Arizona Republican lawmakers and concerned parents won a recent victory to protect the state’s universal school choice program from a volley of new regulations.
Over this past weekend, Arizona legislators were involved in a battle over the Draft Parent Handbook for the ESA Program for School Year 2024-2025. Unbeknownst to many ESA families, the handbook was posted to the Arizona State Board of Education’s website – linked to an agenda item – with multiple proposed changes of a significant nature, giving interested parties mere days to leave feedback. The recommendation from the Department was for the State Board of Education to adopt the revised handbook when it convened on Monday, March 25.
A group of parent-stakeholders, led by a long-time watchdog of the ESA program, Christine Accurso, discovered the existence of the handbook and poured through its contents, finding numerous examples of added regulations for students and families. They compiled the list and notified as many other parents as possible.
The parents also reached out to Republican lawmakers, who were shocked to learn about the lack of transparency and the efforts to overregulate the program, which was contrary to the legislative intent. Senators Jake Hoffman and Wendy Rogers, among others, immediately sprang into action to stop the revised handbook from becoming Department policy.
Thanks to the legislators’ and parents’ involvement, the State Board of Education ultimately reversed course on its initial recommendation, voting to maintain the previous year’s handbook with no changes.
HUGE VICTORY! 🏆🇺🇸
After a weekend of whipping votes, the State Board of Education did exactly what we asked them to do.
The current ESA handbook will continue for the upcoming school year!
Thanks to all the parents who helped us achieve this win for Arizona kids! https://t.co/MWqAwBxSsG
— Arizona Freedom Caucus (@AZFreedomCaucus) March 25, 2024
Save Our Schools Arizona Director Beth Lewis, who has been a staunch opponent of the ESA program, was extremely disappointed with the outcome from the State Board of Education. After the Board’s vote, she said, “The proposed regulations rejected by Supt. Horne and Republican lawmakers would have provided a thin veneer of oversight for Arizona taxpayers.”
One of the ESA parents, Kelly Kenney, told AZ Free News, “I was shocked about the increased regulations because the new handbook changes will limit the educational opportunities for my child. This would directly impact her access to the type of resources that she absolutely needs. If the ESA program was supposed to be regulated in this way, it would spell it out in the statutes. I’m very glad the State Board saw things our way and sided with the parents in this program.”
The Arizona Department of Education’s “X” account issued a short statement following the vote from the State Board, writing, “Superintendent Horne is thankful for Senate President Warren Petersen and Arizona Senate Republicans for helping garner support from the state board of education to allow more time for input from parents on the ESA handbook.”
— Arizona Department of Education (@azedschools) March 26, 2024
In the days leading up to the State Board of Education meeting, Republican legislators had several conversations with individuals at the Arizona Department of Education, informing them of their displeasure with this action and holding them accountable to the original intent of the ESA law. To ensure that ADE understood the seriousness of the situation and the resolve of legislative Republicans, Senator Jake Hoffman wrote a letter to the State Board, which was signed by many of his colleagues, including Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma.
🚨 ESA ALERT 🚨
The 2024-2025 ESA Handbook was just published & has MAJOR problems!
ESA Parents are NOT happy.
The State Board of Ed is set to approve the flawed handbook THIS MONDAY.
The letter stated that ADE’s “proposed changes restrict[ed] the program further than the Arizona State Legislature intended.” It also highlighted “the failure to allow for public engagement, comment, or input in the shaping of these new regulations,” calling this “incredibly concerning.” Two requests were made of the State Board of Education in this communication. The first was to reject the draft handbook and greenlight the 2023-2024 handbook for another school year. The second was to “form a stakeholder working group consisting primarily of ESA parents, private school administrators, and home schooling parents” for the 2025-2026 handbook.
I am proud to lead Legislative Republicans in sending the board this letter demanding the flawed handbook be rejected.
There must be robust stakeholder input from ESA parents & the educational providers who are impacted by these regulations!
In an exclusive comment to AZ Free News, Senator Hoffman explained why he took the lead against the proposed changes in the draft ESA handbook. He said, “Transparency and robust public input from those most impacted by these regulations are critically important. Unfortunately, the system failed the Arizona families who rely on empowerment scholarship accounts for the educational success for their children. Thankfully Superintendent Horne and the State Board of Education took the opportunity to remedy this failure. Their decision to reject the deeply flawed 2024-2025 handbook, and instead adopt the current handbook until ESA families and educational providers have a multi-month opportunity to engage with ADE staff on the next handbook was the right move for the children relying on this incredible program.”
