A Radical Step in the Right Direction Arizona’s universal school-choice program will improve students’ educational options—public and private.

This July, Arizona became the first state to embrace universal school choice by enacting legislation that allows all students to participate in the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA). Approximately 12,000 students currently enroll in the ESA program, which deposits 90 percent of the state’s share of per-pupil education funds—about $7,000 per child—into an account that parents can use for various educational costs. Qualified expenses include: private school tuition, micro-schooling, homeschooling, tutoring, and online classes. Previously, the ESA program limited student eligibility to, for example, kids with disabilities, children attending failing public schools, children of active-duty military parents, foster children, and siblings of current or former ESA participants. With the new law, an estimated 60,000 students currently enrolled in private schools and 38,000 homeschooled students are immediately eligible for ESA funding, and 1.1 million children attending district and charter schools have the option to get funding as well.

A Radical Step in the Right Direction Arizona’s universal school-choice program will improve students’ educational options—public and private. 9k=

A Radical Step in the Right Direction Arizona’s universal school-choice program will improve students’ educational options—public and private. 9k=

School-choice foes gathered signatures to introduce a November 2024 ballot initiative to invalidate the legislation. On September 24, one day before the law expanding the ESA was to take effect, the organization behind that effort, “Save Our Schools Arizona,” temporarily blocked the expansion by filing what they jubilantly claimed were 141,700 signatures supporting the ballot initiative—a number well over the 118,800 required. A few days later, Save Our Schools Arizona confessed error, acknowledging that it had fallen far short of this number. As a result, the program became effective on Friday, September 30. Demand for ESA funding is so high that the Arizona Department of Education has extended the application deadline by two weeks and reports that funding requests may take several months to complete because of the large number of applications.

School-choice proponents have accused Save Our Schools Arizona of dishonestly obstructing the ESA expansion by claiming to have sufficient signatures. Save Our Schools Arizona denies the allegations, claiming that it was impossible to tally the signatures at the last minute. “I think we will end up short, yes,” admitted Beth Lewis, the group’s executive director. “Our counts were necessarily estimates.” (This assertion is in tension with the numerical specificity provided when the group submitted the signatures.)

.https://www.city-journal.org/arizona-embraces-universal-school-choice?fbclid=IwAR2XoMfGr6IW0y0hbVofLy6L3GxDa9nmNBFNmcOlZWQKBieFbeZUmq35dOE

Applause

A Radical Step in the Right Direction Arizona’s universal school-choice program will improve students’ educational options—public and private.

A Radical Step in the Right Direction Arizona’s universal school-choice program will improve students’ educational options—public and private.

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