Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is, in spite of herself, perhaps the greatest living billboard for empowerment scholarship accounts (ESAs) in the country. Indeed, despite her own professed opposition to school choice, Gov. Hobbs’ recent national interview—and her life’s trajectory she described therein—have obliterated the main arguments made against ESAs and instead trumpeted the program’s fundamental pillars: that they help those in need, and that they lead to successful outcomes. (File Photo)
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is, in spite of herself, perhaps the greatest living billboard for empowerment scholarship accounts (ESAs) in the nation. Indeed, despite her own professed opposition to school choice, Gov. Hobbs’ recent national interview—and her life’s trajectory she described therein—have obliterated the main arguments made against ESAs and instead trumpeted the program’s fundamental pillars: that they help those in need, and that they lead to successful outcomes.
Opponents of educational freedom—including Gov. Hobbs herself—have decried school choice as chiefly helping only those who can already afford to attend private education because the programs offer too little financial assistance to low-income families seeking a non-public school alternative. As Gov. Hobbs has declared, “these families—regardless of getting a private school voucher—they’re not able to afford the gap in tuition that exists.”
Let’s set aside, for the moment, the fact that the ESAs cover nearly 100% of the cost of tuition at the majority of private schools in Arizona—meaning that the program puts private education within reach of even the most economically disadvantaged. Instead, consider only the subsequent words of the governor when pressed during the interview on the fact she herself attended a private school:
“I grew up in a working class family, this was well before any of this public assistance for private school existed…we sacrificed a lot. There were times in my family that we were on food stamps. So it was a choice that they made, and they struggled to make that choice.”
Matt Beienberg
In other words, Gov. Hobbs is walking, talking proof of the families throughout Arizona and the nation who have desperately sought a better education for their children, and who have been forced to make drastic sacrifices to shoulder the financial costs of delivering on that hope. Yet her family, even with zero financial aid, decided to take that path. Surely that choice would have been every bit as worthy—and far less punishing financially—if her family had been able to access an ESA. Those arguing that lower income families cannot “make up the gap” between tuition costs and ESAs have a lot of explaining to do when parents like Gov. Hobbs’ worked to make up the entire tuition bill on their own.
For those who want to argue that working class parents should have to pay for a better education on their own dime—as Gov. Hobbs’ family did—they’re left with answering an uncomfortable question: why? Why are these families deserving of aid if they go to a public school, but not even of their own tax dollars if they pursue other educational opportunities for their kids? Why should working class families be pressured by financial necessity to attend a mediocre government school?
Second, and perhaps equally self-evident in Gov. Hobbs’ story, is the impact of private education on her and others. While research has repeatedly shown significant attainment gains for disadvantaged students as a result of school choice, teachers union talking points continue to dismiss it as inferior and unaccountable. Yet for those who still reject the statistical evidence and the sea of success stories profiled around the nation, Gov. Hobbs offers another stark example: for a girl to grow up from food stamps to the governor’s office, it’s rather a stretch to suggest her private schooling undermined her future.
Given her own family’s financial struggles to afford private education, perhaps the governor’s recent proposal to roll back Arizona’s ESA program might fairly be described as an exercise in progressive “equity”—ensuring that today’s students have no greater opportunity than those of her day. But surely the governor, as with all opponents of school choice, could instead celebrate expanding opportunities for students not only equal to—but beyond—what they themselves enjoyed.
Matt Beienburg is the Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute. He also serves as director of the institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
