previously, the program, created in 2011, primarily served students with disabilities, active-duty military parents, and those living on Native American reservations. 

We covered Arizona’s expansion of its Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program in the July 6, 2022, edition of Hall Pass. 

Click here to learn more about private school choice. Our page on the effect private school choice has on rural school districts includes debates, studies, and an analysis of state legislature voting patterns. 

School board authority across the 50 states series (Week 3): How does school board authority over charter schools differ by state?

Welcome back to our eight-week series on the scope of school board authority. Last week, we discussed the constraints school boards face when establishing district policy. This week, we will discuss school board authority over the establishment of charter schools in their district.

Charter schools are public schools operated independently of the public school system, either by nonprofit or for-profit organizations. 

These schools are exempt from many of the requirements imposed by state and local boards of education regarding hiring and curriculum. Charter schools typically receive a percentage of the per-pupil funds from the state and local school districts for operational costs based on enrollment. 

Each state has different laws governing the establishment of charter schools. They must be authorized by a public entity, which can include state or local boards of education, state charter authorizing entities, state superintendents of education, or any combination of the above.

Ballotpedia’s survey of the charter school laws in the U.S. found that:

  • 10 states do not authorize school boards to make decisions on whether to approve new charter schools in their districts.
  • 36 states grant school boards at least some authority to approve new charter schools in their districts, deny approval to new charter schools, or both.
  • 3 states do not have laws governing charter school authorization.
  • 1 state allows school districts to apply to the state board of education to be a charter school district.

Of the 36 states where school boards have some authority in the charter school authorization process, involvement varies. Some school boards have the sole approval authority over an application to establish a charter school, while others make an initial decision, and state entities confirm or reverse it. Other states allow local boards to confirm or reverse a state decision.

Tune in next week to read about school board authority over election timing. Visit our research hub to learn more about school board authority over charter schools in your state.

Extracurricular: education news from around the web

This section contains links to recent education-related articles from around the internet. If you know of a story we should be reading, reply to this email to share it with us! 

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Today, we’re looking at survey responses from two candidates running in the Aug. 5 primary for District 1 on the Northshore School District school board, in Washington. Northshore School District, located northeast of Seattle, is the sixth largest district in the state. Roughly 23,000 students attended Northshore during the 2022-23 school year. 

Carson Sanderson is a community volunteer whose four children attended Northshore. Sanderson graduated from Princeton University in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree. 

Brian Travis works in hospitality management. Travis earned a bachelor’s degree from Central Washington University in 2018 and a graduate degree from Western Governors University in 2020. 

Here’s how Sanderson answered the question, “What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?”

  • “We need to balance our budget while rebuilding our financial reserves and maintaining our educational excellence. We need to continue to lobby the legislature for more funding as well as come up with creative solutions with partners in the community to soften the classroom impacts of budget cuts.
  • We must develop a plan for future growth in the north region of our district where the eastward movement of the urban growth line increases population density and quickly overfills nearby schools. I believe that we should work with the Snohomish County Council to secure land for more schools when they next move the urban growth line. At the same time, we need to make plans for managing a predicted 8% decrease in birth rate which will reduce enrollment in other parts of the district. Here we can consider placing desired choice programs in smaller schools that can draw in students from other areas or districts.
  • Our district added mental health resources to schools during the pandemic and it must be maintained to ensure all students can access the support they need regardless of their economic status or access to transportation. We must also provide our counselors and teachers professional development on how common mental health issues, such as anxiety, autism, and ADHD, affect students. This will allow us to better serve neurodiverse students in ways that support their differences and their growth. Meeting student needs can also reduce the incidence of additional mental health concerns caused both by failing to meet the needs of neurodivergent students and by the increased stress students feel when masking their differences.”

Click here to read the rest of Sanderson’s responses. 

Here’s how Travis answered the question, “What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?”

  • “Restoring and protecting parental rights.
  • Educating children in everyday practical life matters such as not spending more then you earn, avoiding dangerous levels of credit card debt, not taking excessive student loan debt for college; and considering careers in occupational trades to avoid overpriced and often worthless college degrees.
  • Teach children that their actions both in and out of school have short and long term consequences”

Click here to read the rest of Travis’ responses. 

If you’re a school board candidate or incumbent, click here to take the survey.

The survey contains more than 30 questions, and you can choose the ones you feel will best represent your views to voters. If you complete the survey, a box with your answers will appear in your Ballotpedia profile. Your responses will also appear in our sample ballot.

And if you’re not running for school board, but there is an election in your community this year, share the link with the candidates and urge them to take the survey!