How Arizona's school voucher program blew a MASSIVE hole in the state budget.

[pnwmom]

With nearly a dozen states having similar programs, there is pressure on other states for enacting "school choice" plans.

The rest of the country should learn from AZ's mistakes. Just say no to school vouchers.

In 2022, Arizona pioneered the largest school voucher program in the history of education. Under a new law, any parent in the state, no matter how affluent, could get a taxpayer-funded voucher worth up to tens of thousands of dollars to spend on private school tuition, extracurricular programs or homeschooling supplies.

In just the past two years, nearly a dozen states have enacted sweeping voucher programs similar to Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account system, with many using it as a model.

Yet in a lesson for these other states, Arizona’s voucher experiment has since precipitated a budget meltdown. The state this year faced a $1.4 billion budget shortfall, much of which was a result of the new voucher spending, according to the Grand Canyon Institute, a local nonpartisan fiscal and economic policy think tank. Last fiscal year alone, the price tag of universal vouchers in Arizona skyrocketed from an original official estimate of just under $65 million to roughly $332 million, the Grand Canyon analysis found; another $429 million in costs is expected this year.

As a result of all this unexpected spending, alongside some recent revenue losses, Arizona is now having to make deep cuts to a wide swath of critical state programs and projects, the pain of which will be felt by average Arizonans who may or may not have school-aged children.

https://www.propublica.org/article/arizona-school-vouchers-budget-meltdown

[sakabatou]

1. *pretends to be surprised*

[GreenWave]

2. Tens of thousands for home school supplies?

any parent in the state, no matter how affluent, could get a taxpayer-funded voucher worth up to tens of thousands of dollars to spend on private school tuition, extracurricular programs or homeschooling supplies.

[Timeflyer]

3. Fiscal catastrophe from vouchers is a feature, not a glitch. It's just one step in the plan to destroy

traditional public education systems. Then privatizers, who are huge GOP donors, can come in and profit off kids by running corporate charter schools.

[Igel]

7. Most news sources put the responsibility, in descending order, on a small number of causes.

The first and primary was having tax revenues decline by more than 6% instead of increase by nearly 2%. News sources from the Arizona Mirror to AP emphasized that as reason #1. The governor, however, a foe of the program, really just focused on the ed. savings accounts. Bringing us to cause #2 ...

#2 was having a lot more parents use the "education savings accounts" than predicted.

That's a problem--when too many people make use of a government program.

The governor did have a valid point--the (R) legislature didn't make any attempts at imposing a reasonable cap on the program. That probably doesn't just constitute insufficiently controlled spending per person, but an enticement that motivated the enrollment in excess of expectations.

[Norrrm]

4. One of the supposed 'benefits' is more efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

Vouchers should be no more than the average cost of public schools.

and should be accepted as full tuition for the voucher school.

[pnwmom]

5. This kind of program is always going to blow a hole in a state budget

because suddenly the state isn't just paying to educate its public school students -- it's also giving vouchers to (usually wealthier) students already in private and in home schools, students it hasn't had to pay for till the vouchers.

[ananda]

6. My s-i-l is putting together a case against vouchers here in Texas.

I just sent her this link, maybe it will be a little more ammo.