Just before the legislators’ letter was delivered to the State Board of Education on Friday evening, the ESA Executive Director wrote an email of his own to ESA families with the “ESA Program Response to Misinformation.” The director stated that “incorrect information has made it into the public dialog regarding payment of ESA purchases…that ESA account holders will not be paid for their allowable purchases until after they have completed an educational program.” The director also noted that the draft handbook had been posted on the State Board of Education’s website since Friday, March 15. Sources told AZ Free News that the alleged complaint was one that they had not seen lodged against the draft handbook and that none of the other concerns brought by parents about proposed changes in ESA policy or guidance were addressed in the director’s email.
The director’s email to ESA families on Friday, March 22, was believed to be the first since January 24, when the program sent an “important update on new features from ClassWallet.” The director had previously sent three consecutive emails to families in late-December 2023. In one of those emails, the director asked parents to submit their “suggestions for specific changes…to [be] made to the ESA Parent Handbook.” The deadline for submissions was January 2, 2024 – four days after that email hit inboxes.
Another ESA parent, Rosemary McAtee, gave the following comment to AZ Free News: “I was appalled to learn how the education department was trying to slide a new handbook past the parents, to the state board, without any input from the parents. I am glad that members of the board voted to include us in the process by allowing more time for our input. This week was a win for ESA parents! I’ve been in this program for 5 years and every year there has been a public process. We really haven’t heard anything at all from the department in the past 7 months when we were accustomed to weekly email updates.”
Solicitation of public comment on changes for the 2024-2025 Draft ESA Handbook was handled much differently – and with less transparency – than the previous year’s redlines. Last year, ADE issued a press release and transmitted an email to ESA account holders to explain the proposed changes.
The uproar over the draft handbook follows another instance where a Republican legislator was forced to intervene in an issue raised by parents. In February, ESA parents asked Rogers to resolve the backlog of orders in the program, which was believed to be around 85,000 (or over four months old), according to sources. AZ Free News was made aware of at least one Arizona private school that experienced severe funding issues due to the lack of reimbursements for ESA students who attended.
After Rogers contacted ADE with her concerns and request to pick up the pace of reimbursements, the issue almost literally evaporated overnight. AZ Free News was told that thousands of orders may have been approved in mere hours – and many more followed in the following days.
In an interview with AZ Free News, Rogers explained why she chose to involve herself over the stockpile of orders from ESA families, saying, “Numerous constituents, including family members had become exceedingly frustrated at the slow turnaround time for reimbursements from the ESA program. People from all over the state wrote me. They know that I fight, and that I’m outspoken. So I began writing terse letters to the Arizona Department of Education and I got results for my people on an individual basis, one by one. Then the word got around among the ESA families and everyone began to write me. So I started inundating the department with these letters, every one of which was carefully and separately written in-depth describing how these reimbursement delays adversely impacted their ability to school their children.”
The rural Arizona state Senator added, “Then all of the sudden, I heard that thousands of ESA reimbursement approvals were done over one night with no scrutiny. This is not a way to run a business. This just feeds the controversy on whether or not expenditure approvals are correct or valid. The ESA program was running well last year. I heard from many families how well run it was. Now it has run amok. There is no excuse for it. It must be repaired. Our children are too important. The legislature put this ESA program in place and now it’s up to administrators to manage it properly.”
The former director of the ESA Program, Christine Accurso, was at the center of both episodes, continuing to be a sounding board for hundreds of parents and an effective liaison to the Republican-led legislature on behalf of stakeholders. After the positive action from the Board on Monday morning, Accurso wrote, “Superintendent Horne committed to having his team work with key stakeholders – mainly parents – in creating the next one. Many Republican lawmakers stepped up to help their constituents, after receiving hundreds of emails this past week, and their advocacy paid off. As an advocate, defender and watchdog of this program for the past 10 years, I am so glad to see this outcome. This is exactly what we wanted and needed to have happen. The parents who attended and spoke at the board meeting did a great job advocating for their children’s education.”
