If you live in Arizona, school choice may be coming to your neighborhood soon. As someone who has had more school choice than I know what to do with, I can tell you what may feel like a shocking surprise: Private schools have the power to choose, not parents.
I live in Phoenix, where the nearby town of Paradise Valley is getting ready to offer the privatization movement’s brand of choice to families. The district has indicated that it will likely vote to close four public schools due to insufficient funds. If this happens, other districts will probably follow: The state’s recent universal voucher expansion has predictably accelerated the diversion of money from public to private schools.
Arizona approved use of school choice vouchers, called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, or ESAs, in 2011 on the promise that they were strictly for children with special needs who were not being adequately served in the public school system. The amount of funds awarded to qualified students was based on a tiered system, according to type of disability.
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Over the years, the state incrementally made more students eligible, until full expansion was finally achieved in 2022. For some students, the amount of voucher money they qualify for is only a few thousand dollars, nowhere near enough to cover tuition at a private school. Often, their parents can’t afford to supplement the balance. However, my son, who is autistic, qualified for enough to cover full tuition.
I took him out of public school in 4th grade. Every school I applied to seemed to have the capability to accommodate his intellectual disability needs but lacked the willingness. Eventually, I found a special education school willing to accept him. It was over an hour from our home, but I hoped for the best. Unfortunately, it ultimately was not a good fit.
I then thought Catholic schools would welcome my son, but none of them did. One Catholic school principal who did admit him quickly rescinded the offer after a teacher objected to having him in her class.
The long list of general, special-ed, Catholic and charter schools that turned my son away indicate how little choice actually exists, despite the marketing of ESA proponents.
There was a two-year period where I gave up and he was home without social opportunities. I was not able to homeschool, so a reading tutor and his iPad became his only access to education.
I then tried to enroll him in private schools for students with disabilities.
These schools were almost always located in former office suites in strip malls with no outdoor access. My son’s current school shares space with a dialysis center in a medical building, while a former school was located in a small second-floor suite in a Target plaza.
Once a private school admits your child, they can rescind admission without cause. Private schools are at leisure to act as virtual dictatorships, and special-ed schools in particular are notorious for keeping parents at a distance.
My son’s current school grew tired of my requests for reasonable communication about his school day or even his general progress and made his continued enrollment subject to my acceptance of their decision not to speak to me at all.
With few other choices, I acquiesced to the school’s ultimatum and am keeping my son there while I search for a better option once again — even as he gets closer to aging out of K-12 education. As of now, he has nowhere else to go. There has never been a moment when I couldn’t accept my son for who he is; why can’t private schools do the same — especially those that market themselves to the special needs demographic?
Education is a human right, and public schools, open to all, are the guardians of this right. What privatizers call choice does not really exist.
As ESAs and private schools siphon off money and public schools start closing down, parents will be horrified to discover that nothing can defeat the closely held advantages of a private system designed to keep them out, and no amount of vouchers will make a difference.
When all the public schools are closed, and you can’t get a private school to accept your child, what will you do?
Related: School choice had a big moment in the pandemic. But is it what parents want for the long run?
Vouchers gave my son social opportunities that he wouldn’t have had otherwise, along with tutors to help mitigate private education deficits. But he would rather attend a local school, with kids in his neighborhood, or at least the kind of private school ESA marketing promised him.
I hope that as more families experience the exclusion and powerlessness that we have lived with, they’ll realize that a balance between public and private is necessary and an excess of either at the expense of the other is disastrous.
Every day on our way to my son’s special education school, we drive by an elegant, sprawling private school campus. He waves at the children and pretends they’re his friends. He still asks to go there.
Pam Lang is a writer and graduate student at ASU pursuing master’s degrees in comparative literature and social work, and an advocate for public education and healthcare equality.
This story about school choice was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.
To the editor,
Your article on parent voice & school choice is a very important part of the modern schooling discussion. So many times, I see people pushing ESA/private school as a great alternative to those who do not agree with public education. As a public educator myself, I’m fully aware of and willing to admit that the system has its faults. But it’s a free system that must enroll eligible students no matter what, and this article illustrates the one-sided power that private schools truly have. Do private schools work for many people? Yes, but they also have less accountability and can make many unilateral decisions that can negatively impact children and families, such as the student in your article. I am inclined to agree with the parent on the point of needing balance. If we tip the scale too far on either direction, it will indeed be perilous for many of Arizona’s citizens. Hopefully those on both sides of the debate will come to the same conclusion.
This is not a letter- simply a comment on the parent choice article. I am in tears reading it. These stories are common. And it is so painful having to go through it as a parent. My situation feels even more complicated since both my boys now 12 and 14 (one on the autism spectrum, one with a learning and speech disability) are black. In addition to their disabilities, I have to deal with cultural barriers. I am an educator. I have been a leader for many years. I worked for Boston Public Schools, created a model for school that I think is most likely the experience that these private schools promise. It was very successful in Boston for all students. So I decided to start my own school. Right now we operate as a microschool but eventually I would love to grow it. Both my boys are doing very well!