Secrecy, control, and parents without a voice. These factors apparently comprise the current motto of Superintendent Tom Horne and John Ward, head of the ESA department. As a six-year veteran parent in the ESA program, I know what I am talking about. Over the past two years, the changes I have seen have been nothing short of appalling, frustrating, and alarming. Instead of empowering parents with trust and the ability to make free choices in educating their students, the current Superintendent has done all he can to rob parents of the freedom granted in the lawmakers’ legislative intent in the historic bill that was passed in 2020.
I could spend hours sharing all the abuses that parents have experienced at the hands of Tom Horne. To save us all a bunch of heartache, I’ll leave it at one major concern: the ongoing development of the most recent edition of the parent handbook. As a longtime shareholder, I can tell you the current protocol of closed-door meetings and a handpicked handbook committee led by a non-ESA parent has never been the norm of this program. Even under former Superintendent Kathy Hoffman, a clear opponent to the program, parents were offered townhalls to make their voices heard.
This year, despite the State Board of Education’s President demanding that Superintendent Tom Horne offer a townhall, Superintendent Horne has remained silent for months. Instead, prior to the last State Board of Education meeting, Mr. Horne sent an email to parents, demanding they sit down and shut up.
I quote, “This email is particularly directed to ESA users who have been in disagreement with the proposed handbook: We received some concern from state legislators. We therefore agreed to postpone the vote on the handbook until the June meeting to give us a chance to sit down with the legislators and hopefully reach mutually acceptable agreements. We therefore respectfully request that those who have signed up to speak on this issue wait until the June meeting and not come to the meeting next Monday. The handbook will not be on the agenda, and once agreement is reached with legislators, any objections you have might be solved. It is best to come to the meeting when you know what the final proposal will be in June.”
Clearly Superintendent Horne has no interest in listening to the concerns of the parents.
Now, let us explore some major issues in the handbook itself. A large portion of the parental outcry has primarily been against the mandated caps in different spending categories. While the caps seem to be contrary to the law, I firmly believe they are merely a diversion from the real agenda of the ESA department. Take a moment to examine two critical footnotes.
For the second time in the last two years, we see a footnote that an acceptable expense category is as follows: “Any fees that may be levied by the Department to cover the costs of managing of the Empowerment Scholarship Account program” (pg 15, footnote 10). This means that the ESA department really wants to pull fees out of students’ accounts to cover administrative fees. Students already only receive 90% of the funding they would in public schools – and now the department wants to steal money from the kids to cover their own expenses?
Even more concerning is footnote 22 on page 52, which says: “The Department may ask for repayment of any items approved in error, if items are improper or unallowable under your ESA contract, state law, administrative rule, program policies, or this ESA parental handbook.”
For the first time in my experience as an ESA parent, Superintendent Horne and John Ward have approved auto approvals of expenses in the ESA program. Before this, every single purchase had to be approved, thus protecting tax dollars from being used improperly. However, because the current ESA department cannot be run efficiently or effectively (despite the program being handed over to Mr. Ward with turnaround times being 24-48 hours for every single order), they now want the buck to stop with the parents, not themselves as the lawful administrators of the program. This leaves parents in a position that if rules change or future ESA parent handbooks remove categories, the state can demand repayment. This has nothing to do with improper spending, but everything to do with bureaucratic inefficiency.
It is clear that Tom Horne is no advocate for school choice and no advocate for making the voices of parents heard. We parents have had enough. We will scream until our voices are hoarse, because we are the primary educators for our children and we should have a say in the proposed ESA parent handbook.
Rosemary McAtee is a home-educating parent of 7 students and a 6-year veteran of the ESA program.
The Arizona Freedom Caucus (AFC) says it intends to replace Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) Tom Horne in 2026.
AFC’s chairman, State Senator Jake Hoffman, claimed to a press gaggle on Monday that Horne hasn’t put sufficient work into protecting the Empowerment Scholarship Account Program (ESA Program). Hoffman accused Horne of leaving the state legislature to do all the work to protect the state’s school choice program.
Hoffman called Horne “the single greatest threat” to the ESA Program.
