On Tuesday, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R-AZ) held a ceremonial bill signing making the Grand Canyon State the first in the nation with a universal school choice program.
The legislation, which expands the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program to every K-12 student in Arizona, was championed by Ducey as a policy response to widespread problems in public schools that would allow parents to use taxpayer funds for nonpublic and public education alike.
CONSERVATIVES PRAISE ARIZONA’S ‘GOLD STANDARD’ SCHOOL CHOICE PROGRAM ON HERITAGE PANEL
As a matter of public policy, school choice programs have existed in one form or another in numerous states for years, with the basic premise being taxpayer funds used for nonpublic education.
How school choice programs take shape legislatively can vary substantially, but they usually come in the form of one of three programs: a voucher system, education savings accounts, or a tax credit scholarship.
In recent years, the school choice proposals have been the tax credit scholarships and the education savings accounts, which both establish a stream of funding for families to use on public, private, or home education.
Under a scholarship credit program, taxpayers fund the programs by donating to scholarship granting organizations and, in turn, are granted a tax credit. The organizations can be either public or private entities, depending on how the state’s program is organized.
Tax credit scholarship programs exist in a number of states, including Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, according to data from the American Federation for Children, a school choice advocacy group.
Meanwhile, under an education savings account program, a state’s education funds are placed in an account accessible to families who, in turn, can use the funds to pay for any sort of education-related expenses, including private school tuition, tutoring, and home learning. The newly expanded Arizona program is an education savings account program. Similar programs exist in Florida and West Virginia.
The most recent school choice proposals in state legislatures tend to be variations of education savings accounts or tax credit scholarships.
The program most commonly associated with school choice, vouchers, funnels state education funds directly to the school attended by the student, whether the school is public or private. Currently, 13 states and Washington, D.C., have voucher programs, which are usually targeted toward students with particular needs, such as those with disabilities or those from low-income families.
School choice has garnered widespread opposition from public sector teachers unions and Democratic politicians, who claim that the policy is an attempt to defund public schools.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner in June, Ducey dismissed claims that Arizona’s expanded school choice program would defund public schools as a “talking point for the government unions.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“We want to see our children have better results in math, reading, science, American civics, and character formation,” Ducey said at the time. “This is so that our kids can have a better education — an education that supports their parents’ values and makes our state and country a better place.”
