Going back over the article pointed out that those vouchers are available to families that never sent their kiddos to a public schools, so that means the state is likely subsidizing more than expected. The ESA program gives parents $7k according to the article.
Google search for Arizona brings up educating elementary kiddos cos the state ~$8,600 per student so just on that, if an existing student transfers out of public and i to a private school, i guess they “save” $1,600 dollarsper kiddo that way.
Now the parents get that $7k for private or homeschooling, but another search advised that the average private elementary school was between $9,600-$10,600 a year. So that’s a good few grand extra that the parents have to fork out, unless they were already sending the kiddos there, then the money was already expected to be spent by the parents. Especially considering schools could cost much higher (an almost $30k example was given on the high end). I doubt those parents would even have considered sending their kids to public school if they be spending that much money.
To be fair, i wouldn’t blame any of the parents taking advantage of the program, it just ends up hurting the other kids in the public school as budget shortfalls start accumulating and programs and offerings have to be cut to balance the budgets. Then the district will ask for a tax increase, and in especially red areas, i wonder how that would go?
At minimum there should be rules in place to prevent abuse, I don’t have faith that would happen.
You are. The program lets you go to other public schools as well. Which is the option that I chose for my kids since I had a ton of trouble with the local district.
Going back over the article pointed out that those vouchers are available to families that never sent their kiddos to a public schools, so that means the state is likely subsidizing more than expected. The ESA program gives parents $7k according to the article.
Google search for Arizona brings up educating elementary kiddos cos the state ~$8,600 per student so just on that, if an existing student transfers out of public and i to a private school, i guess they “save” $1,600 dollarsper kiddo that way.
Now the parents get that $7k for private or homeschooling, but another search advised that the average private elementary school was between $9,600-$10,600 a year. So that’s a good few grand extra that the parents have to fork out, unless they were already sending the kiddos there, then the money was already expected to be spent by the parents. Especially considering schools could cost much higher (an almost $30k example was given on the high end). I doubt those parents would even have considered sending their kids to public school if they be spending that much money.
To be fair, i wouldn’t blame any of the parents taking advantage of the program, it just ends up hurting the other kids in the public school as budget shortfalls start accumulating and programs and offerings have to be cut to balance the budgets. Then the district will ask for a tax increase, and in especially red areas, i wonder how that would go?
At minimum there should be rules in place to prevent abuse, I don’t have faith that would happen.
Or am I missing something?
You are. The program lets you go to other public schools as well. Which is the option that I chose for my kids since I had a ton of trouble with the local district.