Educational Savings Account
Educational Savings Account (ESA) is a school voucher program enacted in Iowa in 2023,[1] and sought by Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas in a third legislative session there in October 2023.
It consists of families obtaining state money to put into their ESA in order to defray the expenses of private education.
History
Arizona, which has the worst public schools in the United States, was the first to implement ESAs. Originally limited to certain conditions such as leaving a failing public school or having special needs, this program expanded to become available to all beginning for the 2022-23 school year. The vast majority of the benefits of this program goes to students who were never in public school.
A criticism in Forbes wrote about this $600 million overall expense:
| â | A voucher of roughly $7,000 is of limited use in a state where the average private school tuition is over $10,000, and private schools retain the right to accept or reject students as they choose.
While charter schools in Arizona are required to do audits and follow state curriculum requirements, recipients of voucher money donât have those kinds of requirements. Dave Wells, research director of GCI, notes that private schools are free to discriminate and follow whatever academic program they prefer.[2] |
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