PHOENIX — Every morning, the Greene family dining room and kitchen turn into classrooms.
Five Greene children ages 7 to 17 are homeschooled.
"It's not an inequity because my children would be receiving more money if they were in that public school setting," said Becky Greene.
She and her children joined dozens of other parents and children at the Capitol Rose Garden Tuesday.
They were protesting Governor Katie Hobbs' call to repeal universal empowerment scholarship accounts.
The governor wants to use the money to ensure public school students are funded equally.
"This is our right by law to access empowerment scholarship accounts to help educate our children," said Stacey Brown, a mom who homeschools two of her children said.
The Governor's budget was presented Tuesday to both the House and Senate Appropriations committees.
ESAs allow every student to receive approximately $7,000 for private school tuition, private tutors, or learning at home.
They've become so popular the projected cost is expected to exceed $1.5 billion within a few years.
"How would the governor justify pulling the rug on 35,000 families and growing if the stakeholders have chosen that?" State Representative Barbara Parker, (R) east Mesa District 10, asked Hobbs Budget Director Sarah Brown.
Brown responded by saying, "the governor's priority is to fund public education fairly so that students have the choice to attend schools in their neighborhoods."
Mitzi Epstein, the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee said if Republicans don't want to lose ESAs they will need to help figure out how to pay for the program.
"To go from we only pay for public schools to now we pay for private schools., that's a budget buster that my republican colleagues have not addressed," said Senator Epstein, (D) Tempe-Ahwatukee District 12.
Back at the rally, Becky Greene said funding ESAs is not the parents' problem, and that it's up to lawmakers to figure that out.
"We need to have a new understanding what those dollars are intended for, they're intended for the education of students," Greene said.