By Jason Bedrick

Written by Jason Bedrick

Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program has long stood as a national model for school choice, empowering parents with the freedom and flexibility to tailor their children’s education to their unique needs. But now, this vital program faces what conservative State Senator Jake Hoffman recently called “the single greatest threat to school choice” and the ESA program.

Horne, a Republican who claims to be a “champion” of school choice, has bogged down the ESA program with bureaucratic red tape. From unilaterally imposing restrictions on approved educational expenses to adopting manual review policies that have slowed expense approvals and reimbursements to a crawl, his administration has created unnecessary barriers for parents who simply want what’s best for their children.

Now Horne is asking the Arizona State Board of Education to adopt a new parent handbook that would add additional spending restrictions that are not required by statute. These moves threaten to undermine the very freedom that made the ESA program successful in the first place.

In a recent survey of ESA families by The Heritage Foundation, more than 99 percent of families using the ESA said they support the ESA program, but two-thirds were dissatisfied with the way Horne is administering it, while only 20 percent were satisfied.

That is a steep decline in satisfaction since the last time the Arizona Department of Education conducted a satisfaction survey, which was in 2023, under the Kathy Hoffman administration. That survey found that 67 percent of respondents were satisfied with the department’s management of the ESA program. Ironically, Hoffman campaigned against the ESA program while Horne campaigned for it, yet ESA parents were more likely to say they preferred her administration of the program over his.

Under Horne’s administration, the vast majority of ESA parents report having encountered challenges utilizing their ESAs. When given a list of common complaints, only 2 percent answered “none of the above.” The most common complaints concerned long wait times for expense reimbursements (86%) and approvals (77%), as well as difficulties reaching a department employee (65%) and getting questions answered about ESA issues (63%).

Horne’s policies have caused these problems. In attempt to shield his administration from bad-faith allegations by school-choice opponents that the ESA program was “unaccountable” and “wide open for fraud and abuse,” Horne overreacted, instructing his staff to manually review every single ESA purchase before approving it.

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Image Credit:  YouTube screenshot ABC 15

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