WHY THIS IS PERSONAL

“My husband and I raised our daughters in LD3 neighborhood schools. One earned a full-ride AFROTC scholarship. The other starts law school this fall. I can trace the impact of investing in education back a generation. My father survived the Bataan Death March and spent more than three years as a prisoner of war. The GI Bill gave him the chance to go to college and become a physicist. My parents instilled in me a love of learning and the importance of high-quality education for all. Public investment in education changes trajectories across generations. I believe that with everything I have. For all Arizona public schools have given my family and me, I'm driven to pay it forward across another generation and beyond.”

Fund neighborhood schools fully and fairly

Every child in our community deserves a great school close to home — not just those whose parents can afford alternatives. Julie will fight for full, fair funding for our public schools, so that they can deliver the educational experiences, services, and programs that families in our community richly benefit from.

Recruit, pay, and retain great teachers

You can’t run a great school without great teachers. Arizona has one of the highest teacher vacancy rates in the country. Julie is driven to make teaching in Arizona a career worth building, with competitive compensation, benefits, and learning environments that are great for educators and their students.

Prepare students for an AI-driven economy

AI and technology are transforming every industry. Arizona’s public schools need the resources and curriculum to prepare students for careers that don’t exist yet. Julie believes that giving Arizona students a high-quality education to develop engaged citizens equipped for the future is the right strategy for thriving businesses and communities across our state.

Require accountability for public education dollars

Every dollar that leaves the public school system should require full transparency of purpose and educational outcomes. Arizona families deserve to know their tax dollars are being invested in high-quality learning experiences — wherever that spending occurs.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are Julie Gable's priorities for education?

Julie Gable, candidate for Arizona State House in Legislative District 3, has four core education priorities:

1. Fully and fairly funding neighborhood schools. Every child deserves a great school close to home, and Gable will fight for full, equitable funding so public schools can deliver the programs and services families depend on.

2. Recruiting, paying, and retaining great teachers. With Arizona among the highest in the country for teacher vacancies, Gable wants to make teaching a sustainable career through better compensation, benefits, and working environments.

3. Preparing students for an AI-driven economy. Gable supports equipping public schools with the resources and curriculum to prepare students for technology-driven careers — which she sees as essential for both students and Arizona's broader economy.

4. Requiring accountability for public education dollars. Gable believes any dollar leaving the public school system should come with full transparency around its purpose and outcomes.

How does Arizona rank nationally for public education?

Arizona ranks last or near last in most national education assessments. Consumer Affairs' "Best States for Public Education" report ranked Arizona:

• Last for public school funding

• 49th for student performance

• 47th for school safety

WalletHub's 2025 education rankings placed Arizona's public education system 48th among U.S. states.

How does Arizona fund its public schools compared to other states?

Arizona is among the lowest-funded states in the nation. According to the Education Law Center's 2024 "Making the Grade" report, Arizona ranks last in education funding effort, spending just 2.05% of its GDP on K-12 education, compared to 5.5% in the highest-effort state, Vermont. Arizona's statewide school district spending reached $13.1 billion in FY 2024, with an average teacher salary of $65,113. This compensation figure represents a 34.6% increase over 2017 levels.

How severe is Arizona's teacher shortage?

Arizona's teacher shortage goes back nearly a decade. According to the Arizona Department of Education's Fall 2025 Teacher Shortage Impact Report, schools planned to staff 57,567 teachers for the 2025-26 school year, but as of September 2025, 4,242 positions (7%) needed to be filled through alternative methods, including long-term substitutes, contracted personnel, classified staff, and student teachers.

More than 1,000 educators quit the teaching profession as of July 2025, and schools were still actively recruiting to fill 1,387 positions at the time of the report's publication. Separately, ADE's first formal teacher retention study found that 14.4% of educators (over 8,600 teachers) left the classroom after the 2024-25 school year, citing burnout, lack of respect, and student behavior issues as the top reasons for leaving.

How large are Arizona's public school classrooms?

Arizona has the highest student-to-teacher ratio in the country at 23 students per teacher, contributing to its low ranking in public education studies tracking the data point in their assessments. Arizona's class sizes are nearly double that of top-performing states like New York, which averages 12 students per teacher.

How are Arizona students performing academically?

According to a 2025 Harvard/Stanford Education Recovery Scorecard, Arizona ranked 41st among states in math achievement change and 35th in reading between 2019 and 2024, with average student achievement still roughly 60% of a grade level below pre-pandemic levels in both subjects.

How many students and teachers are in Arizona's public schools?

Arizona's public K-12 system comprises 236 school districts and 420 charter school districts. Arizona public schools are staffed with roughly 60,000 classroom teachers. These schools educate more than 1.1 million students, with approximately 900,000 students in district schools and 270,000 in charter schools.

How large is Arizona's charter school sector?

In 2024, Arizona's charter schools served 231,703 students across approximately 580 schools statewide, representing 21% of public school enrollment and 25% of the state's public elementary schools. Charter schools are public schools, open to all students at no cost, with independent governance rather than by elected school boards.

How do Arizona charter schools compare to district public schools academically?

Research from Stanford University's CREDO Project documents that performance varies significantly by school, with about half of charter schools posting results similar to those of their district peers. A portion of Arizona charter schools do deliver higher academic growth than local district schools: 35% of the time in reading and 38% of the time in math.

What is Arizona's Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program, and how large has it grown?

Arizona's ESA program provides state-funded accounts families can use to pay for private school tuition, homeschooling, tutoring, and other approved educational expenses. ESA spending grew from $2.2 million in 2011-12 to $886 million in 2024-25. Today, roughly 7% of Arizona's K-12 students use ESA vouchers. The Common Sense Institute projects total ESA spending will reach approximately $1.06 billion annually as enrollment stabilizes.

Who uses Arizona's ESA voucher program, and is academic performance tracked?

Most ESA users were already enrolled in private school or homeschool before receiving vouchers — 71% of universal ESA students as of 2025 — and participants are disproportionately from wealthier, higher-achieving, and whiter school districts. Researchers at Education Week, Brookings, and the Fordham Institute note that Arizona does not collect standardized academic performance data for ESA-funded students, limiting the state's ability to evaluate educational outcomes associated with the program.

How do Arizona public, charter, and private schools report academic performance?

Arizona's district public schools have the most comprehensive reporting. All students in grades three through eight, and grade ten, take annual state assessments (AzMERIT and AzSCI). Results are delivered as A-F letter grades with subgroup breakdowns. Academic year results are published by school at azreportcards.azed.gov.

Charter schools are defined as public schools and follow the same testing and reporting requirements as district schools, making their results directly comparable on the same ADE report cards.

Private schools have no state testing or reporting requirements. The Diocese of Phoenix voluntarily publishes annual Iowa Assessment results for all diocesan elementary students at catholicschoolsphx.org. The Iowa Assessment is a norm-referenced test, reflecting how students perform against a nationally representative sample of their peers.