ABSTRACT
In 1994 the Arizona state legislature passed the nation's most ambitious charter school law. The law's liberal provisions for charter approval, together with aggressive implementation by activist state boards and by revenue-seeking local districts, created a burgeoning charter school sector. In Nevada, strong teachers' unions and the close partisan balance in the state legislature kept strong charter laws off the agenda. Socioeconomic differences do not explain the greater appeal of charter schooling in Arizona since the two states are quite similar demographically, though Arizona's population is somewhat poorer than Nevada's. Contrasting political contexts in the two states proved decisive in explaining the fate of charter schooling. In Arizona, Republicans had unified control of the legislature and the governor's office in the mid-1990s. Conservative Arizona legislators advocated both voucher and charter school bills. Union leaders saw charter legislation as a threat to the professional status, job security, and working conditions of professional educators.
