Arizona ESA Growth Skyrockets While Criticisms Crash

Arizona educators have been set free to create their own schools and education services. And families can now select between them to find the best fit for their child.

Arizona lawmakers in the 1990s created the nation’s most robust charter school law, the first scholarship tax credit program, and statewide district open enrollment. Education flourished in the process as Arizona lead the nation in the creation of new public schools and statewide academic achievement improved.

Arizona then took the boldest step of all–allowing parents to receive their K-12 funding into an account to manage within the confines of statute. Today this latest form of education has proven wildly popular with families, which can be seen both in the growth of the program and the desperately incoherent complaints of opponents.

Arizona lawmakers created the nation’s first account-based K-12 choice program-Empowerment Scholarship Accounts in 2011. Participating families sign a contract with the state to educate their child and the state deposits an amount equal to 90% of the state funding of their district into an account controlled by parents with state oversight.

Accounts have multiple but limited uses set down in statute–families can use their funds for tuition at private schools, colleges and universities, and to purchase individual public-school courses. They can also use those funds for tutoring, special education therapies, academic curriculum and materials and more.

Arizona’s program debuted with 144 students in 2011 and grew to about 12,000 students in 2022 when Republican Gov. Doug Ducey made all Arizona students eligible.

In early 2026, Arizona’s ESA enrollment surpassed 100,000 students.

An EdChoice study of account use found that the number of participating private schools increase from 510 to 661 between the 2022 and 2023 school years, including large increases in private religious schools, non-religious private schools, special education focused schools, co-ops and post-secondary schools. Participating colleges, tutors, and therapists likewise increased.

Some Arizona families have teamed up to hire their own teachers, cutting out the middleman.

Despite her own personal use of choice as a student and parent, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, continues seeking to deprive Arizona families of the same. This year she proposed to cut off participation in the program to higher income families, and to ban the rollover of unused funds from one school year to the next at the behest of her allies in the teacher unions. Neither of these proposals make the least bit of sense. Arizona taxpayers can for instance fund nearly two students to participate in the ESA program for the total average cost for one student to attend an Arizona district school.

Why Hobbs happily spends $20,000 for the children of well-to-do families attending a district while begrudging them a $7,500 ESA instead seems entirely bizarre.

Likewise, moving ESA accounts to “use it or lose it” will result in a misuse of funds. Bureaucrats have long squandered funds on end the fiscal year spending sprees, and it is not something to adopt in choice programs. Private school tuition is higher for the high-school years than in K-8, meaning that families sometimes rollover funds for future expenses. The “savings” part of an education savings account requires families to consider opportunity costs when making purchases for their students.

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come–not even teacher unions.

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