Nat Malkus - Education Savings Accounts: The New Frontier in School Choice

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Copyright 2017 by Nat Malkus, Adam Peshek, and Gerard Robinson

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Since the first voucher and charter school laws of the early 1990s, school choice has been central to American education policy debates. For years, charter schools, voucher programs, and tax-credit scholarships made up the bulk of these debates.

Those more familiar forms of choice were joined by another in 2011, when Arizona enacted the nations first education savings account (ESA) program. Created for students with special needs, the program allowed families to decide when and how to spend public funds to educate their child. In doing so, the bill provided a dramatic extension of the school choice intuitionwhich previously had allowed families to choose a new school, but not to control decisions beyond that. While Arizonas ESA program promised to dramatically extend the choice conversation, only a small group of advocates, legislators, and analysts initially understood the implications.

In 2015, ESAs were thrust into the national spotlight when Nevada established the first state-wide, near-universal ESA program. Mississippi and Tennessee also created ESA programs in 2015, but it was Nevadas ambitious program that put ESAs on the national map. Almost overnight, ESAs took their place in the broader school choice debate. This posed something of a challenge, as newcomers to the topic had trouble finding comprehensive discussions of how ESAs work or what they could mean for K12 education.

The book you hold in your hands seeks to offer just that. A joint project between the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelinEd), it features contributions from the nations leading school choice scholars, legal experts, and advocates. In May 2016, AEI and ExcelinEd hosted a research conference in Washington, D.C. to explore ESAs at length. The goal was to develop a resource for those unfamiliar with the nations newest form of educational choice and to help clarify what it would take for ESAs to deliver on their promise. This volume is the fruit of those efforts.

In recent years, ESAs have made rapid headway in state legislatures, with dozens of states considering and proposing new laws. The appeal is self-evident. ESAs not only extend school choice, but also extend the logic of choice beyond schools in ways that alter how K12 education is delivered to students. They mean that families are no longer limited to choosing between school A and school B, instead giving parents unprecedented control over the public funds allocated for their childs education. ESAs allow parents to customize their childs educational experience using different providers, including therapists, online providers, and traditional schools. They open up opportunities to expand virtual education and develop new approaches to tutoring, homeschooling, and special education services.

As is true of any new form of school choice, ESAs have proven controversial. Notably, they have also proven to be legally resilient. To reach their potential, ESA legislation must do more than fend off inevitable constitutional challenges, as it did most recently in the Supreme Court of Nevada. ESAs also require sustainable funding sources, an issue that forced Nevadas high court to put the states constitutionally viable ESA program on hold in the near term.

Passing viable ESA laws is only a first step, however. It will take careful planning and attentive management for ESAs to pass the implementation tests that will come once programs are in place. Serious regulatory questions surrounding what services are eligible, how to regulate against frauds, and how to manage quality control will have to be negotiated. There are also administrative questions about which students should be eligible for ESAs, how funds should be distributed, and what uncertainties ESAs introduce for those operating schools and systems. Looming questions about accountability, equity and funding amounts will have to be addressed and reassessed as programs develop. There is a lot to get rightand enacting legislation is only the first of many steps in ensuring that ESA programs actually deliver for kids. It is vital that those who support ESAs, with their promise to empower families and educators and to introduce immense flexibility into educational provision, be thinking from the start about these questions and how to address them.

This volume is so valuable in large part because of the savvy, acclaimed experts who conceived it and edited it. Nat Malkus, research fellow at AEI and K12 education policy specialist, has written extensively on school choice and school finance. Adam Peshek, director of educational choice at the Foundation for Excellence in Education, has played a significant role in developing many of the ESA programs discussed in the volume. Gerard Robinson, resident fellow at AEI, and an expert on state regulations and procedures, is the former secretary of education in Virginia and commissioner of education in Florida. Together, the editors offer insights and accounts that help readers flesh out the details of these nascent policies and examine the challenges and opportunities ahead.

ESAs represent a promising new frontier in American education. We trust you will find this volume as helpful as we have in understanding how ESAs work, what it will take for them to deliver on their potential, and how policymakers and parents should think about the expansive new landscape of educational options that ESAs make possible.

We are indebted to all of those who have been involved in this project and pushed our thinking on these questions. We especially thank the following discussants for their outstanding and concentrated feedback during our May 2016 conference: Max Eden of the Manhattan Institute, Kevin Chavous of the American Federation for Children, Nevada senator Scott Hammond, U.S. Representative Luke Messer (R-IN), and U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. We also owe our appreciation to AEI and ExcelinEd for generously providing financial support for this project, and we are deeply grateful for their involvement and encouragement throughout the process.