This is the way it used to be!   This is the way it still is!   For the Arizona 2007-2008 school year, there were 1,064,023 students of which 442,273 (41.57%) were Hispanic.   These numbers will be updated as they become available.   For the Diocese of Phoenix schools in the current school year, there are 14,167 students of which 29% of K-8 and 19% of 9-12 are Hispanic totaling 6,779 Hispanic students.   In summary, there are 442,273 Hispanic students in Arizona public schools and 6,779 Hispanic students in Phoenix Catholic schools.   The Arizona Republican state legislature has gutted public school funding but has made available Arizona tax credits to fund private schools.   This decrease in public school funding plus the Republican legislation to divert public school funds to private schools by use of Arizona tax credits penalizes public schools where low and moderate income students attend.   Arizona tax credits have diverted $379 million in tax revenue to private schools since 1998.   The not so hidden agenda for the Arizona upper class white community has succeeded in devastating public school funding were minorities are found and has provided $379 million to private schools to flourish where non-minorities students attend.   The most brazenly blatant promotion of private schools in Arizona is the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix.   According to the Alliance for Catholic Education of the University of Notre Dame, nearly 70% of practicing Catholics in the USA are Hispanic. If the Notre Dame 70% for the entire USA is accurate, a safe assumption with Arizona being a border state, Arizona would have substantially more than 70%.   The Catholic Diocese of Phoenix is 81.35% Hispanic, yet the Bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix's use of tax credits is a slap in the face at Hispanic Catholics by promoting white Catholic schools devastating public schools where Hispanics attend.   This is hypocrisy at its worst.   Another example of the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix turning his back on the Hispanic Catholic community!   Now being drafted for Hispanic News: Olmsted Who Supports Arpaio now Devastating Public Schools where Hispanics Attend. Jon Garrido Chairman of the Board and CEO Act Arizona, Political Action Committee Jon@JonGarrido.com 602.244.1000

Upper, Middle Class get Nearly All of the Tax Credit Scholarships

PHOENIX (Wire Services) November 15, 2009 ― Arizona lawmakers created tuition tax-credit laws with the intent of helping low-income students attend private schools.

The largest organizations that provide tax-credit scholarships to students say much of the money is targeted at the needy.

But an Arizona Republic analysis found many scholarships go to students who are middle- and upper-income.

Four main factors drive this result:

• Under a tax credit that provides most of the money, there are no income limits for families that get the scholarships.

• Under another tax credit, the income limit is high enough to allow middle-class families to get scholarships.

• The tuition organizations say they award need-based scholarships set their own definitions of "need."

• Tax-credit donors earmark much of their money for specific students regardless of those students' need.

"Not surprisingly as a result, the beneficiaries have included kids at all income levels," said attorney Clint Bolick, litigation director of the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute and chairman of Arizona's first school tuition organization. He supports reforming the system.

Tax-credit laws essentially redirect public funds.

Rather than going to the state as taxes, the money goes to scholarships for students to attend private schools.

Under one law, individual donors can give up to $1,000 a year to fund scholarships and take a dollar-for-dollar credit off their state tax bills.

Under another law, corporations can collectively divert up to a set amount of their tax bills for private scholarships. The collective amount is $17 million this year.

In all, the tax credits have diverted about $379 million in tax revenue since 1998.

The donations go to school-tuition organizations, which handle the money and allocate the scholarships.

The corporate tax-credit law does set some income limits in order to direct scholarships to lower-income students, but the limits are relatively high. It allows scholarships for a family of four with a gross income of up to $75,467 - about $6,000 higher than the state's median income for families that size.

The bulk of tax-credit money, $349 million so far, comes through individual tax credits. For scholarships from that money, there are no income limits.

The laws don't require that school-tuition organizations provide records of who gets the scholarships, and there are no available statistics on how many of the recipients are low-income.

But an Arizona Republic analysis of private-school enrollment data, published last month, found that two of every three scholarships in 2007 likely went to students who would have attended private schools without the tax-credit aid.

Some people applaud the fact that both poor and affluent families get the scholarships, saying it promotes school choice and quality.

"If we effectively have a choice, we will have school improvement. Private schools will improve, public schools will improve," said Clark Stephens, superintendent of Valley Christian High School in Chandler. "Instead of that, we've talked about a social agenda to redistribute incomes and redistribute ethnic composition of schools. That's not the way we live in Arizona."

On Monday, a legislative committee is expected to publicly discuss results of a survey sent to every tuition organization statewide gauging their scholarship guidelines.

The survey asks the groups about how many scholarships they provide for lower-income families. But it doesn't ask for details on the scholarships those groups also give to the affluent and the middle-income.

The upper-income

Frank Miller is a Gilbert father of two middle-school students at Bethany Christian School in Tempe. Miller said he recruits friends to donate to the school to cover about one-third of the $10,000 total tuition for his sons.

Miller, who sells industrial maintenance equipment, and his wife, a financial analyst, make about $100,000 a year.

