- Image courtesy of shutterstock.com
That headline must be a joke, right? Paying parents to take their children out of school? Unfortunately, the headline’s for real. It’s an incentive built into Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA)— aka Educational Savings Accounts, aka (according to me) Vouchers on Steroids. ESAs were created by the Goldwater Institute, passed into law in 2011 and expanded in 2013; they’re up for another expansion this legislative session. Encouraging parents to take their kids out of school isn’t an ESA bug; as they say in the tech world, it’s a feature. Almost a third of parents used the money to homeschool their kids.
The ESA concept is pretty simple. A “savings account” is set up by the state for a qualified child who opts out of the public school system. The parent or guardian draws on that account to pay for the child’s education. Anything left over at the end of the school year rolls over to the next year.
So far it sounds like just another work-around (see, Tuition Tax Credits) to make vouchers legal in Arizona where the constitution forbids the use of public money for religious instruction (something like 70% of Arizona’s private schools are religious). ESAs give the money to parents rather than the school, and somehow that makes it legit. But when you look further into the legislation, things start getting weird.
Along with paying for tuition, ESA money can be used to pay for books, educational therapies, tutoring, curriculum, online classes and standardized test fees. In other words, pretty much anything that sounds educational. The base ESA amount is $5,300 a year, which barely covers tuition at the lowest priced private schools. For the mid- and high-priced schools, it doesn’t come close. Really, there’s only one way to take advantage of all those other perks. You have to take your child out of school. Then, if you want, you can shop around for curriculum, maybe pay for a little tutoring, maybe buy an online class or two. The savvy educational shopper can make that $5,300 go a long way if there’s no tuition to pay.
And here’s the beauty part for a parent who really knows how to skimp on a child’s education. What you don’t spend one year, you roll over to the next year, and the next, and the next. Pretty soon you’ve saved enough to pay for one of those high priced private schools. Or if you keep your kid out of school all through the K-12 years, you can take all that money you’ve saved up and use it to pay for college tuition. Really, that’s in the law. ESA money can be used for college tuition and fees.
That perverse incentive for parents to yank their kids out of school sounds like an unintended consequence of the law, but it’s not. In a recent report, the Goldwater Institute crows that between 27% and 33% of parents who set up ESAs during the 2012-2013 school year homeschooled their children. And those parents weren’t the traditional homeschool folks. By law, their children had to attend public school the year before.
Homeschooling is legal in Arizona, and parents who use it understand they get no money from the state. Now, for the first time, Arizona’s conservative legislators are encouraging a new batch of parents to homeschool their children by giving them a cash incentive. “C’mon, try it out. We’ll pay you!”
This article appears in Jan 23-29, 2014.
…and here I thought you leftists were all about choice.
They are Rat T…..their choices.
Ah yes… We abortion loving, weed smoking, fiscally irresponsible, one-size-fits-all leftists. And those on the right are all gun-toting, heterosexual, bible thumping, white men. It’s nice to live in an easy world.
Ah, the ADI peanut gallery can read a headline. They’ll be writing in complete sentences with proper punctuation before you know it!
Why the negative spin?
My son uses the Empowerment Scholarship to attend a school for disabilities in Tucson. TUSD still receives a portion of his funding and we lose transportation benefits. . . but its nice to be able to send a child with disabilities to a school that specializes in a different way of teaching. My oldest son still attends TUSD though since he has no disabilities. This article kind of makes it sound like everyone using the ESAs are irresponsible and lazy. Its actually a lot more work to use the ESA, provide transportation and upkeep the paperwork (which there is a lot!). Not an easy route by any means and two strikes you’re out of the program for life (late paperwork or incomplete expense reports are not tolerated). Here is where I DO agree with the writer’s skepticism. . . the fund usage by the schools/therapists/etc. They deduct their fees and you don’t always receive an itemized invoice. In fact, they could be overcharging and/or using the money in ways not acceptable to the program. I guess it’s hard for the State to regulate every program they make available, but I do wish they’d ask for itemized invoices to make it just a little bit harder for them to take advantage.
