☆ Expert: Local school choice policies can emulate Arizona’s widely praised ESA programs—eventually
Ginny Gentles (co-founder of the Educational Freedom Center at the Independent Women’s Forum) responds to Dan Lips’ National Review article, which explains that parents are justifiably demanding public school reform, particularly expanded parental choice, amidst local schools’ academic failures. Gentles unpacks the challenges of modeling CA’s education system after states like Arizona (which leads the nation in educational savings account programs), as suggested by Lips. Adopting a local program may not be as simple as plug-and-play, but CA’s abundance of charter schools offers us a leg-up, says Gentles. An Opp Now exclusive.
Opportunity Now: Lips suggests in this article that Arizona’s ESA (educational savings account) program should serve as a “model” to other states on “[t]ransferring power in K–12 education from teachers’ unions and school-district bureaucracies to parents.”
In short, for local students who don’t attend a public or charter school, Arizona provides their parent/guardian with annual funding (roughly $7,000/year) that can be put towards private school tuition, tutoring, curriculum, home education, etc.
Might it be feasible to “copy and paste” such an initiative into a state like California (as proposed by the Educational Freedom Act)?
Ginny Gentles: Absolutely. But first, you have to note that California doesn’t even have a private school choice program at the moment.
Over thirty states and D.C. have private school programs (and ten states have ESAs), some that have been around for decades. The first private school choice program was started in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Arizona has multiple, and their ESA program has been around since 2011; over the years, they’ve gradually expanded eligibility.
ON: That makes sense. So California is way behind on the school choice wagon. How might this impact future initiatives similar to Arizona’s, for example?
GG: This is an important detail because of how school choice programs work. They typically play out like this: The programs are initially introduced for certain populations like low-income students, students with special needs, etc. So that foundation is put in place, and then the program is slowly expanded over time.
As an example, Arizona expanded their program to include military students, foster students, etc. with time. Moreover, over 11,000 students were already participating, so a universal program made a lot of sense.
Now, these conditions are in place in many other states—but again, not California. Other states could have an easier time expanding an existing ESA or private school choice program. For instance, West Virginia has a program that’s almost universal. (They actually used to be the leader in ESAs nationwide, but Arizona has since overtaken them. It’s fascinating that two very different states have served as successful models for this.)
ON: I’m hearing that California would have to start from the ground-up if they wanted to mimic the success of other programs such as Arizona’s ESAs, which could be trickier or take longer than in other states.
However, is there anything about California’s educational landscape that would lend itself well to school choice legislation?
GG: Let me reiterate that California could absolutely adopt a school choice program. As far as advantages—the state has thousands of charter schools, so there is already an existence and acceptance of alternatives to residentially assigned government schools. People know that it’s possible to go to a school not attached to their zip code. This could easily be translated over to the private school choice model or ESAs.
ON: California has a huge and growing homeschool population. How might they, in addition to traditionally or charter schooled families, benefit from ESAs?
GG: If they chose, homeschool parents could benefit from these ESAs for curriculum, tutoring, therapies, etc. In the homeschool community, there could be a widespread demand and interest for such a program. It could be quite possible to enact.
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