For years, national debates about education reform have been framed around systems: traditional public school districts, funding formulas, and bureaucratic turf wars.
But in Arizona, we’ve reframed the education conversation. Today, our education policies and Empowerment Scholarship Account, or ESA, program refocus education where it should have always been — on parents and their kiddos.
Arizona is now leading the nation in education freedom. It’s the leading battleground.
Make no mistake: Opponents of parental choice in education know it. That’s why it has become the leading battleground and why opponents are working so hard to manufacture negative headlines here, hoping to export them across the country.
The playbook is simple — ignore the individual success that kids are experiencing, distract from the focus on parental choice, and cherry-pick negative anecdotes to sow doubt in the minds of policymakers elsewhere.
But here’s the truth: Arizona’s school choice program is working, and families know it.
I’ve been on the front lines of the national shift to parental choice in education policy, leading a firm that has been a part of passing and expanding ESAs (and their equivalents) in multiple states, supporting program implementation, elevating families, and helping education entrepreneurs serve these new markets.
ESAs allow families to direct a portion of their child’s state education dollars to the education option of their choice, covering eligible expenses like tuition, curriculum, online classes, educational tools, learning therapies, and more.
The successful results nationally are undeniable, and Arizona is no exception. We know it, and ESA opponents know it. That’s why they’re working overtime to attack families and export salacious headlines.
According to recent polling from EdChoice and Morning Consult Intelligence, 66 percent of Arizona adults and 74 percent of Arizona K-12 parents support Arizona’s ESA program.
Those numbers are, quite frankly, incredible. The Arizona ESA also disproportionately serves middle-income families, and students with disabilities account for almost 20 percent of ESA participants, versus 14 percent of public district school students.
The real power is in the thousands of stories from over 96,000 students on an ESA. We hear them all the time.
ESAs are helping parents overcome obstacles, creating breakthroughs for their children. Bullied students can now learn without fear, while unengaged students are finding new motivation at the right pace.
Individualized support and specialized programs that were previously inaccessible are now available to everyone, signaling a major improvement in our educational system. These stories aren’t outliers; they’re evidence of a broader transformation.
We have the truth. We should export our ESA stories across the country.
Diamond rings and lingerie make for memorable headlines (read more about the controversy here), but here are the less sexy facts the media doesn’t care to report: Misspending in the ESA program accounts for less than 1/10 of 1 percent, and the program’s rapid accountability means misused funds are identified rapidly and the bad actor is required to repay, is removed from the program, and can even be directed to the attorney general for prosecution.
The accountability measures are working as intended. And the fact that we even know about these expenditures in such detail is because receipt-level data is available for ESA spending. The same is not true of public district school spending or spending in other government programs, and misspent dollars in those programs take significantly longer to recover.
Let me be clear — no amount of misspending is acceptable. And ESA families will be the first to say it. But can we at least agree on this? Misrepresenting facts and maligning the positive experience of 96,000 families is wrong, no matter your policy goals.
Following the pandemic, parents demanded more control over their children’s education, moving past the old system-focused approach. They realized that a single education model doesn’t work for everyone, and they no longer had to accept a one-size-fits-all model of education.
In response, Arizona passed its Universal ESA program, giving parents the freedom to access the educational setting where their children could thrive. We can not allow opponents of parental choice in education to use lies and slander to destroy a program that has made education dreams a reality for so many.
We have planted the flag. Arizona is leading the way. Our ESA program is a blueprint for the future of Arizona and America. That’s the headline worth sharing.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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