PHOENIX — Today, Arizona Education Association President Marisol Garcia issued the following statement in response to the Trump administration’s illegal move to freeze more than $118 million in federal funding for Arizona K-12 schools:
“This is an outrageous attempt to defund public education and steal from the 1.1 million Arizona students who attend public schools. The Trump administration has no authority to withhold funding that was already promised to our districts, and we expect this illegal freeze to be successfully challenged in the courts.
“Every single one of Arizona’s elected officials should be speaking out against this gross abuse of power. Anything less is a slap in the face to the educators and students who count on them to represent our best interests on the national stage.
“For our members, this is about more than just numbers on a page. The frozen grants (which represent more than 10% of Arizona’s total K-12 funding from the federal government) pay for teacher salaries, reading intervention programs, anti-drug campaigns, physical fitness initiatives, credit recovery programs, and so much more. If the funding is not released, it will have years-long consequences for our schools and our state as a whole.”