Arizona Families Defend ESA from Superintendent Horne

Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program has long stood as a national model for school choice, empowering parents with the freedom and flexibility to tailor their children’s education to their unique needs. But now, this vital program faces what conservative State Senator Jake Hoffman recently called “the single greatest threat to school choice” and the ESA program.

Remarkably, that threat comes not from the teachers’ unions or progressive politicians who openly oppose the ESA, but from a supposed supporter, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne.

Horne, a Republican who claims to be a “champion” of school choice, has bogged down the ESA program with bureaucratic red tape. From unilaterally imposing restrictions on approved educational expenses to adopting manual review policies that have slowed expense approvals and reimbursements to a crawl, his administration has created unnecessary barriers for parents who simply want what’s best for their children.

Now Horne is asking the Arizona State Board of Education to adopt a new parent handbook that would add additional spending restrictions that are not required by statute. These moves threaten to undermine the very freedom that made the ESA program successful in the first place.

In a recent survey of ESA families by The Heritage Foundation, more than 99 percent of families using the ESA said they support the ESA program, but two-thirds were dissatisfied with the way Horne is administering it, while only 20 percent were satisfied.

That is a steep decline in satisfaction since the last time the Arizona Department of Education conducted a satisfaction survey, which was in 2023, under the Kathy Hoffman administration. That survey found that 67 percent of respondents were satisfied with the department’s management of the ESA program. Ironically, Hoffman campaigned against the ESA program while Horne campaigned for it, yet ESA parents were more likely to say they preferred her administration of the program over his.

Under Horne’s administration, the vast majority of ESA parents report having encountered challenges utilizing their ESAs. When given a list of common complaints, only 2 percent answered “none of the above.” The most common complaints concerned long wait times for expense reimbursements (86%) and approvals (77%), as well as difficulties reaching a department employee (65%) and getting questions answered about ESA issues (63%).

Horne’s policies have caused these problems. In attempt to shield his administration from bad-faith allegations by school-choice opponents that the ESA program was “unaccountable” and “wide open for fraud and abuse,” Horne overreacted, instructing his staff to manually review every single ESA purchase before approving it.

“[O]ur policy of reviewing all requests is far different from that of my predecessor, who did allow a number of inappropriate expenses to be approved,” said Horne. “Under my watch we review every expense request regardless of dollar amount.”

However, that policy was as unnecessary as it was disastrous. The ESA program was already highly accountable. A 2018 report by Arizona’s auditor general found a misspending rate of less than 1 percent of total ESA spending.

A more recent audit identified “only 1 successful transaction at an unapproved merchant totaling $30,” meaning that the rate of improper payments to unapproved merchants had been reduced to just 0.001 percent. By contrast, according to a 2021 analysis by the federal Office of Management and Budget, the government-wide improper payment rate was 7.2 percent.

Now Horne wants to impose even more restrictions. Last week, he asked the Arizona State Board of Education to adopt a revised ESA parent handbook that would cap spending on several categories of approved expenditures, including equipment used for physical education and home economics, musical instruments, laptops, smart boards, tools for vocational education, and more.

Before the hearing, Horne emailed all ESA parents, calling himself “the state-wide [sic] leader of school choice” and “the chief defender of ESAs,” before describing how he was going to impose new restrictions on how families use their ESAs. Horne argued that these new restrictions were necessary because ESA holders had attempted to purchase an expensive watch, a fountain pen, a golf simulator, a hotel stay, and “35 similarly improper requests.” On request, the department provided a list of 32 requests ranging from a $13.86 bottle of lubricant to a $15,540 pinball machine.

First, it’s worth noting that the department can already deny things like watches, pinball machines, and hotel stays because they are not approved categories of expenditures in the ESA statute. Second, these 32 “improper requests” are a miniscule fraction of the hundreds of thousands of expense requests made annually by the parents of the more than 87,000 ESA students. Even if they had been approved—which they weren’t—they would have accounted for less than 0.01 percent of total ESA spending. Yet in order to stop a tiny number of possible bad actors, Horne is imposing restrictions on the vast majority of parents trying to do right by their kids.

Dozens of parents spoke out against the proposed restrictions last week at the Arizona State Board of Education meeting. Parents submitted more than 160 pages of testimony demonstrating how the arbitrary caps would curtail their ability to customize their child’s education.

While some of the caps might seem reasonable for the median student, such as the $4,000 limit on musical instruments every three years, such a cap would adversely affect a child who is a musical prodigy. The ESA program is designed not just for the median student, but also for students at the ends of the bell curve.

Likewise, the $1,500 cap over three years on vocational equipment adversely affects students who might not be on a path to college, but could still get a good job working as a welder or in manufacturing. Parents are in a much better position to make these decisions than politicians and bureaucrats.

After listening to the parents, the board opted not to vote on Horne’s proposed changes. No one seconded the motion to vote on the handbook, not even the members recently appointed by Gov. Katie Hobbs, who opposes the ESA program.

Time is running out for Horne to win back parents’ trust and restore the ESA program’s historically high level of user satisfaction. The board must approve a new handbook by May 1, and the board is scheduled to meet again on April 19. Horne has a few weeks to present a new handbook without the arbitrary restrictions. Instead, his office should take steps to improve the administration of the ESA program, such as by reinstating ESA debit cards—a policy change supported by 88 percent of ESA families.

If Horne truly does support the ESA program, he should listen to ESA families and reverse course.

Horne is doubling down with the “I voted for it before I voted against it” strategy.

He said he “brought school choice to Arizona” with “his” legislation. But it wasn’t his legislation as he was not a sponsor or even a cosponsor, and he voted against it on 2nd reading and final… https://t.co/0MAH8IXsio

— Jason Bedrick ️ (@JasonBedrick) April 2, 2025

Jason Bedrick is a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.