“Thanks to the legislature and the conservative leadership that we have, Katie Hobbs is unable to make serious, negative, adverse reforms to school choice in this state. However, Tom Horne is the single greatest threat to school choice. Tom Horne is the single greatest threat to the ESA Program. Tom Horne is the single greatest threat to nearly 100,000 students and their families that are utilizing those programs right now. And so I will certainly be looking for a Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate to challenge Tom Horne.”
Horne denied the accusations from Hoffman in a direct response to the senator.
“I brought charter schools to Arizona when I served in the legislature in the 90s,” said Horne. “I’ve fought to keep ESAs and school choice from an Attorney General and Governor who want it gone. I’m happy to debate you anytime on these issues.”
I brought charter schools to Arizona when I served in the legislature in the 90s. I've fought to keep ESAs and school choice from an Attorney General and Governor who want it gone. I'm happy to debate you anytime on these issues @JakeHoffmanAZ. https://t.co/pPYFjkV5l9
Hoffman took issue with the proposed 2024-2025 ESA Handbook last month. Hoffman and fellow Republicans submitted a letter to the Arizona State Board of Education (ASBE) urging the draft’s rejection.
🚨 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.
ASBE declined to approve the new handbook during its meeting last week. The board delayed a decision on the proposed handbook for its next meeting toward the end of this month. Horne was the sole board member to motion for a board vote on the proposed handbook during their last meeting.
Horne has consistently presented himself as “the main defender” of the ESA Program. Horne explained the perceived limitations on ESA Program expenditures were necessary written safeguards against abuse of the program.
Per Horne, parents have attempted to take advantage of current unwritten limitations on reimbursements, such as requesting coverage for a $5,000 Rolex watch and a $24,000 golf simulator.
“[These are] abuse of things that are not really for the educational benefit of the child. It’s obvious there has to be some limitations,” said Horne.
The SPI has also pushed back against attempts by Attorney General Kris Mayes and Governor Katie Hobbs — both staunch opponents of the ESA Program and the concept of school choice in general — to undermine and cripple the ESA Program with allegations of poor oversight and management.
Horne says he has consistently referred cases of fraud to Mayes for investigation, as well as increased staffing for auditing and investigative purposes.
“Under my leadership, the department has done a full-court press against waste and fraud. I hired both a program auditor and an investigator, which had not been done before,” said Horne in a January response to Hobbs’ State of the State. “I require that every expenditure be for a valid educational purpose and have been attacked for doing that.”
Nearly 87,800 students participate in the ESA Program as of Monday’s count.
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The Arizona State Board of Education (ASBE) declined to approve the new handbook for the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program.
ASBE discussed the proposed 2025-2026 ESA Handbook during its meeting on Monday. Though it had the opportunity to approve the handbook during the meeting, a majority of the board indicated a desire to abstain from voting on the handbook until their upcoming April meeting.
Arizona Department of Education (ADE) Superintendent Tom Horne motioned for ASBE to take a vote on the handbook, but no other board member seconded his motion.
The ESA executive director, John Ward, said the new handbook was more user friendly, with information clarified and organized, redundancies reduced, hyperlinked statutes and rules, a clarified list of spending limits on items associated with risks of abuse, and a new chapter on enrollments.
A point of concern for ASBE board members related to ESA Program approvals of expenditures, namely of the sort opposed by Attorney General Kris Mayes.
Mayes’ Government Accountability Unit launched an investigation into the ESA Program over its expense authorizations last July. Mayes accused the ESA Program of approving supplementary materials without documentation of a curriculum nexus, approving certain curriculum materials without curriculum documentation, and approving textbook expenses without documentation demonstrating a qualified school or eligible postsecondary institution requires it.
During Monday’s meeting, Ward clarified there were certain “common” educational items for which the ESA Program didn’t require curriculum in order to not burden families, such as pencils and paper. Ward said the attorney general’s letter prompted them to split the supplemental materials listings into two: those that will always require a curriculum nexus and those that are general educational items which, pending the ongoing court case’s outcome on the matter, may never require a curriculum nexus.
There were over 87,600 students reported within the ESA program as of Tuesday.
The ESA Program continues to be a source of conflict between statewide officials.
Governor Katie Hobbs targeted the ESA Program during her State of the State address in January. Hobbs’ criticisms prompted a rebuttal from Horne; he said the governor was ignorant to the administration of the program.