I had this as a option, even while living in Arizona. There are programs that will pay out of state kids half the allotment and keep the other half.
No thanks.
I homeschooled my oldest son between the ages of seven and eighteen, and my youngest (now 14) has never been to a brick and mortar school. Take money from the state? No thanks. Not that there were not times the money would have been very useful. and not that I’m opposed to the idea for others. I really like the way AZ has run it the last few decades: I let them know of my intent to homeschool and then I was left to do my own thing with nothing taken from and nothing owed to anyone. Just the way I like it.
Signed,
a leftie who isn’t afraid of the results of a self-educated child NOR am I against choices (even ones in which I would never partake).
Isn’t it great that accountability is no longer necessary for educating children. Arizona will cut the check to you in the name of your child but refuse to supervise that expense. Sounds like someone has forgotten about fiscal responsibility and a common good like public education.
And your point is???
And in response to pjb at 6:45pm, you make the assertion that public education is a common good. That is a very broad assertion.
I agree, there can be, and in some cases are, benefits to a public education, one of them being exposure to different ideas. However, when those ideas are taught and indoctrinated to the exclusion of any opinion that disagrees, then it is not a common good.
Sounds like we’d be getting the money we pay to the schools via taxes back in our pockets if we choose to not educate our kids via those schools…. How is this not perfectly fair?
I guess the real question is ” Which approach does the best job of educating the next generation ?” We know that the US ranks in the mid 20’s in verbal and 30th in math proficiency using global student evaluation . So it would seem that the current public school/teacher union monopoly has room for improvement. If pulling a child out of an underperforming school and giving her/him a private/home education generates a better result, it would seem to make sense. Public education is about the only institution where the public believes that the monopoly approach is best. It may be that a little competition would help.
@Bill: What monopoly? Last time I looked there is a desegregation rule in effect here where students can enter a lottery to be enrolled in any school. There are also charter schools, which mostly do not have anything to do with unions…This may have been a true statement in the 80’s, but completely off the mark now.
Jay
Bill Sinnott said, “So it would seem that the current public school/teacher union monopoly has room for improvement. If pulling a child out of an underperforming school and giving her/him a private/home education generates a better result, it would seem to make sense.”
Just a couple of points in response. During a long career teaching public school I learned not to paint home schooling with a broad brush. I had a chance to teach a substantial number of students who came into my classes after being home schooled. A few came in with excellent skills, a few were practically illiterate, and most were somewhere in between. If parents are willing to dedicate their time and energy (a lot of both) to educating their children it will probably work out well. If not, it won’t.
There is no public school/teacher union monopoly. Wake up and look around. Parents have all sorts of choices outside local school districts. You need to figure out which Fox News talking points work in Arizona and which don’t. This is one that doesn’t. Apart from all that… students who go to school in states with strong unions outperform students from right-to-work states. Take the recent PISA international test results. When the results were broken out by state, students from Massachusetts and Minnesota were found to meet or surpass students from just about every other country. Those two states have strong teacher unions. On the same tests, students from Mississippi and South Carolina scored at the same level as students in some third world countries. Those are right-to-work (for peanuts) states. As lawyers would say: res ipsa loquitar. The thing speaks for itself.
Freedom of choice – the leftist’s worst nightmare!
Education Vouchers for 100% of all children in Arizona. Vouchers would
go to each child via their parents for home, private, public schooling.
Two rights will be honored:
(1) Every child would receive needed education/training.
(2) Each parent’s prior-right to ed/train their child as the parent sees fit.
Let do it…
FrankHenry says, “Education Vouchers for 100% of all children in Arizona. Vouchers would go to each child via their parents for home, private, public schooling.
Two rights will be honored:
(1) Every child would receive needed education/training.
(2) Each parent’s prior-right to ed/train their child as the parent sees fit.”
