Grand Canyon Times

The Arizona Department of Education announced this week that there are more than 59,000 Arizona students in the state’s Empowertment Scholarship Account (ESA) program.”

“59,323 Arizona Students benefit from an Empowerment Scholarship Account (as of 6/12/23),” said the department’s website.

“With the ESA program, the money that would pay for that student’s education in a neighborhood school follows that student to whichever school the parents choose for their child, including education at home,” said the website. “ESA dollars cover multiple education expenses such as private school tuition, curricula, educational supplies, tutoring and more.” 

In 2011, Arizona became the first state to create an ESA program. It later expanded that to a universal program through a law signed by then-Gov. Doug Ducey in July 2022.

ESAs were essentially declared constitutional by the Arizona Supreme Court in 2014, when it deemed those challenging the program were unable to show harm.

In April 2023, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne (R) expressed his support for the ESA program on an interview on the “Students Over Systems” podcast, reported the Grand Canyon Times. 

“Competition’s good for everyone,” said Horne. “If a school is complaining that the fact that they have competition from a private school means that a student may leave, the solution to that is for them to do a better job academically, get better results academically, so the parent will want to keep the student there.”

In February 2023, Gov. Katie Hobbs' (D-Ariz.) proposed budget included repeal of the ESA program. In May 2023, however, Hobbs signed a budget that did not include a repeal.