"I'm not entitled to this money, but it's a matter of empowerment," Miller said. "I want to be empowered to spend money as I deem necessary, and my few friends that help my kids with the tax credits, they're the same way."

Miller wouldn't identify the school-tuition organization through which he and his friends donate for his sons' tuition. But Bethany Christian School directs parents only to the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, the largest tuition organization in the state.

Steve Yarbrough, who runs the group, uses committees to decide which students are awarded scholarships and how much. Most scholarships awarded by the committees are based primarily on need, he said. That need is relative, however.

Scholarships are distributed school-by-school and are based on the neediest within each school rather than on those overall with the fewest resources. The committees primarily consider income, Yarbrough said, but also weigh special circumstances and donors' recommendations.

"What has been recommended is most often done, but it doesn't end there," Yarbrough said.

Still, any parent, rich or poor, can ask grandparents, aunts, neighbors, employees or friends to make a tax-credit donation and target the money to a scholarship for their child.

Although many of the state's 50-plus school-tuition organizations say they give at least some awards based on need, some of the largest ones also give money based solely on these earmarks.

Of the state's 12 largest tuition organizations, which distributed nearly 85 percent of scholarships in 2008, seven say they accept recommendations, and some of those say they award scholarships regardless of income. They're not required to report how many scholarships are given based on need, how many are based on recommendations or how much money any given student receives.

Goldwater Institute attorney Bolick supports banning the recommendations. He said tax-credit donations steered to a specific beneficiary may not be considered charitable and could be illegal.

The middle-income

Jennifer Gale's third-grade son has received about $3,000 a year in tax-credit scholarships since entering kindergarten at Pardes Jewish Day School in northeast Phoenix.

The scholarship, awarded by the Jewish Tuition Organization, covers about 30 percent of tuition. Gale, 32, lives in Scottsdale, has a graduate degree in international business and is in industrial-waste-management sales. She and her ex-husband, a chef, had a combined income of about $80,000 when her son started at Pardes, Gale said. Gale said she makes about $50,000 a year and is paying back college loans. Her ex-husband helps pay child-care costs.

Without the scholarship, Gale said she would have to find extra work to keep her son in the school, but she said it would be worth it.

"I feel it's money well spent," Gale said. "Regardless of the expense and any outside assistance programs available, I know I would find a way to invest in my son and his education."

Even though Gale and her ex-husband aren't considered low income by federal standards, they qualify to get help from the Jewish Tuition Organization to pay private-school tuition.

The tuition organization grants scholarships to the neediest of the 700 students at six small private schools that it serves, Executive Director Mark Schwartz said. It does not accept recommendations. In 2008, its average scholarship was $5,585, the highest average among the 12 largest school-tuition organizations.

This year, about 420 students, or 60 percent, received scholarships, Schwartz said. For about half those students, scholarships covered 70 percent of tuition, Schwartz said.

The organization examines family income and makes its own adjustments for medical debt load, divorce and having multiple children in private school.

After the calculations, most awards go to families with an adjusted annual income under $40,000, Schwartz said. Families with incomes up to $60,000 can get 50 percent of their tuition paid with the scholarships. Those who make up to $110,000 can get about 35 percent of tuition covered.

Donations and scholarships are a little lower this year because of the economy, Schwartz said.

The low-income

Private school would be more burdensome for the Millers or for Gale without the tax credit. For Alisha Anderson, it would consume nearly her entire paycheck after taxes.

Anderson, 22, said she makes about $20,000 a year working in a specialty machine shop in south Phoenix. She has taken out loans to attend college part time.

Anderson, a single mother, decided this school year that she had tapped relatives for as much financial help as she could while sending her son to private preschool. She wanted to keep him in the school for kindergarten.

"He was learning so much," Anderson said. "I was actually amazed. But I was doing as much as I could to get the money to stay at that school."

She couldn't afford the $950 a month for the private kindergarten. She was prepared to send him to public school.

Instead, her son's private school connected Anderson with Arizona School Choice Trust, which awards tax-credit scholarships to be used in any private school parents choose.

Anderson now pays $150 monthly to keep her child in the school.

That is the way Arizona's private-school tax-credit scholarship program was intended to work, said Michael Kelly, executive director of Arizona School Choice Trust.

"We don't accept nor support (donor) recommendations," Kelly said. "I have heard from others that they wanted to give an opportunity to middle-class families. However, that has never been our mission."

Arizona School Choice Trust uses the same income-eligibility cap the state sets for corporate tax-credit scholarships, but the families it helps rarely get close to the maximum income, Kelly said.

About 75 percent of scholarships went to families with adjusted gross incomes of $37,000 or less; one Tucson family of five lived on $10,000 a year, Kelly said. None of Arizona School Choice Trust's scholarship families had an adjusted gross income higher than $51,000 a year as indicated on their tax return, Kelly said.

Arizona School Choice Trust awarded 1,234 scholarships last year to 600 families at 125 schools, Kelly said.

"There have been instances where people have been just shy of the requirement and we've had to refuse providing scholarships," Kelly said. "Because if we make one decision that's an exception, we feel we violate the tenets of our mission."