Arizona AG investigating school voucher program for illegal payments

Photo via Getty Images/iStock

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office is investigating the state’s school voucher program for alleged illegal payments that were approved without documentation required by state law.

The Empowerment Scholarship Account program works by giving the parents of participating students a debit card that can be used to pay for various educational costs, or reimbursing the parents for those costs. The costs can include private school tuition, homeschooling supplies or the money can even be saved for college.

The program originated in 2012, but was expanded in 2022 from serving a limited group of about 12,000 students who met specific criteria to a universal program available to all of the state’s roughly one million K-12 students.

After the expansion, enrollment skyrocketed to around 74,000 at the end of the last school year. That was more than the 68,000 students expected to enroll, with costs significantly higher than expected, at around $723.5 million — nearly $100 million more than was originally budgeted.

Republicans in the state Legislature championed the expansion, calling it a victory for school choice. Democrats opposed it, saying it subsidized private school tuition for wealthy families whose children already attended private schools before an ESA was available, that it gives tax dollars to religious schools and that it takes money away from public schools.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

Earlier this year, the office of Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs estimated that around 67% of students participating in the voucher program in January had never attended a public school.

The Arizona Department of Education, which oversees the ESA program, is headed by Republican Tom Horne, a staunch supporter of private school vouchers. The Attorney General’s Office is led by Democrat Kris Mayes.

On July 1, Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Boughton sent a letter to John Ward, the director of the ESA program, informing him that the 2023-2024 ESA Parent Handbook indicates that the program might be providing illegal reimbursement for student expenses. The handbook was approved by the State Board of Education in April 2023.

Specifically at issue is ADE’s approval of supplementary education materials without proof that those materials are tied to a curriculum being taught to the students.

The State Board of Education defines supplementary materials as “relevant materials directly related to the course of study for which they are being used that introduce content and instructional strategies or that enhance, complement, enrich, extend or support the curriculum.”

But the Parent Handbook tells parents that many supplementary materials don’t need to be tied to a specific curriculum, and that payment for them will be approved without documentation of an associated curriculum.

The handbook does require that materials “not generally known to be educational items” be tied to curriculum, but does not describe the approval process or specify whether the ESA vets the curricula to ensure it’s appropriate for the student or verifies that the student is even using that curriculum.

“Approving ESA funds for materials that have no nexus to the student’s actual curricular needs contradicts the intent of the program and constitutes a payment of funds made without authorization of law,” Boughton wrote.

She went on to say that failing to require proof that these materials are tied to curricula “may enable account holders or vendors to engage in fraudulent behavior, such as purchasing items with ESA funds solely for the purpose of resale.”

The ESA program has received harsh criticism over the past couple of years for reimbursing parents for extravagant items such as a piano for their home or driving lessons in luxury vehicles.

In the letter, Boughton requested that the Department of Education immediately stop approving supplemental learning materials without requiring they be tied to a curriculum. Ward ultimately agreed.

“In light of the language in statute and rule, ADE has no choice but to comply with the Solicitor General’s determination,” Ward told ESA parents in a July 3 letter.

Additionally, he promised that the department would update the ESA Handbook to reflect the documentation requirement.

Ward pointed out in a July 3 response letter to the Attorney General’s Office that the practice of allowing those purchases without the documentation that the AG says is required began during the administration of Kathy Hoffman, the Democrat that Horne defeated in 2022.

The Attorney General’s Office also posed a lengthy list of questions about curriculum documentation, asking how much money the Department of Education has spent on supplementary materials from 2019 through 2024 and how much it has doled out over the past two school years for supplementary materials not tied to a curriculum.

The Attorney General’s Office further asked Ward to explain how exactly the ESA program determines whether items that parents purchase, such as textbooks, are part of an Department of Education-approved curriculum that is appropriate for the student.

“(W)ithout a clear requirement for curriculum documentation, it is unclear if the Program is meeting the statutory duty to approve the requisite curriculum,” Boughton wrote.

Similarly, she asked Ward to provide proof of how the ESA program determines whether a particular textbook is necessary for the curriculum a student enrolled in the program is studying, and whether the program verifies that the student actually attends the school where that curriculum is taught.

Boughton asked Ward to respond to the list of 17 questions within 30 days.

Because of the number of questions, the necessity to work with ClassWallet — the program’s financial vendor — and the amount of data required, the Department of Education would need 60 days to reply, Ward said.

Doug Nick, a spokesman for the Department of Education, told the Arizona Mirror that the department would not comment on the situation.

Nick instead provided the Mirror with a copy of the letter that the department sent to ESA parents on July 3. In it, Ward informed parents that the Department of Education would immediately stop approving supplemental education materials without documentation that those materials were tied to curricula.

“The Solicitor General’s directives do not preclude your families from obtaining supplemental materials for curricula your students are using, in any way,” Ward wrote. “Now, you will simply need to ensure that supplemental materials are required or recommended by your curricula.”

Ward promised to provide more information in the future on how to submit the required documentation to help parents deal with the change.

“We understand that change can be frustrating but, as you will understand, ADE must follow the law as directed by the Attorney General’s Solicitor General’s Office,” Ward wrote.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST

The post Arizona AG investigating school voucher program for illegal payments appeared first on Arizona Mirror .