A ballot initiative is in the works in Arizona to limit the most comprehensive and largest universal school choice program in the U.S.
Through the state’s Education Savings Accounts program, parents receive over $7,000 per child to use for their tuition or other educational needs, such as books, tutoring, technology, and specialized therapies.
In the last three years, the program has expanded from 15,000 enrolled students to more than 100,000.
The ballot initiative, filed by the Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, and Save Our Schools Arizona, a public education advocacy group, would limit who could use the accounts.
The initiative would create an income cap of $150,000 for families, require standardized testing, and ban funding from being used for certain purposes.
This proposal requires 255,949 valid signatures by July 2 to appear on the ballot.
Beth Lewis, the executive director of Save Our Schools Arizona, said she thinks the reforms are “common sense” policies to preserve the program for students with disabilities, for whom this program was originally intended, safeguard taxpayer funds from fraud, and ensure children receive a proper and safe education.
But Arizona State House Speaker Steve Montenegro said the ballot initiative “has one clear goal: to strip parents of the freedom to choose the best education for their children.”
Montenegro pointed out that this move would “force tens of thousands of students out of schools that work for them and back into district systems that have already failed too many families.”
“This effort is not about accountability or improvement. It is a direct attack on parents — working families, military families, rural families, and families of children with special needs — who finally have options and refuse to give them up," he added.
Is there widespread fraud in the ESA program?
The ballot measure has been gaining steam amid reports of fraud in the ESA program.
While legislative Republicans resist major changes to this program, former Republican Party chairwoman Gina Swoboda said last year that “people are taking advantage of the system” and some guardrails were necessary.
Swoboda is running for Arizona Secretary of State in the 2026 election after pivoting away from a campaign for a congressional House seat.
“Anytime you have a government program, it’s going to be susceptible to abuse, and when you expand it rapidly and you don’t staff up for it, or put guardrails in place, this is where we are now,” she said.
Despite the criticism, Arizona still leads the charge nationwide in embracing school choice.
The school choice ESA in Arizona began as a small-scale program, primarily for students with special needs. Voters rejected a ballot proposal to expand this program to any K-12 students, but the Republican-controlled legislature passed the expansion in 2022.
Arizona State House Republicans “built the strongest school choice program in the nation because parents, not government or union bosses, know what their children need,” Montenegro said. “Arizona families will not be pushed back into a one-size-fits-all education.”
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs proposed an income cap of $250,000 in her executive budget earlier this year, as the Arizona Mirror reported, but Republicans control the state legislature and are unlikely to put limits on the school choice program.
Based on enrollment numbers, this program is expected to cost the state more than $1 billion in 2026.
Guardrails for ESA program?
An audit from fall 2025 revealed that more than $600,000 in ESA funds were possibly subject to fraud or misuse, which is less than one-tenth of 1% of total ESA spending, according to EdChoice. The Arizona Education Department also noted it flagged 400 accounts and referred some cases to the attorney general’s office for prosecution.
Colleen Hroncich, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, said the ESA program already has guardrails in place through risk-based auditing that disincentivize people from cheating the system. The program allows parents to make purchases under $2,000 before the audit.
The idea is to make it so it isn’t cumbersome for parents, who may want to send $10 for a book without getting authorization ahead of time, she said.
As for the income cap, Hroncich noted that public schools don’t have income restrictions.
“If they really believed that taxpayers shouldn’t be funding education for families that make over $150,000 a year, then they should say that across the board, not just for ESA students,” she said.
Arizona spends about $10,000 per student, compared to the national average of $15,000, according to the 2024 census survey results. “The ESA program costs the state less, so you’re already leaving extra money on the table,” said Hroncich.
Parents have an incentive not to abuse the system in case they are kicked out of the program or, worse, prosecuted, she said.
What could be the new norm for education?
Since the funding typically follows a student, more families opting out of public schools have led to increasing closures.
“We’re up to over 30 schools that have had to close in the last few years,” said Lewis. “And we’ve never seen anything like it.”
“The state needs to provide a general and uniform school system for every child,” she said.
Lewis claims the ESA program “mostly benefits wealthier families who can already afford private school.”
The $150,000 income cap would ensure the program is “less of a coupon for the wealthy and more targeted to folks who may truly benefit from this program.”
But advocates of ESAs say the number of parents who have flocked to the program shows they want more choices for their children.
“The reason that 100,000 families are using Arizona’s ESA is that they want other educational options,” Hroncich said of the enrollment numbers as of Jan. 20, 2026. Public schools are now a part of a wider range of educational options, putting parents in the driver’s seat.
It’s a change to the traditional system. During the 1850s, states designed public schooling systems amid a need for a shared national identity. The lack of travel and communication also limited parents’ choices for educational options for their children.
“It makes sense that they did a place-based system, but it doesn’t make sense to cling to that in 2026,” Hroncich said. “If it were good for the kids, then they wouldn’t be flocking to options once they were available to them.”
“Turning away from (the ESA program) would be a wrong move,” she said.
She added that studies, including one from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, show a positive effect on public schools, which are forced to be more competitive to retain their students.
“I talked to a mom of three this week from South Carolina,” Hroncich said. “One has struggles with learning and needs a lot of help. The other one is gifted and needs an extra challenge. Then there’s one in the middle where the conventional classroom was working OK for him,” she said. “That’s within just one family.”
She said she couldn’t “wrap her mind” around the idea that if “you live near a school,” it should work for you. “That’s just not how reality works,” the educational policy expert added.
“The answer is not to say to those kids, ‘Oh, sorry, the (public) school isn’t working for you, but you have to stay anyway, unless you can afford something else,” Hroncich said.