Heather Mace: Arizona’s young people deserve child-first policies

The Arizona state Legislature’s spring session is coming to a close, and a number of the bills that have been considered share a common theme: regulating what happens in our children’s schools.

Typically, these bills claim to protect children from harmful ideas or provide them with valuable educational opportunities. However, upon closer reading, some of these bills essentially do the opposite; they weaken and erode our already fragile educational system. Whether by banning curriculum, politicizing students’ personal lives, or cutting school funding, these bills often prioritize the will of partisan voters over the needs of young people.

In fact, some of the bills were not even crafted with Arizona’s children in mind. They are simply copies of “model bills” written by special interest groups to advance their own agendas. As a result of this highly politicized process, these bills rarely address the issues that would truly benefit our children. While this may leave Arizonans feeling disheartened, it also provides an opportunity for us to imagine how a true child-first policy agenda might look.

At its core, it would prioritize children’s safety. That means legislators would finally have to address the number one killer of American children: gun violence. In addition to the small but devastating risk of school shootings, 65% of pediatric firearm deaths are homicides, and 35% are categorized as suicide. The government already funds research to prevent childhood fatalities from drug overdoses and car accidents. Child-first legislation would also support gun violence research and use that data to create policies that put children’s safety ahead of gun lobbyists’ interests.

Next, legislators would ensure that students are getting the mental health services they require. A recent CDC study showed that nearly 1 in 3 high school girls considered suicide, and almost 60% felt persistently sad or hopeless for prolonged periods last year. School counselors can help students in crisis, but while Arizona’s counselor-to-student ratio has improved in recent years, it still ranks second-to-last in the nation. A policy that prioritizes children would authorize funds to hire more counselors to assist students who need support.

Speaking of funding, any child-first agenda would ensure that all children have access to a well-funded public education. If that were our state’s current goal, legislators would be fighting to raise Arizona’s education funding from an embarrassing 48th place. Instead, some continue to propose bills to expand Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, which divert money from public schools, and slash the taxes that fund over 90% of our children’s educations. By putting children first, legislators would have to look beyond the demands of their wealthy friends and constituents. If they could believe that every child is worthy of receiving a quality education, they would unanimously pass any bills that fund the schools our children deserve.

Finally, an education policy centered on children would respect and celebrate the diversity of our students. Some legislators have bent over backwards to do the opposite, expending extraordinary effort to regulate transgender students’ bathroom use or ban equity and diversity training programs for school employees. Child-first legislation would not exclude children or silence discussions about equity but would ensure all students feel safe, welcome, and respected in their schools.

While this legislative session is winding down, some bills that impact children may still be under consideration. You can find them at https://legiscan.com/AZ/legislation/2023 and contact legislators to share your opinions. However, the best way to ensure that child-first legislation becomes the norm is to examine the voting records of our current representatives. Are they truly champions for children, or do the bills they support tell a different story? Lawmakers from all parties need to prioritize policies that benefit children, not special interests. If they don’t, young people may not be able to vote them out, but we adults can. And for the sake of our children, we must.