PHOENIX — After a back-and-forth between Governor Katie Hobbs and State Superintendent Tom Horne, a delayed quarterly update on the state's Empowerment Scholarship Account Program has been released.
The report shows at least one indisputable aspect of ESA suggesting enrollments are rising.
The report, with data good until September, sets the number of ESA student enrollments at over 60,000. A running total regularly updated on the Department of Education’s website shows another 6,000 students have enrolled since the report data ended. As of Dec. 26, 2023, the ESA program had 72,428 enrollees.
This would put the number of ESA students at about 4,000 over the number budgeted by the legislature for this school year. The program is expected to continue growing in the next few years as well.
Arizona's estimated number of private and home-schooled students is around 100,000. Without expanding existing private schools or constructing new ones, ESA enrollments would peak around this level in the next few years.
Four of the five districts with the most ESA enrollees inside their boundaries are large suburban unified school districts. Mesa, Deer Valley, Peoria, and Chandler top the list, along with Tucson Unified. Each district reported a range of 900 to 1,100 students entering the ESA program this past quarter.
Data shows that 65,000 ESA students came from, or live in, one of Arizona’s school districts. About 1,500 came directly from one of the state’s charter schools — a 10% decline — meaning some of those ESA students either graduated or re-enrolled in a charter school.
