Editorial Note: This article and its series are part of a collaborative project with 13 Arizona newsrooms covering two important topics in education. Funded by the Arizona Local News Foundation and Report for America, all stories in the project can be found here.
The moment is a legislative town hall at Arizona Western College in Yuma last September. Six legislators from districts 23 and 25 have gathered to discuss the last legislative session and their priorities for the next.
Then-president Daniel Corr asks them, “Is there a compromise? Is there a middle ground associated with ESAs [Empowerment Scholarship Accounts] in the coming session that any of you can envision?”
State Rep. Nick Kupper, R-25, responds immediately with a chuckle: “Honestly? Probably no.”
Corr jokes that the question wasn’t meant to be funny. But Kupper’s answer quickly became more complicated. In the next breath, he acknowledged oversight could be better.
KAWC listened to 18 voices in the process of putting together this ESA series, and there were two things each of them agreed on: (1) Families deserve to have school choice, and (2) Arizona’s ESA program has room to improve its accountability and administration.
What they don't agree on is what either of those things should look like.
And this discussion is happening at a time when a measure seeking to place restrictions on the ESA program may find itself on the November ballot.
Proposition 212, also known as the Protect Education Act, is proposing the following restrictions:
- Limiting eligibility to families earning $150,000 or less per year, adjusted for inflation, with exceptions for students with disabilities and others.
- Prohibiting the use of ESA funds on noneducational items, luxury goods, supplemental materials not directly associated with an approved curriculum, or to pay students’ family members unless the student is disabled
- Requiring that tutors who receive ESA funds must have graduated from high school and obtained a fingerprint clearance card.
- Requiring schools that receive ESA funds to be accredited or administer state standardized tests, unless they serve only students with disabilities.
- Generally requiring that allocated ESA funds not spent by July 1 of each year be returned to the State for distribution to the classroom site fund, for certain costs of the ESA program, and for other purposes.
But before getting into where those proposals divide people, there’s a more basic question: How much agreement is there on school choice itself?
School Choice
More than the politics around ESAs might suggest, even some of the program’s critics told KAWC they support parents having choices in how their children are educated.
“I’m not opposed to school choice. I’m not opposed to parents being able to make a choice about where their kids come to school,” said retired Yuma School District One superintendent Jamie Sheldahl.
ESA parent Tanya Wright similarly argued that no single setting works for every student.
“Not all children are cut out for public school,” she said. “Just like not all children are cut out for private school, and not all children are cut out for homeschool or microschool or a charter school or a religious school. So let's just keep all the choices open and let the parents decide what's best for their children.”
The disagreement starts when public money enters the equation.
“People can take their kids wherever they want — one of my children went to Catholic school, but it was my dime. I paid for it; it was a choice I made, it wasn’t from the public pot,” said state Rep. Mariana Sandoval, D-23. “So choice is great, but... how do we make it equitable? How do we make sure that there's the same oversight that there is for one system, for the other system?”
Financial and Administrative Oversight
“One of the biggest complaints I hear from anybody, regardless of what political leaning they may have, is they don't feel like there's appropriate oversight and I would agree to an extent,” Kupper said at the September town hall. “I don't think there is.”
Matt Beienburg, director of education policy for the Goldwater Institute, likewise supports stronger enforcement and administrative safeguards, but draws a line between those changes and what he views as attacks on the program made in the name of accountability.
“I think that if you're talking about are there ways to improve the service for parents, ensure safeguards of the program? That's a very different conversation from what opponents of the program are pushing for,” he said. “Because you actually have those who are supportive of the program who are perfectly supportive of saying, ‘Hey, we want to make sure that there is clarity around what is permitted and what is not, and that if you try to break the rules, you will be caught and there will be punishments, there will be remedies.’”
ESA parents interviewed by KAWC identified similar administrative fixes.
“I think that it would never hurt to have more staff at the ADE [Arizona Department of Education] level or with ClassWallet, whoever it is that is overseeing,” Wright said.
But Gov. Katie Hobbs has called for changes that go beyond additional staff, clearer guidance and enforcement of existing rules.
“As a result, we're seeing all kinds of waste, fraud and abuse taking place by people taking taxpayer dollars that are supposed to be used for educational purposes — buying jewelry, lingerie, amusement park trips in California, ski passes — and it's not helping kids get a better education,” she said. “And I think there's a lot of things that need to happen: We need to stop that luxury spending. We need to have some kind of eligibility requirements.”
