The Arizona Legislature has seen a flurry of school choice legislation introduced this session that could provide tremendous help to families looking for better educational options for their children.
Three bills involve expanding the scope of the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account Program, the nation’s first education savings account (ESA) program. In the Senate, SB 1452 would open the program up to students from low-income families or students who attend a district public school that has a high percentage of low-income students. Meanwhile, SB 1513 would open the program up to the children of first responders, health care workers, and military veterans.
In the House of Representatives, HB 2503 would expand the Empowerment Scholarship Account Program to include students who have been the victims of bullying or assault on school grounds, at a school-sponsored event, on a school bus, at a bus stop, or have been harassed electronically from a school computer, network, forum, or mailing list.
This is important, as 18.2 percent of Arizona high school students were bullied on school property in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. Another 13.4 percent were the victims of cyberbullying, while 6.7 percent of students were threatened or injured with a weapon on school property and 14.4 percent of students reported skipping school due to concerns for their safety.
Another piece of Senate legislation, SB 1041 would increase the budget cap of Lexie’s Law for Disabled and Displaced Students Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which give choices options to students with special needs or were adopted through the state’s foster care system, to $20 million. The current cap is set at $5 million. This bill has already passed the Arizona Senate and now awaits a vote in the House of representatives.
A 2019 report from the Goldwater Institute found students making use of the Empowerment Scholarship Account Program come from “higher poverty” school districts at a nearly identical rate as the state’s traditional neighborhood public schools. Further, the report notes, “the highest concentrations of ESA usage actually occur in the most severely economically disadvantaged communities in Arizona. Among the 10 districts with the highest share of ESA students (as a percentage of each district’s overall student enrollment), eight have higher than average child poverty rates. In fact, the three districts with the highest concentrations of ESA students in the entire state have child poverty rates more than double the state average.”
The report also details the benefits of ESAs for Native Americans, who make use of the program at the highest rate of any demographic. “In contrast to the public school spending amounts that reach up to $16,000 per pupil,” the report states, “the average (non-kindergarten, non-special needs) ESA award for students from Native American reservations totaled just $6,219 in FY 2019, meaning they cost up to $10,000 less per student per year than the surrounding public school systems. Yet even at this substantially lower cost, ESAs provide enough funding to cover up to 100% of tuition costs at nearby private schools, providing students opportunity where often none existed before.”
Another Goldwater Institute report from 2019 noted how Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, were saving taxpayers thousands of dollars per pupil. Further, Goldwater finds Empowerment Scholarship Accounts are increasing per-pupil public school spending by more than $600 per each student participating in the program.
“Arizona’s ESA program … has offered thousands of students an additional educational pathway best suited to their needs,” the report concludes. “The nation’s most established ESA program has actually benefitted public schools by redistributing funds back to remaining public school students, directing program savings to public school IT infrastructure, and helping to serve one of the most high-need, high-cost student populations in the state—all while decreasing taxpayer costs and safeguarding public funds.”
Copious other empirical research on school choice programs such as ESAs and tax-credit scholarships finds they offer families improved access to high-quality schools that meet their children’s unique needs and circumstances, and that these programs improve academic performance and attainment and deliver a quality education at lower cost than traditional public schools. Additionally, these programs benefit public school students and taxpayers by increasing competition, decreasing segregation, and improving civic values and practices.
Research also shows students at private schools are less likely than their public school peers to experience problems such as alcohol abuse, bullying, drug use, fighting, gang activity, racial tension, theft, vandalism, and weapon-based threats. There is also a strong causal link suggesting private school choice programs improve the mental health of participating students.
It is probably for these reasons, and also because teacher unions have repeatedly played politics with school closings during the COVID-19 pandemic in direct conflict with students’ best interests, that ESAs are more popular with parents than ever before. Polling done by EdChoice released in December 2020 found 81 percent support for ESAs among the general public and 86 percent among current school parents, the highest level of support the program has received in the organization’s eight years of polling on the issue. This represents a 4-percentage point increase over 2019. These findings are mirrored in the American Federation for Children’s seventh-annual National School Choice Poll, released in January 2021, which saw 78 percent support for ESA programs.
The goal of public education in the Grand Canyon State today and in the years to come should be to allow all parents to choose which schools their children attend, require every school to compete for every student who walks through its doors, and make sure every child has the opportunity to attend a quality school. There has not been a time when providing these opportunities has been more urgent and more needed than right now. Legislators should recognize that and allow families as many options as possible to get their children the education they need and deserve.
