Arizona’s ESA voucher program has zero standards for financial transparency, academic performance, or student safety. As the devastating impacts of our state’s ESA voucher program snowball in the universal program’s second year, the verdict is clear: Arizona’s vouchers are the least accountable  in the US.

Read an excerpt from our newest blog below, or read the whole thing HERE.

🤑 Arizona’s runaway voucher program lacks the financial and enrollment caps of other states. North Carolina, which has a slightly larger population than Arizona, implemented a $415 million cap on its program. Even states like Iowa, Arkansas, and Florida are phasing in their universal programs to avoid an Arizona-style surge in cost. Other states limit which students are eligible for vouchers to ensure students with greater needs have access to the program; Indiana’s program is limited to students making up to 400% of federal poverty guidelines — unlike Arizona, where the majority of ESA voucher recipients reside in the wealthiest zip codes in the state. 

❌ AZ is the ONLY state with no academic accountability for universal vouchers. Countless studies show that voucher programs cause detrimental impacts on student learning — but in Arizona, there is simply no way to assess whether students in the program are more academically successful with a voucher than they were in a public school (if they were even attending public school in the first place). Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, and Florida all require voucher students to either sit for state testing or take a nationally norm-referenced assessment. In Arizona, there are zero requirements for voucher students to show they are meeting state standards or even learning at all. 

🚸 Arizona’s ESA voucher program lacks any semblance of child safety measures. Indiana, Florida, Utah, and West Virginia all require that teachers participating in their state voucher systems pass a background check to ensure they can safely work with children. This is fairly common in states with targeted voucher programs as well; DC, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Wisconsin all have similar background check requirements. 

Arizona’s voucher program even lacks basic health and safety regulations for private schools, tutors, and vendors. Voucher-funded schools are not required to participate in health screenings, conduct standard fire and emergency evacuation drills, or have systems in place to deal with improper possession of firearms, drugs, etc. All but one of the states with voucher programs require voucher-funded private schools to comply with the same health and safety standards as district public schools. 

 Arizona’s ESA voucher program stands out as a stark example of what happens when basic accountability measures are completely disregarded in favor of pushing an ideological agenda. The disregard for financial transparency, academic oversight, and child safety measures sets a dangerous precedent not only for Arizona but for other states where voucher lobbyists have taken root. The consequences of this lack of accountability are dire: it undermines the educational outcomes of voucher recipients and exposes children to potential risks within inadequately regulated private schools. It also gouges taxpayers’ pockets with zero insight into whether students are even learning.