That distinction — between enforcing the rules already on the books and changing the rules themselves — is where much of the agreement begins to fray.
Academic Accountability
“It would be more appropriate if we were competing in the same game where there's accountability,” said Denis Ponder, Yuma School District One superintendent.
His brother Dale, Crane superintendent, pointed to what he sees as a double standard in how lawmakers evaluate educational spending.
“We’re putting a billion dollars into this program, but we’re not interested in seeing what the return on that investment is,” he said.
Dale Ponder acknowledged public school districts aren’t where they want to be academically. But he said they are nevertheless held to academic and financial accountability measures, including student performance, attendance and chronic absenteeism, while arguing ESA-funded education isn't subject to comparable scrutiny.
Still, support for at least some academic accountability extends beyond public school officials.
“I personally don't see a problem with just a general state standardized test that every student should take just to see where they're at, like, just for parent purposes,” ESA parent Brittani Ibarra said. “I have no problem with that.”
She cautioned, however, that homeschool families may see the same requirement differently.
“If it was homeschool, that would be the only issue because many homeschoolers are homeschooling because they don't want the government overreach,” she said. “And if you're requiring them to do standardized testing, some may feel that it's a little bit of an overreach.”
For retired public school administrator Jamie Sheldahl, the use of public money itself warrants some measure of public accountability.
“I used to have a principal and he also taught some graduate classes. He'd always say, ‘If you drink from the public trough, then you have to be willing to face public scrutiny,’” he said. “Well, we've got a system right now where private schools and home school voucher recipients are drinking from the public trough without any kind of public scrutiny because they don't have to report any results.”
But Beienburg questions whether imposing the same accountability systems used by public schools is the answer. He pointed to criticism from the Arizona Auditor General of the state's A-F school grading system and argued that existing public school accountability measures can obscure rather than clarify student performance.
“And so for all of the complaints about, ‘Hey, there's not enough accountability in the ESA program,’ the question is sort of what is it that you're proposing to bring?” he said. “Are you simply going to export the system that you have?”
If academic accountability asks what the state should require in exchange for public dollars, another provision of Prop. 212 raises a different question: Who should receive those dollars in the first place?
Income Caps and Eligibility
“At the end of the day, this is an entitlement program,” Hobbs told KAWC. “There is no other entitlement program that we don't have any kind of eligibility requirements for, and we need to make sure that every student across the state is having an opportunity for a good education, and that is not happening with the way the program is working right now.”
Among its proposed changes, Prop. 212 would limit eligibility based on household income to $150,000 or less, with some exceptions. That proposal drew a much more divided response.
“I think that's a mistake,” said Rhett Stallworth, president of Yuma Catholic High School. “... I think that's missing the point as to what school choice is about — and that's for everybody. It doesn't matter what your income is or not. It's just a matter of having the option to attend where it is that you want to attend.”
Ibarra, a parent and private school administrator, falls somewhere in between.
“For some people, I think that number is pretty reasonable,” she said. “That's about the number for the STOs [student tuition organizations] — they are all income-based as well — and so that's pretty reasonable for those that, if you make above that, you should be able to afford the tuition.
“But then you're thinking, let’s say Yuma Catholic, $13,000 a year, even if you make $150,000, that can be a reach for your family to pay $13,000, depending on how many children you have going there.”
For other ESA parents, the state's funding obligation shouldn’t depend on household income at all.
“We all pay the taxes. The money should follow the child because it’s not the child’s fault whether the parents qualify or not based on income,” said Tanya Wright, ESA parent. “The child needs to be educated.”
Wellton Elementary Superintendent and Principal Lisa Jameson sees a different equity problem, pointing to families in east Yuma County who have no nearby private-school option.
“Think of the students here at Mohawk and Dateland,” she said. “You can say they have choice. They can go to any of these schools, and those two schools will bus them anywhere.
“But do they have a choice to go to a Catholic school somewhere? They don't because no one's going to bus them there. So choice shouldn't be for only those who can afford it.”
Ultimately, the disagreement comes down to what ESA money is meant to do: follow every child, or help families who otherwise couldn't afford another option.
Unused ESA Funds
The same disagreement carries into what should happen to ESA money families don’t spend right away. Prop. 212 would generally require unused funds to be returned to the state each year.
For ESA parent Alexis Liggett, saving that money is part of planning ahead.
