These are some of the millions of dollars of educational extras paid for using Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA).
An advisor to the statewide, universal school voucher program is now questioning whether more accountability measures are needed, after seeing ABC15’s data analysis of transactions to 14,000 ESA vendors last school year.
Hackbarth says his own daughter, who has autism, has thrived with the help of ESA-funded private tutors, therapy, and even piano lessons. His piano was a hand-me-down, but he knows other ESA parents who are buying new pianos for their living rooms with taxpayer dollars. He calls some of the purchases “crazy.”
The ESA program’s Executive Director, John Ward, told ABC15 that 18 staff members review every purchase. During the 2022-2023 school year, the first year for universal vouchers, $304 million in ESA transactions were approved.This school year, Arizona families choosing private schools or home education can receive at least $7,300 per child. Children with disabilities can receive significantly more, with the maximum awards topping $40,000.
“While you may think this may not be a good use of that family's ESA funding, at the end of the day, they get a fixed amount of money,” Ward said. “If that's how they're going to choose to use it, that's their prerogative.”“I don't think our legislature on both sides of the aisle really looked at how it was written when we decided to expand, and I think that's where a lot of this is coming from.
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