This sounds great, but it has never happened in places like Florida, Milwaukee and Cleveland where vouchers are available. What has happened is that fly-by-night operators open schools…get lots of public money…and evaporate. What has happened is that Islamic extremists in Florida opened a madrassa with public funds and indoctrinated kids to hate the US. What has happened is that private schools “graduate” students with fewer skills than those who stayed in local public schools. What has happened is that poor kids were warehoused and watched movies all day long while the operators of the school got more than a million dollars in public money. Most importantly, public funds have been turned over without any public oversight and zero accountability for student learning.
I very much dislike the underlying theme of this article. It makes the ESA sound like a joke in which irresponsible parents pull their kids from school in an attempt to pocket government funds, while not really educating their children as well as the public schools would. The ESA is what we use for our special needs son and it has been a God send that allows us to provide him with rich educational experiences we could not have otherwise afforded him. I know of several other families who are able to provide quality educations to their special needs children who were also failed by Arizona’s public school system. There is almost no margin for error for those who receive the ESA and if you somehow manage to find a way to abuse the appropriated funds, you will be promptly removed from the program. If you are diligent, provide receipts and documentation for every expense, and use the ESA funds only for appropriate educational expenses, the plan will serve your family well. It makes perfect sense: reallocate the tax dollars spent each year to fund the failing public school, to the parent of the special needs child who cannot convince the school to educate their child. Then, the parent may use the funds to pay for curriculum, tutoring, educational therapies, or a private school that the parent feels is equipped to adequately educate the child. When this happens, there is a two-fold benefit: 1. The child receives the quality education they are entitled to. 2. The failing public school loses money from the state that they were clearly squandering in the first place. Maybe, hopefully, the growth of this program coupled with the mass exodus of students from Arizona’s public schools will call attention to the gaping holes in our public education system and inspire those who can, to reevaluate the success or lack there of of our current system and make changes so that we won’t have to search high and low to ensure our children receive an outstanding education.
*Disclaimer: In no way do I blame the individual teachers for the lack of success in public school. The teachers I have encountered, all seem to teach for the right reasons and have a passion for education. I believe the problem lies somewhere in the endless bureaucracy and politics of today’s school system.
What the hell are you talking about??? Arizona makes people fill out an expense report that is long and tedious. I CANT EVEN GET PENS AND PAPER from the allowance they give. They don’t just hand out checks. Stupid
Arizona makes you fill out a lengthy & tedious expense report. You dont get PAID for anything. You are NOT ALLOWED to buy supplies like pens and paper. You can’t hire just anyone and certified people scam funds by requesting crazy rates. For example, a guitar teacher for music who has the credentials they ask for will cost up to $100 a half hour. I could get someone for $20 an hour that could teach guitar without special certification. NO WAY, even without my child being medically fragile would I EVER let him attend the immigrant flooded dumbed down schools of this state. My parents moved to the best area when I was a child and I was done with my days school work in 10 minutes every day. The Teacher had me correcting all the papers and doing her job at 9 years old. Arizona public schools are garbage. They do not follow other states for teacher certification and the salaries are as low as well.