“I just kind of think, well, once we get into job training and vocational and things like that, those things can get a lot more expensive,” she said.
Liggett described her son, AJ, as medically complex and possessing profound disabilities. Anticipating more expensive educational needs as he ages, she’s strategic about saving, and that’s why her biggest concern about Prop. 212 is an end to funding rollovers.
She said some Yuma families also save rollovers for Arizona Western College’s Early College program or certificate programs.
Ibarra described a similar example in her own family.
“My niece just graduated this last year and now she's using — she has excess funds to go to college at AWC because you can use your excess funds for four years,” she said. “And so now she's able to continue going to college using her ESA funds because she didn't pay tuition all those years, and so she has a little bit of money backed up in her account.”
Sheldahl sees the accumulated money differently. He noted that school districts can carry some funds forward for emergencies, but questioned whether ESA families should be able to build up public money over multiple years.
“But if you’re taking the voucher and you don’t need it and you’re stockpiling that money, those resources over the years, is that a good use of taxpayer money for that money to just build up?” he asked. “I think when you go back to the fact that this is all taxpayer money, is that prudent use of taxpayer money?”
But the disagreement over unused money points to a bigger question behind the entire ESA debate.
What is Education For?
For Beienburg, the answer starts with the individual student.
“At the end of the day, the entire purpose of the education system is to educate kids, right?” he said. “And people can have different priorities, what that entails, but it's to provide a robust education for students.”
He argues that the focus shouldn’t be on preserving any particular system or institution, but on whether children have access to an education that works for them.
For Dale Ponder, education also serves something larger.
“I firmly believe that a strong education system creates a strong community,” he said. “You have to have people who are educated in certain ways, right? Not everyone's going to be the same, but there's a base level of education everyone needs to optimize and thrive and be engaged in their community.”
Sheldahl worries that the growth of school choice reflects a broader shift away from that idea of education as a shared investment.
“Somewhere along the way, we kind of made a transition from investing in all kids to families kind of being influenced to invest in just their kid,” he said. “So we've kind of made a transition from ‘our kids’ to ‘my kid.’”
For Ibarra, however, school choice is about protection.
“Just go up to the public school and sit in the parking lot and watch how the students are dressed. That’s not where I want my son and my daughter to be going to school,” she said. “...Truthfully, being here, our kids are, like, in a bubble. And if I can protect my kids for as long as possible and keep them in this little bubble — you go out to our recess and our 8th graders are still swinging on the swings, playing on the slides, having fun and being kids. You go to any other junior high and that’s not what you see.”
And that protection doesn’t end with middle school.
“That’s so important to me, and sending my kids to high school, knowing that they’re still a little bit more protected for as long as I can possibly protect them? I’m going to fight for whatever I have to do to make that happen,” she said.
Sheldahl’s concern is what happens when those individual choices add up.
“To me, the vouchers are not about parent choice,” he said. “They're about a new form of segregating schools and students — not based on race, but based on other elements, whether it's economics or ideology or religion.”
He described a friend of his who lives on a block where nearly every parent drove their kid to a different school.
“To me, that's endemic of that fracturing of our society where we just don't share common experiences anymore,” Sheldahl said. “I mean, the cliche is the appointment TV watching that everybody talked about the next day, but that's just a small example. Less and less people have common experiences that build community, and when you lose those common experiences to build community, it’s much easier to create division between and among people.”
He still believes that parents should have choice, but he also believes that increasing isolation is a secondary consequence of the broader school choice and privatization movement.
Gov. Hobbs places the disagreement at the institutional level.
“I think we're seeing the ESA program expanded the way it has because it's a direct attack on public education,” she said.
“So we need to rein in the ESAs like we just talked about, but also Prop 123, which expired last year. We had a chance to renew that, to send a renewal to the voters, to put billions of dollars back in our classrooms without raising taxes. That's still going to be a priority, but politics got in the way of doing that this year.”
For families using the program, however, those larger political and philosophical arguments can feel far removed from the decisions they’re making for their children.
“At the end of the day, to families, this is not about politics,” Liggett said. “We really just want what’s best for our students and families on both sides.”
Despite disagreements over who should qualify, what accountability should require and what public education itself is meant to do, there’s another thing all 18 sources agreed on.
“Really, the little kids, that's the future, and we should care about their future — whether they're in public school, private school, charter school or home school,” Jameson said. “They should all have the same chances.”
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This reporting is supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation.