ESA parents were at the capitol this morning to ask the SBE to reject the new proposed handbook that the ADE submitted for adoption, because they were left out of the process. Lawmakers were instrumental in helping. Video to their presser is in comments. @AZFreedomCaucuspic.twitter.com/gP1aXAjo4S
When Accurso inherited the ESA Program in January 2023, there were over 60,000 orders for marketplace, direct pay, and reimbursements. Even with a steady increase of new enrollees adding a significant amount of orders to the existing backlog, Accurso and her team managed to whittle the requests down to essentially ‘zero,’ and drastically minimize the delay in response time to parents.
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Last week, the Arizona Women of Action presented Christine Accurso with the 2024 Fearless and Free Award. The award honored Accurso for her “outstanding courage to stand for American freedoms.”
In a post on “X,” Accurso thanked the state organization for the award.
Arizona Women of Action responded, “Arizona and AZWOA are blessed to have you, Christine Accurso! Your work to protect ESAs and in the pro-life community, including Decline to Sign AZ Abortion, has been monumental.”
The East Valley conservative activist has been one of the state’s leading voices for conservative values for many years, but she has risen above greater challenges in recent months. After Arizona passed its historic universal expansion of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) in 2022, special interest groups attempted to refer the program to the ballot in order to delay or stop the benefits for Arizona families who were seeking enhanced choices and opportunities for their children’s education. Accurso organized hundreds of men and women around the state to educate potential signers of the petition about the consequences of their decisions.
Because of Accurso’s counterefforts, the special interest group failed to acquire the minimum number of signatures needed to refer the initiative to the ballot. Shortly after her success in keeping universal ESAs intact, Accurso wrote a piece for FoxNews.com, detailing how her army of parents had done what many thought was unthinkable. Accurso shared that she often went online to track the group responsible for trying to refer ESAs to the ballot, then deployed herself and other parents to the locations where signature gatherers were posted to offer an opposing viewpoint to Arizona voters. She wrote, “I quickly found that voters would look through the legislation, which was attached to the petitions, after hearing my arguments to find out for themselves what was inside this legislation.”
After these efforts, Accurso found herself drafted into the new Republican administration at the Arizona Department of Education, when Tom Horne won his election contest in November 2022. Horne named Accurso as the Director of the ESA Department and tasked her with bringing the program under compliance with state law and eliminating the significant backlog of requests left by the previous Superintendent of Public Instruction – a Democrat. Thanks to the continued existence of universal ESAs, tens of thousands of students have joined the program since the expanded portion went into effect.
Accurso resigned her position in July 2023, expressing her grateful heart “to have had the opportunity to get the ESA program back on track and functioning well.” She added, “I achieved much of what I set out to accomplish, but it is time for me to move on and pursue opportunities to engage citizens, especially parents, to fight for school choice and the other issues they believe in, for the future of our state and of our nation.”
While Accurso recently has been focused on mostly educational efforts with the ESA program, most of her activities over her grassroots career of activism and advocacy have centered around pro-life causes, helping to enlarge Arizona’s standing as one of the top states in the country for life and family values. With the threat of a pro-abortion constitutional amendment on the horizon, Accurso is now attempting to motivate conservative moms and dads to oppose this emerging campaign and safeguard the state’s pro-life protections for the future.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
An Arizona school choice leader marked the one-year anniversary of the historic policy going into effect in her state.
On Saturday, Christine Accurso highlighted the one-year anniversary of all Arizona parents having the opportunity to unlock state dollars to assist with the education of their children.
In a trip down memory lane, Accurso wrote, “One year ago today Universal ESA became available for all K-12 students in AZ. It took many different people to get this passed and signed into law, but it wouldn’t have come to life in Arizona if it wasn’t for the parent army that we built over the court of 80 days last summer!”
One year ago today Universal ESA became available for all K-12 students in AZ It took many different people to get this passed and signed into law, but it wouldn’t have come to life in Arizona if it wasn’t for the parent army that we built over the course of 80 days last summer! pic.twitter.com/uwBuf2CoVm
Accurso added, “We fought the teacher’s union and the union-backed groups, day and night. We countered their lies and misinformation with the truth, so that Arizona voters had a real choice in whether or not to send Universal ESAs to the ballot.”
The East Valley mom gave a shout-out to all of the parents and families who tirelessly worked alongside of her to make ESAs a reality for Arizona, saying, “I am still amazed at the grit and tenacity that so many of my friends have and THAT truly made the difference. To the 1,200 families that joined me and my family, THANK YOU! You have truly made the world a better place!”