In his explanation of the new ESA Program Handbook earlier this month, Horne dismissed one major opposing claim: that the program needs to reimburse parents without question of the expenses.
Horne said the ADE’s oversight of expenditures successfully prevented abusive charges, such as a $5,000 Rolex watch and a $24,000 golf simulator.
“[These are] abuse of things that are not really for the educational benefit of the child. It’s obvious there has to be some limitations,” said Horne.
Unlike his predecessor, Horne has repeatedly stepped up to defend the ESA Program.
“Parents should have the choice to be sure their child is in a school that meets the needs of that child,” said Horne. “The ESAs are really not really a challenge to the public schools; they supplement them and make sure that all students are in an environment where needs are being met.”
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs and the Radical Left have made it clear that they want to dismantle school choice in our state. Despite getting trounced in November’s election where teachers’ unions and other anti-school choice groups made it a referendum on educational freedom, Hobbs has doubled down on her same tired and out-of-touch efforts since the start of this year.
Once again, it hasn’t worked. Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program continues to grow—with enrollment now over 87,000 students. So, Hobbs and her buddies in the teachers’ unions have resorted to employing one of their favorite tricks: relying on activist reporters in the corporate media to give their anti-school choice messaging an extra boost.
In early March, a coordinated attack was launched against Primavera, an online charter school serving thousands of K-12 students across the state. It began with a story from Craig Harris, a Red4ED activist that calls himself a reporter, who claimed that Primavera received a ‘D’ letter grade from the Arizona Department of Education for the past three years. According to the report, the school failed to meet the minimum academic requirements for a traditional charter school. Harris’ column then went on to complain about the owner of Primavera and how much money he has made while operating the school.
After the story was published, the Arizona Charter School Board convened a hearing to review the allegations against Primavera. In a span of just a few hours, the board imposed the most severe punishment at their disposal, revoking the schools’ charter and setting them up for eventual closure. In effect, Primavera was given the charter school death penalty after one meeting.
On the surface, this might make sense. After all, if a school is failing its students, it deserves proper accountability. But as so often happens with today’s corporate media, an important fact was omitted from this manufactured takedown…
Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne released a statement this week regarding the Primavera Online charter school, Arizona’s largest charter school operator. Primavera is facing revocation of its charter from the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools due to low academic results.
Responding to calls for him to intervene, Horne, who holds a seat on the board, stated, “I have no power or influence over that.” In his statement responding to calls to stop the revocation from Attorney Jesse Binnall, who represents Primavera, Congressman Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, Horne explained that the role of regulating charter schools is divided in Arizona between the Arizona Department of Education and the Board for Charter Schools.
Horne stated, “The legislature chose to divide jurisdiction regarding charter schools between the Arizona Department of Education and the Charter Board. The current issue is within the jurisdiction of the Charter Board. I have no power or influence over that. If I were to try to influence it, the Charter Board would resent the trespass on their turf, and it would do more harm than good. There is likely to be an appeal to an administrative law judge, and the school needs to marshal its evidence to present to the administrative law judge. If I am asked for any data or other information that the department has, I will of course immediately provide it regardless of which side requests it.”
Speaking at a press conference in front of the Capitol, Binnall, who formerly worked on President Donald Trump’s legal team, compared the potential closure of Primavera to lawfare designed to stifle school choice. He said, “The voters of this country have spoken loud and clear … that President Trump’s agenda, which includes school choice, is highly favored by the voters. Instead of getting on board with this policy, you have some people that are trying to use various versions of lawfare … in order to get in the way of school choice.”
BREAKING: Trump lawyer Jesse Binnall CALLS OUT enemies of education freedom in Arizona for trying to dismantle a charter school that's currently serving more than 8,000 children.
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) March 20, 2025
“We have to be confident that these people who serve … the people of Arizona are going to do the right thing for the children of Arizona,” he continued. “The right thing for the children of Arizona … is to help organizations like Primavera be more successful, not try to take away school choice.”
Primavera holds a designation as an alternative school owing to its focus on providing an education to at-risk students. In a board meeting on March 4th, Primavera Online founder and CEO Damian Creamer said that the school was incorrectly designated while he was on leave caring for his ailing wife and was graded as if it were a traditional school. Officials from Primavera argued that the school would’ve received a passing “C” grade if it had been properly designated.
