New data shows that enrollment continues to grow in Arizona’s school voucher program that the Legislature expanded last year, but the pace of that growth is slowing.
Enrollment in the voucher program, officially dubbed Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, grew to nearly 67,000 students as of Sept. 30, according to Arizona Department of Education data presented to the State Board of Education.
That’s a 118% increase over enrollment during the first quarter of last school year, but only a 7% increase over enrollment at the end of the previous quarter on June 30.
The median award amount also ticked up, going from $7,194 in the final quarter of last school year to $7,409 in the first quarter this year.
The bulk of the increase is driven by enrollment in the new universal voucher program, which allows all students in the state to use state funds that would otherwise go towards their public school to pay for home schooling or private school tuition.
Universal increased by over 200% from the first quarter of last school year when the expanded program went into effect and the first quarter of this school year.
There were 12,127 students enrolled in the state’s voucher program, officially dubbed Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, as of June 30, 2022, before the expanded program went into effect.
The law that expanded eligibility for the program to all students was passed by Republican lawmakers and signed by former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey in 2022 and went into effect in September of that year. Previously, only students who met certain criteria, including those with special needs and those attending schools with D or F state letter grades, qualified.
Several of those subcategories have seen enrollment drop over the past year as enrollment in the universal program has increased. According to Department of Education data, enrollment amongst students from public schools with low letter grades dropped by 20% between the first quarter of last school year and this year. Enrollment amongst students from military families dropped by 17% over the same period.
The data presented to the Board of Education also shows a steep drop off in voucher use between middle school and high school with enrollment dropping by an average of 11% between eighth and ninth grades over each of the past five quarters.
Enrollment in the program dropped off by an average of 47% between sixth and 12th grades over the same time period.
It is unclear what factors are driving those trends.
A spokesman for the Arizona Department of Education said the department collects data on the Empowerment Scholarship Account program but does not analyze what is driving those trends.
