This year, Florida’s education savings account program surpassed Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts to become the largest in the nation. The land of the Grand Canyon may be looking to reclaim its title.
On Monday, Arizona’s state Senate approved a measure that would make its ESAs available to all current public school students by the 2018-19 school year.
The House is weighing identical legislation, which means lawmakers there could soon follow their counterparts in Nevada, who last year became the first to enact a near-universal ESA program.
Unlike traditional school vouchers, ESAs allow parents to pay tuition at public or private schools, or to pay for tutoring, therapy, home-school curriculum and other education-related expenses.
Arizona passed the first such program, but was later joined by Florida (where ESAs are now called Gardiner Scholarships*), Mississippi and Tennessee.Most ESAs are only available to students with special needs or other disadvantaged groups. Nevada was the first state to create a program where almost any student is eligible. This highlighted some disagreements in the school choice movement, where some have argued for creating options aimed only at students with the greatest needs.
The Arizona legislation would expand the program gradually. It would become open to current elementary students next school year, then add middle school students the following year, and finally expand to high school students in 2018-19.
An existing state law limits the growth of the program to 0.5 percent of public school enrollment each year through 2019, meaning the program would be allowed to grow by about 5,500 new students per year.
“Arizona deserves to be recognized for enacting the nation’s first ESA program five years ago and today’s vote is a reminder that Arizona remains a national leader in school choice,” Betsy DeVos, who chairs the American Federation for Children, said in a statement.
*Step Up For Students, which publishes this blog, helps administer Florida’s program.
