By Dennis Hicks, Hamilton
America’s Federalism provides an opportunity for various states to act as laboratories for innovative policies that other states can observe. For example, Montanans can observe Colorado’s failed marijuana legalization experiment and be warned.
Another state that bears watching is Arizona’s innovative educational choice experiment called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) which began in 2011 for certain students and is expanding to include all students.
An ESA is essentially a prepaid bank card that parents can use to pay for their child’s education costs—books, tutoring, private school tuition, and educational therapy, for example. Any unused account funds from year to year will be rolled over in anticipation of future educational expenses, including college costs.
With the ESAs, participating families receive 90 percent of the funding that the state would have spent on the student at their district school. When parents control funding, they have leverage. If something about their child’s schooling isn’t working, Empowerment Scholarship Accounts give parents the freedom and the funds to choose options that do work for them.
The bill that Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law last year expanded eligibility further, to include all of Arizona’s K-12 students. However, special-interest groups forced the expansion onto a ballot initiative, which will determine whether the new open-eligibility policy will continue.
In 2018, the Empowerment Scholarship Account option gave more than 5,000 students control over their schooling, and the program seems to be working. It not only saves the state 10% of their education budget annually, the program also benefits both parents and students. Arizona is the only state to see statistically significant gains and no declines in science, math and reading achievement scores.
Parents, Montana legislators, and educators should keep an eye on Arizona’s innovative ESA’s. They seem to work great and should be considered for Montana as well.