PHOENIX (AP) - An analysis suggests more Arizona students using the school-voucher program are from higher-performing districts in more-affluent areas.
Only 4 percent of the money drawn from public schools to fund the Empowerment Scholarship Account program came from districts rated “D’’ or lower, the analysis by the Arizona Republic suggested (https://bit.ly/2nSQG4E). About 75 percent of money came from districts rated as “A’’ or “B.”
The program allows parents to take a majority of the money that would have gone to their local school and put it toward other educational opportunities. Lawmakers are currently advancing bills that would expand the voucher program to all 1.1 million Arizona public school students after four years.
Since the release of the Republic’s analysis, some lawmakers have questioned whether the timing for the bills’ passage is appropriate.
“I have concerns, based on those numbers,” said Rep. T.J. Shope, R- Coolidge, of the findings that few students from poor-performing schools are using the program. “I would hope that those numbers would be a little higher.”
Students from districts with “D’’ ratings can enroll for the voucher program without any other requirement. However, the program’s states that students from schools ranked from “A’’ to “C’’ fall in the following categories: have a disability, be a former foster child, the child of a military family, the sibling of a student in the voucher program or live on an Indian reservation.
Republican Sen. Debbie Lesko of Peoria, who is sponsoring one of the bills, said the reason the award is going to more families from affluent and better-performing areas is that the students who are applying from those districts are disabled.
“Right now, as you know, the majority of the children that take advantage of ESAs are special-needs students,” Lesko said. “Perhaps that’s the reason that your analysis came out the way that it does. Now when I expand it so that all students are eligible, I am assuming we are going to see a different outcome than you have come up with.”
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Information from: The Arizona Republic, https://www.azcentral.com
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