Before the start of the state legislative session in January, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, proposed a plan to heavily regulate the state’s Universal Education Savings Account (ESA) program. His proposal aims to make private schools meet some of the same standards that public schools follow, including requiring that private school teachers meet “minimum educational requirements” before teaching ESA students and that schools Private schools provide special education students with the same services they received. in public schools. Additionally, she wants to require that students attend public schools for 100 days before receiving an ESA and that the state control spending at participating private choice schools.
Hobbs’ plan is an attempt to stifle Arizona’s thriving ESA program and bureaucratize private schools to operate much like the public schools from which ESA students have already opted out. This also comes in the wake of a failed attempt to repeal the state’s ESA program last year. Like last year, the Republican-controlled state legislature is unlikely to accept his measures and has already killed one of the bills sponsored by Hobbs’ allies before it reached committee in February.
Hobbs will find it difficult to curb school choice in Arizona, not only because so many families are benefiting from it, but because students have also made notable academic improvements as choice has expanded over the past two decades.
National and state-level trends in student achievement, public school staffing, and education funding for all 50 states are detailed in Public Education at the crossroads, a new study from the Reason Foundation (the nonprofit organization that publishes this magazine). Due to delays in releasing federal data, the document only covers trends before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2003-2019, Arizona students made substantial improvements across the board in student achievement as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), better known as the Nation’s Report Card. Between fourth and eighth grade NAEP scores for reading and math, Arizona ranks in the top ten in achievement growth compared to other states, except for fourth-grade math scores for low-income students, where it ranks 14th. Fourth-grade reading and math scores increased 7 and 9 points, respectively. Eighth grade reading and math scores improved by 4 and 9 points.
NAEP improvements are even more pronounced for low-income students. For Arizona students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, fourth-grade reading and math scores grew by 8 and 9 points, respectively, while eighth-grade reading and math scores grew by 7 and 12 points.
Arizona has also managed to improve student outcomes by avoiding conventional calls for more money and smaller classes in public schools. In 2002-2020, per-student revenue for public education grew only in inflation-adjusted terms from $10,353 to $10,790, a 4.2% increase that ranks the state 47th nationally in terms of revenue growth per student. Nor has the state prioritized reducing class sizes or adding support staff: Despite enrollment growth of 25 percent from 2002-2020, Arizona public school staffing grew only 13.7 percent. % during the same period. By comparison, public schools nationwide have added staff at a rate more than double the growth in student enrollment.
Instead, Arizona has spent the last few decades extending a wide range of educational options to families. It was an early adopter of charter schools and open enrollment in public schools in 1994. The state also established the nation’s first tax credit scholarship program in 1997 and the nation’s first ESA program in 2011 As of 2022, Arizona’s ESA program, which was initially only available to students with disabilities, expanded to ensure universal student eligibility and now serves more than 75,000 students. Charter schools currently serve more than 20 percent of the state’s public school population, a larger percentage than any other state.
During this time, educational approaches that would be considered experimental in other states have matured and found comfortable niches in Arizona. Arizona Autism Charter Schools, currently with four campuses, specialize in serving children with autism spectrum disorder and have been operating since 2013. Many of the state’s other established charters have diverse instructional approaches including Montessori, focused on STEM and education classic. There is also a charter school focused on environmental sustainability for Navajo children in rural Arizona. Prenda, the popular microschool management platform, supports 149 private microschools and charter partners in Arizona. In Phoenix, the Black Mothers Forum adapted Prenda’s model to better meet the needs of Black families at the onset of the pandemic.
To be sure, Arizona students do not perform well in NAEP absolute rankings. For example, the state’s fourth graders rank 44th and 36th nationally in overall reading and math scores. But it’s difficult to know the extent to which greater investments in public education would have led to better achievement growth in Arizona. Consider New York, which led the nation in per-student revenue growth from 2002-2020, rising from $18,054 to $30,723, or 70.2%. Despite these massive increases in funding, New York students saw almost no NAEP gains during that time. In fact, low-income students in Arizona outperform low-income students in New York in fourth- and eighth-grade math.
The fact that students have gained academic ground in Arizona’s choice-rich, fiscally conservative context thwarts Hobbs’ attempt to stymie the state’s ESA program. Parents in the Grand Canyon State have already proven capable of holding schools accountable without his help.