The fight over the state’s universal school voucher program continues this week as Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes wades into it.
The Democrat has opened an investigation into the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program and approvals of “supplemental educational expenses” — like $900 Lego sets, ski passes and pianos. Superintendent Tom Horne’s administration responded in kind, writing back two days later, saying it will start requiring parents to justify their spending.
It’s an admission they must have known they were on shaky legal ground to make, according to Laurie Roberts, opinion columnist for The Arizona Republic. She joined The Show to talk more about it.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: So you have been writing about the state’s ESA program critically for a long time now. You, I’m guessing, welcomed this move by the AG?
LAURIE ROBERTS: Yes. I think it’s about time that somebody took a critical look at how the taxpayers’ money is being spent. The idea that parents are using taxpayer-funded money to buy kayaks, $1,000 LEGO sets, volleyball shoes and pianos — of course we’ve got to have a living room piano — without having to somehow justify it as an educational expense, just get the carbon, it’s a blank check and off you go with it is outrageous.
We don’t allow public schools to do that. Why would we allow funding for schooling of these children to have that happen? The Legislature was asked to this year by Gov. Katie Hobbs to put what she called — and I think it’s mostly true — reasonable guardrails around the program to require documentation of why you need this and how it furthers your child’s academic pursuits, for example.
And the Legislature just isn’t interested in putting any controls on this program.
GILGER: What do you make of this change in policy that came pretty quickly, just two days later from the Department of Education?
ROBERTS: Well, it tells me that they were doing exactly what Kris Mayes said that they were doing, which is willy-nilly approving things without any sort of documentation. But of course, we already knew that, because how do you explain how a kayak fits into an academic pursuit of education? How do you explain why the public should be paying for martial arts lessons or ski passes at the Snowbowl?
You can’t. But those are the kinds of expenses that have been approved in the past. And in the past, John Ward, who is the director of the program under the Department of Education and Tom Horne, has said, “Well, what’s educational is in the eye of the beholder. And these parents think it’s educational. So they should be able to have it.” And I’m obviously paraphrasing.
But now his tone is a little different. He is saying we will immediately stop allowing these kinds of expenses without the proper documentation, and he will be answering I think it was 17 questions the attorney general has asked about prior expenses as she launches this investigation. So it sounds as if they are willing to at least cooperate with an investigation, which is a positive thing.
GILGER: So remind us, Laurie, a little bit about how we got here, like the change in law passed by state lawmakers a few years ago that kind of made the program universal. What have we seen since? You talked about some of the expenses. We’ve also just seen the budget for this program skyrocket, right?
ROBERTS: Well, the budget has gone crazy. What happened was, of course, this is a program that was created originally about 13, 14 years ago now for children who have special needs that schools can’t really accommodate. And so the idea was we were going to pay for a specialist outside of the public school system to give these children the education that they need.
And most people thought that that was a reasonable thing, and it was very well documented by the way. Over the years, that program has been expanded to foster children and children in poor and failing schools and children from certain ZIP codes, etc., etc., etc.
But the goal was always to make it a universal program. There was an expansion attempt by the Legislature, a smaller expansion attempt that was referred to the ballot by opponents, and voters overwhelmingly said, “No, we don’t want to do this.” Two years later, the Legislature came back and created universal expansion so that any child can qualify for a voucher.
What we of course have seen is that many of the people — it used to be most, now I’ll just say many — many of the children who are getting these vouchers or kids who were already in private school, and their parents were paying the tab. But now that can get taxpayers to pick up a good portion of it. And so that’s what they’re doing.
So suddenly, children that we weren’t paying to educate before, we are now paying to educate, or at least a portion of their education. We’re buying their kayaks and their private school tuition, at least a portion of it, because usually it costs more than what a voucher will pay.
And so the program has skyrocketed. I think we’re up to now 75,000 children. The budget is going to be, I think, $864 million it will cost just next year.
GILGER: So of course, Republicans and proponents of the program say this is all about school choice, about letting parents put their kids in the best schools and not making them stick to the public school that they aren’t getting as much out of. And they’ve been very resistant, as you said, to any regulation. I wonder, though, do you think that this change in policy here from the Department of Education, which is sort of a first, is the beginning of finding a middle ground, like where we can see this program continue, but with some checks?
ROBERTS: No. In terms of this particular investigation, yes, it may put a few guardrails on it. But in terms of creating some sort of a program that has some limitations to it, as long as the Republicans control the Legislature, you will not see changes to this program. Now, in this upcoming election, if Democrats get a seat at the table, there’s a possibility that you can at least begin to bring some sanity to it so it doesn’t spiral out of control.
But you mentioned school choice a minute ago. I want to point out that we already had school choice before all of this. We’ve had charter schools. We’ve had student tuition organizations that offer scholarships that are based on tax credits that businesses and individuals can claim. We’ve had all sorts of opportunity for this before.
But if your question is are vouchers going to go away, is this program going to go away? No.
GILGER: Right. Do you think, though, it’ll continue in the future but with some of these kinds of checks? Like there will be a way to do this without letting it get out of control as you describe it? Like the governor’s budget passed this year also included a few regulations on the program, including fingerprint checks for staff working around children, some of the things that advocates have been pushing for for a long time.
ROBERTS: Very, very few minimal, gentle reforms were put in her budget. If you’re ever going to get to the bigger problem, which is you’re basically creating a two-tiered system, one of public schools for the have-nots and one of publicly funded private schools for the haves. That’s where we’re headed with this whole thing, because tuition simply costs more than a voucher will pay, and average families can’t make up that gap, whereas the richer families and more wealthy families in the better ZIP codes can. And so you’re never going to really change that.
We need middle ground. There’s nothing wrong with having a voucher program. We need middle ground. But as long as the Legislature is adamant, this program has disaster written all over it, if there aren’t some guardrails.
