Arizona’s school voucher program is the first universal voucher experiment in the country. And every Republican-led state in the country has been watching — and some are starting their own versions.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a universal voucher bill into law last May after years of heated debate among lawmakers.
But the Texas version of school vouchers, known as Texas Education Freedom Accounts, has some notable differences from Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, or ESAs.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning there, Jessica.
JESSICA VOTIPKA: Good morning. How are you?
LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for coming on The Show. I'm doing well.
So, Texas’ program is much newer than ours. As I said, they just signed this into law in May, and they just announced this voucher program now in its initial year will have 96,000 students. But of course, Texas is a much bigger state. Tell us just how this new program has been received so far.
JESSICA VOTIPKA: Mixed. I mean, of course there's people who are not in love with vouchers, to say the least. But I mean, it's proven pretty popular amongst families who are looking to have a different choice of school ... for whatever reason.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Let me ask you about some of the differences here. The one big difference it seems is in who controls the money for this program in Texas, right? Like it is not under their Department of Education as it is here.
JESSICA VOTIPKA: Right. Exactly. It's under their comptroller, which is kind of sort of like ... I'm trying to think of a good analogy. But yeah, it's part of the government but it's separate from the Department of Education.
LAUREN GILGER: OK. And in the fact that it's under the comptroller's office, does that mean there's more accountability on spending?
JESSICA VOTIPKA: I feel like it is. You know, it's always good to have someone on the outside looking in, keeping track of things. Though, they are also having an independent auditor. There's a group that's kind of independent of all of this, it's backed by Our Schools, Our Democracy. It's called the Texas Center for Voucher Transparency. So they've got that going on, too.
LAUREN GILGER: And when Texas lawmakers were shaping this program, debating it, they also require now an independent audit, right? Every year, of the program.
JESSICA VOTIPKA: Sure. That's right. Yeah.
LAUREN GILGER: And I mean, that's a big difference from what we've seen in Arizona, right? Because we've seen the costs of this program go up, but also, you know, accountability is under debate. Like the state lawmakers on the Democratic side have tried very hard to get some kind of — they would love an independent audit, right?
JESSICA VOTIPKA: Sure. And of course, you know, you hear about journalists who are submitting public records requests and, you know, sometimes hearing radio silence. And I saw, I think it was on YouTube, an interview with Superintendent Horne. And he mentioned that they are very understaffed and that's one of the reasons they're having trouble keeping up with, you know, checking on things. And I appreciate that. I don't think that's the silver bullet to having accountability, but I think it comes into play and I feel for them, I do.
LAUREN GILGER: Let's talk about costs of the school voucher program here versus in Texas. We've watched in Arizona the ESA program cost really balloon. It's a billion dollars now. What about costs in Texas? They have a cap on this essentially.
JESSICA VOTIPKA: They do, and they're broadcasting it to go fairly high, you know, higher than they expect. So, you know, you can put a cap on things, but who knows how things will turn out.
LAUREN GILGER: What is the cap there? It's capped at a billion, which we've already met here, right?
JESSICA VOTIPKA: Right, right.
LAUREN GILGER: But a much bigger state of course. ... Let me talk to you about transparency with you, Jessica. Like, what do we know about who is enrolled in Texas's program? You mentioned here in Arizona, you know, journalists will send out records requests and not always get the answers they want. What do they know there?
JESSICA VOTIPKA: Yeah, so they're seeing a lot of students who, like Arizona, are already in private schools. And a statistic that really struck me was, you know — Texas students ... a little more than half of them, statistics are showing, are Hispanic. However, one of the smallest groups of students who are taking advantage of vouchers are Hispanic kids and Hispanic families.
LAUREN GILGER: In Arizona?
JESSICA VOTIPKA: In Texas.
LAUREN GILGER: In Texas. Interesting. Are there educational standards in the Texas program that have to be met for kids or for private schools that accept them?
JESSICA VOTIPKA: Well, kind of, sort of. So they're having a testing requirement. But unless you're a public school, you can pretty much pick any test you want. ... But the thing with that is — how do I put this? So when you do different types of tests, you know, state testing like we have, and then you throw in all these other random tests, it's kind of like — it's like baseball.
So you've got the pitcher and the catcher. They're both on the same team, they both have the same goal: to win the game, to do well. But when you look at — when you compare the two, you can't really accurately say, well, this pitcher is a better player than the catcher, or vice versa, because they're so different.
You know, and I think — I think a better way of doing it, in my opinion for what it's worth, is to just have one test that everyone has to take, and then you have the level playing field and you're getting everyone in the batting cage.
LAUREN GILGER: So Jessica, Arizona voters are looking at a ballot initiative coming up here, assuming it makes the ballot, that would do some of these things that we're seeing happen in Texas — like put an income cap on ESA families, not the same as a cap on the program in Texas, but a similar idea. They would add academic and safety standards for private schools that accept vouchers.
I mean, are there lessons learned here, you think?
JESSICA VOTIPKA: Oh sure. And I think, you know, Texas is a state that has learned lessons from us. ... There's been very little coverage comparing different voucher programs amongst states. The only one I was pointed out that there is one, that was written comparing Florida and Texas. And, you know, there are so many similarities, but something that a lot of the other states are doing are they're putting more guardrails down right from the get-go.
LAUREN GILGER: And that's exactly what we're looking at with this initiative on the ballot in November.
All right, Jessica Votipka, reporter for the Arizona Agenda, joining us. Jessica, thank you.
JESSICA VOTIPKA: Sure. Thank you.
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