PHOENIX — Arizona's first-in-the-nation universal school voucher program is off to a rocky start under Republican School Superintendent Tom Horne.
The State Board of Education on Monday voted 6-2 to approve the new Empowerment Scholarship Account handbook for parents; over the objections of many parents the handbook is supposed to help.
"I'm disgusted," said Andrea MacIntosh of Flagstaff, an ESA parent who sat through the three-hour discussion.
"It's not okay. And it's going to end up doing harm to our students that are on ESA, as well as every taxpayer in Arizona."
Board members also rebuked Horne's school voucher director for failing to give them ample notice of a significant policy change in the handbook.
"We're not focusing on what has been done for ten years and we're not focusing on what's best for ESA parents," said Jenny Clark, a school voucher advocate appointed to the board by former Gov. Doug Ducey.
Clark was one of the two "no" votes on the handbook.
The last-minute policy change had to do with whether school voucher dollars could be used in tandem with another school choice funding tool, state tax credits for private school tuition.
The law says the two funding sources can't be used "concurrently." In the past, that was interpreted to mean that vouchers could be used for one semester's tuition and tax credits for the next.
Christine Accurso, executive director of the ESA program, told the board that, based on her lawyers' opinion, parents should stick to one funding source for a full school year.
Clark said via email after the meeting that under Board of Education rules, substantive changes to the handbook are limited to once every three years for the sake of consistency.
"I believe this change ... among others, constituted substantive changes to the handbook," Clark said.
The new 108-page handbook - a kind of rules of the road for ESA parents - is the first update since Arizona expanded its school voucher program last year, in the final months of Ducey's term in office.
All 1.1 million Arizona students are now eligible for $7,000 a year or more in taxpayer-paid tuition to attend private or religious schools.
Before the expansion, there were about 12,000 school voucher recipients at the end. The program was limited to families with special education students and foster children, military families, and others.
Today, 53,000 students receive vouchers, according to the state Department of Education.
The cost of the program to the state this year is estimated at $300 million to $500 million, but the money was never budgeted.
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, a voucher opponent, has warned that the ESA program could bankrupt the state.
Among the concerns aired at the Board of Education meeting:
- Parents reporting persistent problems paying or getting reimbursed for education-related expenses.
-A list of allowable items for spending that isn't clear.
-Tutors paid with voucher dollars need only a high-school education.
"It is not a perfect document. I, too, have very strong concerns, said Dr. Daniel Corr, board president and president of Arizona Western College in Yuma.
But Corr added that the document was a work in progress. He voted to approve it.
Accurso defended her work in an interview after the board vote.
"We are administering this program, according to the rules, according to the law, and according to the handbook. That wasn't done in the past," she said, echoing Horne's dismissal of ESA management under his predecessor, Democratic Superintendent Kathy Hoffman.
Before running the voucher program, Accurso was a widely known ESA advocate. She worked as an office manager for a small medical practice.
Now she's responsible for getting hundreds of millions out the door to parents under a law that provides little accountability.
Is she up to the job?
"I'm an administrator," she said. "I'm up to the job."
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