PHOENIX — A new report from the Arizona Department of Education organizes students in the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program by their zip code of residence.
ABC15 took that data and added median household incomes from the US Census Bureau’s latest American Community Survey.
The result shows ESA students do skew towards higher income zip codes — 52% of ESA participants live in the top quarter of zip codes with the highest incomes with medians ranging from $81,000 to $178,000. Another quarter of ESA participants come from zip codes in the next quartile with household incomes spanning $63,000 to $81,000. The two next lowest quartiles of zip codes with median incomes under $63,000 make up about 22% of ESA students. The data estimates there are approximately ten times more ESA students in Arizona’s top 25% highest income zip codes compared to the lowest 25%.
Per capita rates of ESA attendance are a different story.
When median incomes of Arizona zip codes are weighted by the per capita rate of ESA students, participation in the program is more balanced.
Overall, Arizona’s zip codes have a median income of about $64,000. The median income weighted by the per capita rate of ESA students comes out to $73,800. When not weighted per capita, the median is $87,013. Most of the zip codes with lower monthly incomes and higher ESA per capita participation are in the most rural corners of the state.
The zip codes in Arizona with the highest number of ESA students are mostly located in the outer suburbs of Maricopa County. Queen Creek’s 85142 zip code has the greatest number of ESA students at 1,549. This is followed by 85383 in Peoria at 1,264.
The next highest zip code is also the only one located outside of the Valley. Zip code 85365 in Yuma reported 1,071 ESA students. The final two zip codes in the top five belong to 85018 in Arcadia and 85255 in north Scottsdale.
