Is Arizona’s ESA school voucher program neglecting students it was created for?

PHOENIX — Did the universal expansion of Arizona’s ESA school voucher program make it harder for students with special needs to access funding and services? Some parents and disability experts say it has.

When Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program was created in 2011, it allowed families of students with disabilities to use public education tax dollars for private school or homeschooling expenses. The program became universal in 2022, allowing any Arizona student to sign up.

Lauren Valentino, a Phoenix parent, has a child on the autism spectrum and uses school voucher funding. She said the program has become more complicated with an influx of universal users who are flooding message boards with purchase approval questions and insufficient guidance from the Arizona Department of Education.

“I think that that’s been the hardest part to navigate, was just how do I submit this properly. I’m very Type A; I’m very by the book. So, I don’t want to mess anything up. I want to do it all right, and I think that this is just really not a lot of support in that department,” she said.

Students with disabilities make up 19% of Arizona’s ESA program

The ESA program recently reached 100,000 users. According to nonprofit think tank RAND, the program grew from 12,000 students before becoming universal to 90,000 students in the span of three years.

The program went beyond students with disabilities before the universal expansion. Foster children, students at low-ranking schools, military children and residents of Native American reservation were added to the eligibility list over the years.

The RAND study found that students with disabilities still made up 60% of ESA users in the 2021–2022 school year, but since the program went universal, only 19% of users receive special needs funding.

Amanda Glass, a managing attorney for the Disability Rights Arizona education team, said she works with ESA families with disabilities all the time. She saw special needs students finding it harder to access funding after the program became universal, especially as critics get louder.

“Because of the alleged fraud and things like that, it’s more difficult to actually access the funding, and that’s true for everybody, regardless of whether you’re a student with a disability or not,” she said.

Disability support expert says ESA expansion impacts public school students

Michele Thorne runs Care 4 the Caregivers, a nonprofit for caregiver support. She also has a son with autism. Thorne said the bigger problem with the voucher program becoming universal is that it impacts students with disabilities in public schools, which are losing funding to ESA families.

“I think we’re already starting to see that the kids who are in a public school system are not getting the same level of support that they used to because the school just doesn’t have the money to support them. We’re seeing that therapists are now spread along different campuses,” she explained.

John Ward, the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account executive director, denied that the program becoming universal has impacted funding for public school students with disabilities.

He did say that ESA disbursement requests for students with disabilities are lumped in with the universal requests and aren’t handled by a separate, dedicated staff.

 “There would be additional items that would typically accompany purchases made by a student with a disability, but they would be subject to the same audit process that we have here in the Department of Education,” he said.

Could ballot initiative be bad for students with disabilities?

Meanwhile, a new ballot initiative was introduced seeking to change the way the voucher program is run. If passed, it would require schools that receive ESA funding to complete state assessments and follow certain state standards in the classroom.

Thorne is concerned the initiative could harm private schools that serve students with disabilities.

“There are some schools in the Valley that take on children with disabilities that are teaching life skills that aren’t even focused on academics, right? So, are there carve-outs? Are there considerations for those types of schools?” she said.

Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.

Related

Arizona Republican introduces bill that would create school voucher-like tax creditLeader of Arizona ESA accountability initiative says she doesn't want to end school vouchersEquine therapy helping students with disabilities in San Tan ValleyPeoria Unified adds new hotline for students to report questionable behaviorArizona governor hopeful Andy Biggs says more funding doesn’t mean better schoolsSen. Mark Kelly proposes 2 bills to support young men and grow public service