The ”X” account for Arizona Women of Action echoed Accurso’s words, stating, “It’s a well known fact that Christine Accurso organized the grassroots effort called DECLINE TO SIGN. Through her tremendous undertaking, parents across the state were successful in thwarting the ballot initiative that would have destroyed #ESA4All. Many thanks goes to Christine and the parents who worked with her for saving the AZ universal ESA program.”
It's a well known fact that @ArizonaCatholic organized the grassroots effort called DECLINE TO SIGN. Through her tremendous undertaking, parents across the state were successful in thwarting the ballot initiative that would have destroyed #ESA4All. Many thanks goes to Christine &… https://t.co/dGatmqaHjK
Accurso recently served as the ESA program director under the administration of Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, a Republican. Horne and Accurso were tasked with bringing the expanded program under compliance with the law and eliminating the significant backlog of requests left by the previous administration. She resigned her position in July, expressing her grateful heart “to have had the opportunity to get the ESA program back on track and functioning well.” She said, “I achieved much of what I set out to accomplish, but it is time for me to move on and pursue opportunities to engage citizens, especially parents, to fight for school choice and the other issues they believe in, for the future of our state and of our nation.”
Shortly after her successful efforts in leading the charge to keep universal ESAs intact in Arizona last year, Accurso wrote a piece for FoxNews.com, outlining how she and hundreds of committed parents had done what many thought was unthinkable. Accurso shared that she went online to track the group responsible for attempting to refer ESAs to the ballot, deploying herself and other parents to the locations where signature gatherers were posted to offer an opposing viewpoint to Arizona voters who were stopped. She wrote, “I quickly found that voters would look through the legislation, which was attached to the petitions, after hearing my arguments to find out for themselves what was inside this legislation.”
The influential advocate may have more work to do in the state – especially with groups trying to enshrine a right to abortion in the Arizona Constitution. After that ballot initiative was filed with the Arizona Secretary of State in August, Accurso posted, “Pro-Abortion Supporters in AZ have filed with the Sec. of State to put abortion on the 2024 ballot & make it a constitutional amendment. They need 383,923 valid signatures from AZ registered voters by 7/3/24. If you live in Arizona and want to help oppose this DM me.”
Pro-Abortion Supporters in AZ have filed with the Sec. of State to put abortion on the 2024 ballot & make it a constitutional amendment. They need 383,923 valid signatures from AZ registered voters by 7/3/24. If you live in Arizona and want to help OPPOSE this DM me. 👣#ProLifepic.twitter.com/Bye1h6nUGo
Both the executive director and operations director of Arizona’s school choice program resigned on Monday.
In a statement, former executive director Christine Accurso said she accomplished her goal of getting the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program “back on track and functioning well.” Accurso indicated that she would be taking on other opportunities in school choice activism.
“I hired, trained, and implemented a full staff of competent, professional people who love the program and will carry it forward,” said Accurso. “I achieved much of what I set out to accomplish, but it is time for me to move on and pursue opportunities to engage citizens, especially parents, to fight for school choice and the other issues they believe in, for the future of our state and of our nation.”
— Christine Accurso (@ArizonaCatholic) July 25, 2023
In a statement, the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) announced John Ward as Accurso’s replacement. Ward served as an ADE internal auditor and previously worked within the Auditor General’s Office.
Former operations director and vendor liaison, Linda Rizzo, also resigned. Rizzo also served as a regional director for the Arizona Federation of Republican Women.
ADE loosely echoed Accurso’s reasoning for her departure in their explanation of her resignation, crediting her for “unprecedented growth” within the ESA Program.
Superintendent Tom Horne appointed Accurso to the position last November. Horne selected Accurso for her knowledge and experience with the ESA Program, as well as her advocacy to universalize its opportunities. As a member of the ESA Program herself, she was a constant advocate for Horne’s election.
Last year, Accurso led the Decline to Sign movement: a counter-movement to the Save Our Schools Arizona (SOSAZ) ballot initiative to overturn legislation that universalized school choice. As part of her advocacy, Accurso discovered that SOSAZ overreported the number of signatures they collected for the ballot initiative. Accurso’s publicization of this discovery prompted an expedited review of the signature count.
Over the last few years, Accurso also raised awareness of the unresponsive ESA Program helpline.
In January, Accurso told AZ Free News about issues inherited from the prior superintendent’s administration indicating neglect of the ESA Program.
