Since 2022, AZ taxpayers funded $7.25M in Legos that individual families kept for themselves.
Every AZ K12 teacher could have spent ~$125 on purchases *for their whole class, present & future* w those "take my toys & go home" Lego sets.
[And yes, my code for this analysis was straight bananas.]
One huge problem here is that the child, or children who were deprived of education (because this is how the money was spent) have no legal recourse for those damages - quantifiable, life long damages due to deprivation of education. All in the name of "parent empowerment"
Purchases from one Arizona ESA user, obtained by Craig Harris at Arizona 12 News
What makes the data recently obtained by AZ 12 News’ Craig Harris a new chapter in the ESA debate is the presence of unique IDs. Earlier data allowed statements about overall purchases; now you can see the set tied to a single account.
This account holder bought estrogen, progesterone & a pool.
In a new filing with the SEC, Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, revealed that in 2025 it lost $712 million and brought in just $3.7 million in revenue.
Congratulations to @camarnzen.bsky.social on his appointment as Assistant Professor of Political Science at North Central College! His research examines how education policy & institutions shape democratic participation, governance, & public life. We’re excited to see this work continue.
I have a pretty wild imagination and still have been blown away by what families are buying with Arizona ESA money.
BREAKING
Former ICE agent:
On my first day training new cadets, I received secretive orders to teach them to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant.
The Scarcity Loop: How School Choice Reshapes the Rationing of Education Jennifer L. Jennings Blackboard with chalk and eraser
Since so many of us are inside & online, it's auspicious the final book cover just came in.
February's NEPC Talks Education podcast is here! @cmsaldana.bsky.social interviews @ericaoturner.bsky.social and @bryanmann.bsky.social about how demographic change is reshaping American schools and how current policy responses can promote equity and integration. bit.ly/3OjNEEO
COULD have been written by AI...OR cut and pasted from any of a number of DER commentaries written in the 1990s. No serious reflection about anything that's come since...including the pro-choice movement's shift in emphasis from public school choice to unregulated private school choice.
What. On. Earth.
To put this in perspective, the federal government spends *a combined* $33 billion each year on Title I (for low income families) and IDEA (for special needs students).
You can't buy a rotisserie chicken for humans with SNAP $, but you can buy rotisserie chicken-flavored cat and dog toothpaste (last line) with Arizona ESA $.
No Chicken Left Behind, voucher version:
This is a small sample of chicken-related items Arizona auto-approved for Education Savings Account users.
Arizona has declined to release data showing what funds, if any, have been recouped through auditing.
Now do school vouchers
"Attendees engaged in ways that broke with long-standing behavioral norms, mirroring the current style of national politics. Negativity, insults, and even threats to elected leaders grew in frequency, leading to polarization and an us-versus-them atmosphere" www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
Mike Johnson always falsely states proposals he wants to bat down. No one has proposed that ICE agents wear their addresses. The proposal is that dress and act exactly as they did from the founding of the agency until Stephen Miller decided to give it a makeover
And this is by design. Voucher folks were gung-ho to use same scale as public schools until ~2015-6 when horrific Louisiana and Indiana results came out.
They even tried to quash those results for a year or more.
Since then, the strategy has been kill as many testing requirements as possible.
Jay Inslee @JayInslee X.com In the midst of ICE horror, the Senate needs to prohibit Trump from using ICE as a voter suppression tool. Senate Dems need to put into the approps bill a prohibition on ICE agents being near polling places. This is a must have. Last chance to do this.
This needs to happen at the very least
Two DOGE members working at the Social Security Administration were secretly in touch with a group seeking to “overturn election results in certain states,” and one signed an agreement that may have involved using Social Security data to match state voter rolls"
www.politico.com/news/2026/01...
Dang they should join some kind of treaty organization
Great to see this paper finally in print (with my excellent co-author, Alyssa Barone)!
tl;dr: When high-profile partisan officials engage in ed policy debates, the chief consequence is increased polarization among the public along partisan lines
(surprising, I know)
direct.mit.edu/edfp/article...
To ring in the new year, I'm excited to announce the launch of the Politics of Education Lab (PEdL) at the Stanford GSE. The goal is to advance understanding of the political dimensions of education policymaking to help policymakers and practitioners strengthen school systems.
pedl.stanford.edu
can we skip directly to November 2028?
Congratulations are in order for @mimiarnoldlyon.bsky.social who was awarded a research grant through the William T. Grant Foundation to study the impact of school board election timing policies on educational equity. Lyon and two fellow researchers were awarded $299,083 through the grant.
Washington DC’s Opportunity Scholarship Program (Vouchers for Low-Income Students to Attend Private School): high-quality RCT of students entering grades 2-12 in 2004-2005 found no discernible long-term impact on college enrollment rates. nospin.evidencebasedpolicy.org/articles/was...
How do administrative designs shape access to democracy? We analyze U.S. school district websites and meetings to show how bureaucracy and group mobilization facilitate access to school board info and the democratic process. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @jonathanecollins.bsky.social
Shell Game is back! Every time Evan tells me something about this season I wind up laughing hysterically even though it’s also obviously very depressing that some people are so desperate to ruin our lives and jobs for this vaporware technology
Given education's essential role in shaping democracy and its recent drift into general, partisan politics, we argue that poli sci should take seriously studying the broader political dynamics of education & offer suggestions as to how to do so.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
@camarnzen.bsky.social and @chloeoneill.bsky.social explore how political science courses can better integrate education politics into the curriculum in “Teaching About Schooling: Integrating Education Politics into Political Science Curricula.”
🔗 doi.org/10.1080/1551...
