Arizona’s revolutionary school choice program that gives families flexibility to customize an educational experience to best fit their children’s needs will be challenged in the Arizona Court of Appeals today.
The Goldwater Institute will once again defend education savings accounts, which is a program that allows a portion of a child’s state education funding to spend on a range of education expenses, from a challenge brought by the ASBA (Arizona School Boards Association), which argues that the program violates the state’s “Blaine Amendment,” a constitutional provision on the books in nearly 40 states that prohibits the transfer of public funds to private schools.
In 2012, the Maricopa County Superior Court dismissed the School Boards Association’s claim, finding the program to stand up to the Blaine Amendment. That decision paved the way not only for Arizona lawmakers to expand the program in last year’s legislative session, but also for lawmakers in other states with Blaine Amendments to introduce similar programs in their states.
School choice programs routinely face legal challenges, such as the lawsuit that brought down Arizona’s school voucher program in 2009. A Louisiana voucher program was recently struck down by a lower court judge on the basis that it allocated public funds to private entities. The constitutionality of Arizona’s education savings accounts, which are markedly different from vouchers in how they function and allocate funds, as well as the program’s resilience to this ongoing legal challenge marks a great opportunity for school choice advocates around the country to replicate the program.
Conceived of by the Goldwater Institute in 2005 and first approved by the Arizona Legislature in 2011 for families of special-needs children, education savings accounts were recently expanded to cover children in failing schools, children of active-duty military parents, and children adopted out of the foster care system. One in five Arizona children are currently eligible for the accounts. The accounts can be spent on a wide range of educational programs including tutoring, private school tuition and online education. The Arizona Legislature currently is considering a bill that would further expand the program.
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