A recent report from the Brookings Institution argues that Arizona families who participate in the state's K-12 education savings account policy are disproportionately wealthier. However, this report has a fatal flaw that makes the analysis meaningless.
In 2011, Arizona lawmakers enacted the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program, which families can use to choose the learning environment that best suits their children. Families can use ESAs to pay for things like private school tuition, tutoring, textbooks, homeschool curriculum, online courses, specialty care treatments, and more.
Initially limited to students with special needs, state lawmakers have expanded eligibility for the program several times over the past decade. In 2022, Governor Doug Ducey signed legislation opening the ESA program to all K-12 students in the state.
Because the Arizona Department of Education does not collect data on the income of families participating in the ESA program, Brookings researchers attempt to use ZIP codes as a proxy for determining the socioeconomic status of ESA participants. The report uses poverty rates, median household income, and education levels for the zip codes in which ESA participants live to provide a rough estimate of socioeconomic status.
Based on these assumptions, Brookings found that ESA participants tend to live in areas of Arizona with low levels of poverty and high median income and education. According to the report's authors, “the implications of this analysis are clear.”
In Arizona, the first and most high-profile state with a “universal” ESA program, families in the wealthiest and most advantaged communities receive ESA funding at the highest rates. Families in the poorest communities are the least likely to receive ESA funding. There is nothing in the above analysis to suggest that this program is addressing inequalities in school access based on students' socioeconomic status.
The phrase “in the above analysis” does a lot of the work in that argument. The fatal flaw in Brookings' analysis is its exclusion. Nowhere in the report did the authors mention that Arizona has another educational choice policy that predates and collaborates with the ESA: tax credit scholarships. They also fail to mention that one element of their scholarship policy is that it is means-tested, not to mention that low- and moderate-income households are eligible to receive it. more money With scholarships rather than ESA.
you're right. Low-income families may qualify for tax credit scholarships that cover more tuition than a typical ESA. This equates to about $7,400 per year for a student without special needs.
Arizona families are eligible for means-tested scholarships if their household income is at or below 342.25% of the federal poverty line, or $102,675 for a family of four in 2023-24. This is lower than the household income of a median school teacher married to a median firefighter in Arizona.
About two-thirds of Arizona families qualify, but School Tuition Organizations (STOs) tend to prioritize grants based on need. Last year, 44 Arizona STOs issued nearly 30,000 scholarships under means-tested programs. By comparison, about 71,500 students received ESAs this year.
Brookings researchers express curiosity about why low-income people are less likely to use the ESA program than higher-income people, and offer several theories as to why:
What is less clear and worthy of further study is why these patterns exist. There are many reasons why families in low-SES areas do not participate in these programs. Some families are interested in ESA funding but are unaware of the program (information barrier) or are unable to travel to their preferred school (transportation barrier). Some families may face financial barriers. This is because tuition at many private schools exceeds the value of the scholarship, forcing ESA recipient families to make up the difference. Some families may not be interested. They may receive better services or feel more welcome at nearby public schools.
Researchers never consider the role of tax credit scholarship policies. However, considering that Arizona students cannot participate in two educational choice programs simultaneously, it is not surprising that low-income families wishing to enroll their children in private schools choose tax credit scholarships instead of ESAs.
One might object that the Brookings researchers are evaluating only Arizona's ESA program and not the state's general educational choice policy. However, it is impossible to study the two programs in isolation because they operate simultaneously and participation in one program cannot participate in the other.
Imagine a study that gave people either $500 in cash or a smartphone worth $350 to $750 depending on their income, with lower-income individuals given phones of higher value. If researchers reported that “high-income individuals are more likely to receive $500 in cash than low-income individuals” without mentioning the smartphone offer, they may be technically correct, but the missing context may cause that statement to be rated very highly. . Actions that can be misunderstood as academic fraud. We would not accept the argument that researchers are only interested in assessing the effectiveness of an offer of $500 in cash because the mutually exclusive offer of a smartphone fundamentally changes the behavior of the offeree.
Brookings may not have intended to deceive, but it would have been sloppy not to at least mention the existence of a tax-deductible scholarship policy. Either way, it is impossible to assess whether Arizona's educational choice policies “address inequities in school access,” as Brookings sought, without including Arizona's popular and long-standing tax credit scholarship policy in the analysis.