PHOENIX – Arizona lawmakers expanded the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program Thursday to any student in the state, but imposed caps on the number of students that can enroll.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation Tuesday that will allow any student to use state tax dollars for a variety of education expenses, including private school tuition. Republican lawmakers initially wanted to expand the program to allow all of the state’s 1.1 million public school students to use the program by 2021, but were forced to settle for a more gradual expansion with a cap of 30,000 students by 2022 to get the measure through the legislature, The Arizona Republic reports.

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The state’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee estimated that the initial proposal would cost the state $24 million, but the revised bill that became law will result in a $3.4 million general fund savings in 2021.

The ESA program, launched in 2011, was limited to special needs students, those from poor-performing schools, foster kids, Native Americans, and children of military members, and the changes open up eligibility to all students within several years.

“Am estimated 5,500 additional students would be allowed to sign up each year, but no more than about 30,000 could sign up by 2022,” the Republic reports.

Despite the limitations and cost savings, Democrats and public school activists attacked lawmakers as the voted on the measure at the Capitol Thursday night with shouts of “Shame!” from the gallery.

The bill reduces the basic voucher under the program from about $5,600 a year to $4,400 for most families, and also requires schools that accept at least 50 students with vouchers to administer the same standardized tests used in traditional and charter public schools, according to Capitol Media Services.

“As a body, we support all education, whether it’s in a district school, a charter school, private school, online school or homeschool,” said Sen. Debbie Lesko, a Peoria Republican and sponsor of the bill. “This ESA legislation will just provide one more option for parents to improve education for their child.”

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Sen. Bob Worsley, the Mesa Republican responsible for the significant changes to water down the expansion, told Capital Media Services “it’s the best deal we can get.”

“I am not a proponent of ESAs. I am not a proponent of no ESAs. I am simply a senator trying to find a pragmatic solution between two warring factions here in the state,” Worsley told the Republic. “This amendment is to find what I thought is the best happy medium. This amendment will give the opportunity to private schools to belly up to the bar and prove they can deliver the results in the next six years. …

“It gives us six years of some peace and quiet in this body to let this program do its thing and prove to us that the private schools can deliver superior results from this experiment.”

Democrats, meanwhile, cried that the expansion is another effort to “dismantle” public education and alleged it was simply a handout to rich folks who are already planning to enroll their children in private schools.

“This is no compromise at all,” Senate Minority Leader Kaite Hobbs told CMS. “This is lipstick on a pig.”

Senate Democrat Steve Farley alleged the measure strikes at the core of the fight “over the future of public education” in Arizona.

“We’re looking at a transfer from the have-nots to the haves,” he said. “A lot of people have said this is a six-year experiment. I don’t believe we should experiment on our children.”

Gov. Ducey’s chief of staff, Daniel Scarpinato, said the governor signed the legislation because school choice’s potential for helping low-income families and closing the achievement gap between poor and minority students and their peers.

Ducey “really sees value in expanding school choice, parental choice, and so his advocacy for the bill and his support for the bill is based on his desire to expand school choice,” Scarpinato said.