If you’re a parent, you know the game. Kids will repeat something over and over again hoping you’ll eventually believe it. It may work at home, but it doesn’t work in public policy.
The opponents of advancing education choice in Idaho like to use the state of Arizona as a billion dollar bogeyman. They paint a doomsday impression of what happened when Arizona started expanding choice options for family, and their contention is often repeated over and over again in the press.
At a recent news conference, the state teachers union held signs that read “Arizona’s voucher failure is Idaho’s warning.” Others have made derogatory comments about families who desire more options, or they’ve written op-eds saying any plan will “blow a hole in Idaho’s budget.”
The problem is opponents are just not being straight with Idahoans. It may not be intentional, but rather a genuine lack of understanding of what happened in Arizona, and what’s likely to happen here in Idaho if education choice is expanded.
First, it’s important to know what is being proposed in Idaho. So far this session, each idea has been a limited (capped) tax credit. It is factually wrong to call it a voucher – as vouchers are government checks that go directly to private schools, rather than a tax benefit that is aimed at families. Because of the cap, the state is limited on what it can spend. Further, the proposals introduced so far don’t take a dime away from the state’s public school budget.
Every state has advanced education choice differently. In Arizona, the effort has been underway for more than two decades. Why? Because the state experienced a surge of new residents and didn’t have the capacity to build schools fast enough. Education choice helped ease the overcrowding and give families more options.
Arizona’s universal Education Savings Account (ESA) program only started in 2022, giving access to a state-monitored account that families could use to pay for education expenses outside of the public school system. Universal is the key word in this debate, as many students in Arizona were already eligible for the accounts before the bill passed (more on that in a moment).
While it is true the program cost more than was originally budgeted, there are numerous reasons for this, not the least of which is the overwhelming demand by families throughout the state. In fact, 79,593 families have signed up.
What isn’t true is the contention that costs surged to nearly a billion dollars and left the state in a budget deficit. How do we know? Like any other state, Arizona’s budget details are available online for anyone to see.
For example, take a state look at overall revenue and expenditures from the state for the past 10 years. A close examination indeed shows an increase in spending, but a reduction in revenue. Still, the state’s ending fund balance was in the positive in 2024 and is projected to again be in surplus territory in 2025.
The amount Arizona spends on K-12 public education has also increased – more than doubling over the past decade.
The ESA program is required to give quarterly updates on its spending and participation – and the exact amount every student has received. It is a comprehensive approach that other states should emulate. The most recent update shows the state spending $795.2 million on the universal program, not the nearly one billion that has been reported.
But there’s an important detail here: roughly one out of five students who are currently participating in Arizona’s program are special needs. The state spends $250 million of the $795 million on those students, but they were already eligible for an ESA long before the universal program was adopted. That means the cost for the new program is closer to $545 million. (But wait, there’s more!)
Arizona’s nonpartisan Joint Legislative Budget Committee confirms the new universal ESA program cost about $92 million more than had been forecasted, but that public school enrollment costs because of the ESA availability dropped $93 million. In other words, a small net savings to the state was achieved.
In fact, Arizona’s state schools chief recently announced that the program actually came in $4.3 million under budget for fiscal year 2024. Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said, “Having a surplus of more than $4 million is proof positive that the critics who have claimed the ESA program will bust not only the state’s education budget but the entire budget itself were always wrong. It was always a myth, and that myth is utterly demolished.”
Even more startling are the statistics about the families who are participating. Again, contrary to irresponsible reports, the median household income of a family participating in the Arizona ESA program is just $60,600.
Arizona currently spends $15,100 per student, per year on K-12 public schooling. If the 79,593 students using an ESA instead went to public schools, the obligation for state taxpayers would be north of $1.2 billion.
Instead, the average award size for a family that has signed up for an ESA is $7,500, a savings for the state, and an opportunity for families to select an educational path that works best for their child.
Chris Cargill is the president of Mountain States Policy Center, an independent free market think tank based in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Eastern Washington. Online at mountainstatespolicy.org.
This article was originally published at www.thecentersquare.com
