The Goldwater Institute is proud to honor Jenny Clark as the recipient of our 2026 Freedom Award. The founder of the nonprofit Love Your School, Jenny is a passionate advocate for school choice in Arizona and around the nation. The mother of five knows firsthand that children thrive in a variety of education environments and believes that every family should be able to answer the question “do you love your school?” with a resounding “yes!”
Jenny is a leading proponent of Arizona’s landmark Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, the nation’s most successful universal school-choice program, which serves over 100,000 kids. This year she fought alongside the Goldwater Institute on the front lines in a successful effort to fend off a multi-million-dollar special-interest attack aimed at gutting Arizona school choice. Thanks to Jenny’s ongoing commitment to education freedom, Arizona students will continue to benefit from the ESA program for generations to come.
Jenny first became involved in the school choice movement in 2018, after her oldest son was evaluated for dyslexia. She learned that her local school district didn’t offer any special programs for students with dyslexia.
“I found out about the state’s ESA program,” which provides parents with funding to customize their child’s education, Jenny said. “I thought, this program is so amazing, it’s so incredible. More families need to have access to an ESA.”
At the time, the ESA program was only available to select student populations, including students with special needs. Jenny became an advocate for Proposition 305, the first attempt to make the ESA program available to every Arizona student.
“Prop 305 was a really interesting, crazy time. I remember stuffing really large street signs in my minivan with four kids at the time. I had a six month old,” Jenny recalled. “Of course, we were not successful on Prop 305. … But after that loss, that is what compelled me with the support from the Goldwater Institute and many others to start Love Your School.”
Goldwater Institute President and CEO Victor Riches praised Jenny’s tenacity. “She is a bulldog when it comes to fighting for school choice out of the legislature, but also encouraging parents to joint that fight,” he said. “Whenever you’re fighting out at the capitol and you’re in these political fights, you’re going to win some and you’re going to lose some. … But with Jenny, she never once got deterred. If we lost the battle, she would come right back and fight the next one.”
In 2022, Arizona became the first state to enact a fully universal school choice program. “Jenny was a huge part of that,” said Jenna Bentley, Goldwater’s Director of Government Affairs. “It truly was a full-circle moment.”
Over the last several years, Arizona students have flocked to the ESA program. But its overwhelming success has drawn opponents, particularly state and national teachers’ unions who believe that they—not parents—should control kids’ educations. Earlier this year, the unions launched a full-fledged attack with a deceptive ballot measure aimed at gutting the ESA program, including by instituting an income limit that would block even families with modest incomes from participating.
The National Education Association spent over $7 million to collect signatures to get their measure on November’s ballot. It turns out, they even paid dangerous felons to gather signatures—a violation of Arizona law. Jenny was a leader in the effort to defeat the union measure and was the lead plaintiff in Goldwater’s lawsuit challenging their signatures.
“Jenny put together another Decline to Sign campaign and that was a key component to stopping them from collecting enough valid signatures,” Riches said. “We challenged that in court, we won, we got it kicked off the ballot. But I don’t think we would’ve prevailed had we not had a strong Decline to Sign campaign.”
“Jenny Clark really exemplifies everything that the Goldwater Institute Freedom Award needs,” Bentley said. “She is a tireless advocate. She has never backed down from a fight.”
Jenny says the win against the teachers’ unions will allow Arizona school-choice advocates to continue growing the ESA program, adding new students, and ensuring that every child has access to a high-quality education that works for them.
“My kids were there, a part of this whole process of Decline to Sign. They’ve benefited from ESAs. They love and understand school choice. They know that so much of the wonderful things that they’ve had in their own lives have been because of the ESA program,” Jenny said.
“Winning this award has just been so humbling and such an honor,” she said, “but also, just for my kids to be able to see their mom being recognized in this way has been so special.”
