Last week saw some excitement in Arizona political circles as the Arizona Department of Education estimated 2024 Empowerment Scholarship Enrollment at 100,000 students. Sadly, “some excitement” translated into absurd fear mongering predictions of financial ruin for Arizona.
Allegedly, We.Are.All.GONNA.DIEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
If Arizona choice opponents had done a bit of math, they might have spared themselves from having to breathe into a paper bag. I can, however, be of some assistance: $900,000,000 divided by 100,000 students is an average of $9,000 per student.
How much do taxpayers put per pupil into district and charter schools? Arizona’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee has an answer from fiscal year 2021:
JLBC also has a statewide estimate for fiscal year 2023 of an average of $13,306 per student. In the reverberations of the Arizona anti-choice echo chamber, you’ll hear people desperately trying to claim that it doesn’t matter that $13,306 > $9,000 because of different pots of money (local, state and federal) because reasons.
Reasons that cannot be coherently articulated, but reasons.
This belief is quite odd given that all the pots are filled up by the same taxpayers, who all pay local, state and federal taxes. Ergo, while the taxpayer may magnanimously pay more for students to attend district or charter schools at their option, it’s not like they have any reason to oppose children opting for the Empowerment Scholarship Account if that floats their particular boat.
My Texas public school math training informs me that the average ESA students uses approximately 32% fewer taxpayer resources per pupil than the average Arizona student. For you incurable skeptics, consider the budget of Mesa Unified:
Mesa Unified had 54,000 students, was budgeted for $1.1 billion and change, actually spent $815 million and change. The memo that caused Arizona choice opponents to panic estimated 100,000 students at a cost of $900 million. So … ESA has far more students but fewer taxpayer dollars. If ESA is going to bankrupt Arizona, Mesa Unified is going to send Grand Canyon State taxpayers to a debtor’s prison.
Is the growth of the ESA program going to “destroy public education?” Hardly.
Arizona lawmakers have been listening to such non-stop predictions of doom since passing charter school and open-enrollment legislation in 1994. Since then, they have created a scholarship tax credit program (1997), expanded it multiple times, and created the Empowerment Scholarship Account program (2011) and expanded it multiple times. Lo and behold, Arizona’s spending per pupil in districts is currently at an all-time high, and this happened in academic growth:
Please, sir, can I have some more “destruction?”
