Arizona Leaders Urge Tax Hike for Education

By Darcia Harris Bowman

With Arizona trailing the nation in per-pupil spending, Gov. Jane Dee Hull and other leading Republicans are hoping to overcome their party's traditional aversion to higher taxes by calling for a sales-tax increase earmarked for education.

In a plan unveiled March 22, Gov. Hull and state schools Superintendent Lisa Graham Keegan proposed raising the state sales tax from 5 percent to 5.6 percent. Rather than asking the Republican-controlled legislature to impose the tax hike, however, the governor wants lawmakers to put the measure on the November ballot and let voters decide.

The increase would bring in an estimated $445 million a year, 80 percent of which would be spent on K-12 initiatives and the rest on higher...