https://www.azed.gov/esa/eligibility-requirements/
(Disclaimer: This is all in my opinion and from my own experience)
Not everyone who wants ESA is eligible in the first place so I don’t know why people assume there’s going to be a wave of people migrating to this and homeschooling just to take advantage of the system when most people don’t qualify for it anyway. Lets cause a raucous because parents of disabled/special needs kids don’t want to deal with a-hole public schools who can’t/won’t handle their special needs/disabled kid appropriately and expect their special needs kid to behave and respond the way other kids who aren’t special needs do. If I had a disabled or special needs kid I would want them to be in a school SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to handle special needs/disabled kids rather than forcing idiots to remember that YOUR CHILD is special needs, and/or having something terrible happen to either the educators or the child. This program seems more like a tuition assistance program that gives money back to the parents. (OH NO O_O) I have qualified and done the paperwork to receive tuition assistance through the state of Arizona, literally anyone can do that, but again you have to qualify, with tons of paperwork. My kiddo went to a religious private school (OH NO O_O), but I still had to pay a portion of the tuition costs, plus all the other fees associated with private school out of pocket. If you qualify for the ESA, it can help put some of the out of pocket expenses back into your pocket because tuition assistance only goes to the school. I’m just saying, trying to be what we think is a good parent to get our kids what we hope is a quality education is stressful enough, then add on to that stress how we’re supposed to pay for it and that stops the train for most people. The default for many parents is public education, but one should not solely rely on what the Government believes your child should know. Does anyone here go to the store to intentionally buy government cheese? Maybe one person. Why? Because there are other better options available for the same or even sometimes a better price. Why are you so mad about parents trying to be able to afford what they believe is a better option for their kids? I’d like to homeschool my kiddo, simply because I don’t like the schedules they run at public schools. But here’s the thing, I don’t qualify for the ESA. So all of the costs of homeschooling fall on me. You don’t get a tax break if you’re homeschooling either.
Check this article – https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/08/23/back-to-school-myths-federal-tax-breaks-exist-for-homeschooling/#71a3a2c24ee8
So not only do I still pay taxes into a system that I’m not using but all the stuff I will need like tutors, supplies, counseling all fall on my income. What all of you who are shaming people for using a benefit to get a break on expenses are doing is fanning the flame. Are there people who abuse the system? Heck ya! There are people who I know personally who abuse Welfare benefits, I’m just saying! They have sold their food stamps for cash to buy things they can’t get with their EBT card. However, EBT feeds people, that’s what it’s for. ESA helps provide education, that’s what it’s for. The title of this ridiculous, hideously biased article should say, “Arizona Republicans To Parents: We’ll Pay You To Take Your Children Out Of School, but only for those who qualify.” Not everyone can get ESA, this is some straight hate on parents who have disabled/special needs kids and can’t afford to have them attend a school designed for them off their personal income. I pray for parents who have special needs/disabled kids, they are made of stronger stuff than me. I have a friend who has a son with Autism, you need to have the patience of a SAINT because he talks and talks and talks, he needs interaction, he can’t sit still for a whole Disney movie let alone a TV show, you constantly have to remind him to focus or he wont eat his food. You think ANY public school teacher could handle that ALL DAY? With +20 other kids?
My last thought. Don’t buy a new car, invest in your child’s education. It costs about the same and you’ll both get more miles out of it.
This article is embarrassing and so biased, it’s just unprofessional and condensending. So many statements in it are judgmental and nasty so I will just pick one to refute since everyone else already addressed all the others. The gripe about tax payer money being spent on educating religous kids or being used on Christian curriculum is so uneducated; a large percentage of tax payers are Christians and our money should be spent how we choose, also, being unreligous is still a belief system and nobody says that agnostic parents shouldn’t get money for their kids’ education so why would you say religous curriculum is a waste of money?
This article is awful and knows nothing of the ESA program. There are no correct full facts, only partial facts. How embarrassing to publish a biased article without correct knowledge. Yikes.
How very typically elitist of you to make parents having control of their children’s education sound like a scary thing. Parents can’t decide what’s good for the child they know and love but the likes of you can? Please. The only people taking you seriously are those who want their and other children indoctrinated with leftist LGBT+35$/ CRT/ socialist ideology. Public school is the new, publically-funded “religious school.” So what will happen? The lefties will all keep their kids in these failing schools and accomplish what they wanted: Kids’ educations will have been atrocious but they’ll graduate anyway and with stellar virtue-signaling bona-fides. In the meantime, the rest of us will (and *have*) wise(d)-up, remove their kids from these leftist education camps and actually t.e.a.c.h. our kids at home or pay for private schooling. Because even if we’re not “credentialed educators”, you’ve proven credentialed educator does not an educated student make, so we certainly can’t do any worse.