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Home – Arizona Politics & News – Arizona Schools Build Fields of Taxpayer Nightmares, but There Is a Solution

Arizona Schools Build Fields of Taxpayer Nightmares, but There Is a Solution

In the 1989 film “Field of Dreams,” an Iowa corn farmer named Ray heeds an unseen voice telling him, “If you build it, they will come,” and builds a baseball stadium. Ray lived happily ever after in this fantasy sports movie, but heeding this advice has not worked out for taxpayers financing dubious school projects.

American school districts have been spending record amounts of money building and rebuilding school buildings despite falling enrollment.

During the 2025-26 fiscal year, total K-12 school construction and renovation spending in the United States reached $89.2 billion—a record level. This figure includes new school construction ($34.8 billion), major renovation and modernization ($38.6 billion), and additions and expansions ($15.8 billion). The number was up from $76.3 billion nationwide in 2019.

Districts experiencing rapid student enrollment growth can certainly require more building space. School district enrollment, however, dropped by approximately 2 million students between 2019 and 2025. Many school districts continue to spend large sums on school buildings despite declining enrollment.

The best example of this folly comes not from the Midwest but rather from the desert southwest, where Scottsdale Unified School District in Arizona has decided to double down on already immense facility spending. Scottsdale Unified represents a prime example of a “Field of Dreams” approach to construction gone wrong.

The Arizona auditor general published a performance audit of the Scottsdale Unified School District in 2014, noting an excess of school building........

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