Education savings accounts are the fastest growing form of school choice. Five states have ESA programs — mostly for special needs students, but more than 95 percent of students in Nevada qualify for its program. Legislation has been introduced in 18 other states so far this year that would establish more ESAs.
With ESAs, the government puts funds into an account that parents can spend toward a variety of educational needs, often including private school tuition, tutoring, educational therapy and textbooks. It’s similar to, but more flexible than, school vouchers.
But the concept also faces logistical challenges. How can the program ensure students are actually being educated effectively? Which expenditures are legal? Should they be done via reimbursement or a debit card? Reimbursement is burdensome for families, particularly low-income families that may not be able to afford initial purchases. Purchases via debit card leave the system open to fraud — one Arizona woman allegedly used her child’s funds at a bookstore to buy a TV.
Inez Feltscher, at the American Legislative Exchange Council, attempts to work through many of the logistical issues with ESAs in a new ALEC report, “The 21st Century Education Savings Accounts: Peer Reviews, Branding and Consumer Reports as Parent Tools.”
“ESA programs must strike a delicate balance between accountability for taxpayer dollars and not too tightly circumscribing parent choice,” Feltscher writes. “The goal of accountability provisions in ESA programs should be preventing fraud, not superseding parents’ decisions about what educational program works best for their child.”
Feltscher notes that parents are the “ultimate accountability measure.” In an ESA program, when parents aren’t happy with the education their child is getting, they can take their dollars elsewhere.
It’s reasonable to want to know that you’re getting a quality good or service before you pay for it. We use review websites like Yelp as well as branding and independent rankings to help us make consumer choices. The same can be true with education under ESA programs. “There is evidence that parents weigh fellow parents’ reviews heavily when selecting between educational options, and that parents seek out this kind of peer information,” Feltscher says, giving the example of GreatSchools.org. When it comes to school quality, some research says parents find reviews from other parents as important as test scores.
GreatSchools.org covers some of what’s most important to ESA parents, but there’s still potential for better reviews. In Arizona, there’s an online message board with hundreds of parents sharing reviews not just on schools, but also on therapists and tutors.
In terms of branding, Feltscher says there are already well-known brands in the education sector, such as KIPP charter schools and private Catholic schools. These brands help parents know what they’re getting when they choose a particular school, just like you know what you’re getting every time you drink a Coca-Cola. “Parents will use branding to find educational programs that best jibe with their own visions of what education ought to be for their children,” Feltscher says.
One of the biggest advantages of ESAs is that they give children a customized education. Feltscher points out they can also provide families with customized expert advice. “Wealthy and educated families already hire college admissions consultants for their high-schoolers to help craft their applications, but ESAs would expand access to these services to all families at the K-12 level. Most ESA programs already allow a small percentage of ESA funds to go toward this purpose.” Families can also rely on ranked lists and public databases, like we’ve become accustomed to using with universities and the U.S. News and World Report rankings.
To conclude, Feltscher paints a picture of what the future might look like for families with ESAs: “In order to find the best providers for each of Johnny’s strengths and weaknesses as a student, his parents will use the local Yelp-style review website to vet his tutors before hiring them. They will select his curriculum and lessons based on the brand that best reflects their family’s values and aspirations for Johnny’s future. … ESAs have the potential to unlock a true 21st century market in education, real educational choice rather than merely school choice, which is still rooted in the 19th century institution of the school.”
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
