North Pima News

Arizona House of Representatives Democratic leader Andres Cano has faced criticism for sharing a news release from the Arizona Department of Education where he allegedly cropped out the part that explains how the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) save money.

Merissa Hamilton, chair of Empowering Grassroots to Save America, took to Twitter saying, "You are really bad at math. ESAs cost half the amount to educate kids as regular government schools Plus all local money is left in the school with fewer students to educate Teachers earn more with ESAs too."

Cano opposes the ESAs, which are designed to help fund school choice for students. He is accused of intentionally withholding the information from the public in a Twitter post to spread false claims.

Cano tweeted: “BREAKING: The AZ Dept. of Education is predicting that the state's GOP taxpayer-funded private school voucher program will grow to 100,000 students in '24 at a whopping $900M per year! Without reform, Empowerment Scholarship Accounts will bankrupt our state and our public schools”

In the tweet he included a portion of a letter that was from the Department of Education executive director of the ESA program Christine Accurso to Joint Legislative Budget Committee member Patrick Moran. 

It is noted in Hamilton's Twitter post “Cano has cropped out the portion of the letter which explains how this program saves the state money. The cropped out portion directly counters his claim that this program will 'bankrupt our state.'”

The paragraph that was edited out stated the program actually saves the state money due to a large percentage of students enrolling in the ESA program transitioning from public schools.

ABC 15 reported that Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said students who will be protected for the next year and will be educated somewhere. 

“They’re either going to be educated in the public schools or they’re going to be educated in ESAs and so the state is going to have a cost and if it the ESAs, it’s going to be 10% less,” Horne said.

Jen Wright, a lawyer who uses #ElectionIntegrityHawk in her Twitter profile, said of Cano’s tweet, “This is what panicking looks like. Misrepresenting the @azedschools letter stating the switch from public to #ESA funding will save the state money. The only thing in jeopardy of bankrupting is failing government schools.”