Who benefits from universal choice? Mostly families with kids already in private school

Parents in 33 states are getting government funding to pay for private school -- and sometimes homeschooling, FutureEd reports. In twelve states, all students, regardless of family income are eligible, write Liz Cohen and Bella DiMarco.

At least initially, universal choice programs primarily serve children already enrolled in private schools, rather than students switching from public to private schools, their research finds.

It's possible that will change over time, they write. In 2022-23, the first year of universal eligibility for Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) in Arizona, "21 percent of ESA recipients in grades 1-12, or 6,157 students, previously attended public school; a year later, the figure increased to 48 percent, or 9,250 students."

Choice advocates say more private schools will be created now that more parents can afford tuition, write Cohen and DiMarco. However, "the $7,000 to $8,000 that states typically provide students annually under the new universal programs isn’t likely to be enough to support the launching of new schools in many parts of the country."

St. Matthew Catholic School is one of the few private schools located in a lower-income Phoenix neighborhood.

In the Phoenix area, few working-class parents have applied for ESA funding, according to a ProPublica analysis, write Eli Hager and Lucas Waldron. "The poorer the ZIP code, the less often vouchers are being used. The richer, the more."

In interviews, some parents said they didn't know about the program or didn't have the ability to research their options. Others said they were deterred by the logistics. Not surprisingly, high-quality private schools tend to be in affluent neighborhoods -- and rarely offer busing.

Angelica Zavala found a Catholic school within three miles of her home, but decided to stick with her neighborhood schools. She worried about getting her daughters to St. Matthew's, which doesn't offer busing, and feared the voucher wouldn't cover the full tuition.

Private schools often raise their tuition when parents have ESA funding, notes the Hechinger Report.

A Brookings study also finds that middle- and upper-income parents are the biggest users of Arizona's universal program.

Arizona’s version of vouchers “is not well-designed to achieve the goal of providing more choice for low-income and working-class families,” Fordham's Michael Petrilli told ProPublica. He supports larger vouchers for needier students.