Over 60,500 students now participate in the ESA Program as of Monday. Ward has estimated that the ESA Program will reach 100,000 applicants by next July.
With the double departure from the ESA Program, Democratic leaders highlighted weaknesses of the program.
On Monday, Attorney General Kris Mayes announced a renewed focus on investigating ESA Program fraud and loss of federal discrimination protections concerning disabilities and educational records. Mayes encouraged members of the public to report cases of fraud by ESA vendors or private schools.
It’s important for Arizona families to be aware of the rights they give up when they leave the public school system with an education savings account.
— AZ Attorney General Kris Mayes (@AZAGMayes) July 24, 2023
On Tuesday, Gov. Katie Hobbs’ Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting (OSPB) released a report projecting a budget deficit of $319.8 million next fiscal year with the ESA Program costing about $943.8 million annually by the next fiscal year. Hobbs alleged the ESA Program would “bankrupt” the state.
“[T]his program is unsustainable and does not save taxpayers money,” said Hobbs. “We must bring transparency and accountability to this program to ensure school vouchers don’t bankrupt our state.”
The newest voucher cost projections show us what we already knew: this program is unsustainable and does not save taxpayers money. We must bring transparency and accountability to this program to ensure school vouchers don’t bankrupt our state. I’m committed to reforming…
— Governor Katie Hobbs (@GovernorHobbs) July 25, 2023
The OSPB disputed ADE’s claim that the ESA Program costs less to taxpayers since it pulls children from public schools, noting that about 40,400 non-public school students would receive funding where before they hadn’t. The OSPB also claimed that individual student payouts for the ESA Program are more costly than what public schools pay.
“The ESA program is unaccountable and overfunded,” stated the OSPB.
The governor’s team asked for ADE to implement academic testing requirements and audits for schools accepting ESA funding, requiring staff to be fingerprinted, and requiring students to attend a public school prior to enrollment.
The ESA Program admittance requires at least 45 days of attendance at a public school.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Americans’ support for school choice is on the rise.
A recent poll from Real Clear Opinion Research showed that school choice has the support of 71% of the 1,000 registered voters who participated in that survey. This number was a seven-point increase from an April 2020 poll.
— Christine Accurso (@ArizonaCatholic) July 12, 2023
In this June 27-30 poll, support for school choice came from 80% of Republican voters, 66% of Democrat voters, and 69% of Independent voters. Though the Republican and Democrat support was up from April 2020, the 9% increase in favor from Independents was the most among the political parties.
NEW POLL: 71% of Americans support school choice.
April 2020: 64% —> June 2023: 71%
7 percentage point jump in support since April 2020.
IT'S HAPPENING.
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) July 11, 2023
The question presented to voters on the survey was as follows: “School choices gives parents the right to use the tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs. Generally speaking, would you say you support or oppose the concept of school choice?”
The CEO of American Federation for Children, Tommy Schultz, lauded the news about the growing support for school choice around the country, saying, “School choice support is here to stay, and politicians who ignore this reality do so at their own peril. Parents are the new interest group in town, and legislators would be wise to keep responding to their needs. The days of the old one-size-fits-all model are numbered, welcome news for the countless students who need something different to learn and thrive. AFC is thrilled to continue standing behind parents as they gain more options for their children’s education.”
Arizona has been at the front lines of the surge in school choice support. Last year, the Republican-led Legislature passed a historic expansion of the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program, allowing any child in K-12 to apply. According to a June 30 update from the Executive Director of the ESA Program, Christine Accurso, 62,005 Arizona students have now been enrolled.
That same update also showed that the program, under the direction of Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, had largely caught up with the backlog and influx of reimbursements to ESA account holders. As of June 30, the ESA Program only had 1,195 Reimbursement Orders in the queue – down from 24,409 on February 8.
When asked about the increasing support for school choice in Arizona and around the nation, Superintendent Horne told AZ Free News, “We have a lot of excellent public schools in Arizona. But no matter how good a public school is, it may not be able to meet the needs of all students. Rich parents have always had the ability to choose the best school to meet the needs of each of their children and people at all economic levels should have the same ability. In addition, competition improves public schools. The United States has been prosperous, and the Soviet Union was poor, because we had competition which drives people to do their best, while they were a government monopoly. As they used to say in Poland, ‘We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.’ The same applies in education. Competition causes everyone to do better.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
