Arizona has one of the highest rated school choice systems in the country as a result of its universal Educational Savings Accounts (ESAs). Due to implementing this market competition fully in 2022 to all students, parents are pulling their children out of the public schools and placing them in private schools, charter schools, and homeschooling them instead. The exodus has led to numerous public school closures around the state.
The Common Sense Institute (CSI) found in January that Arizona’s public school enrollment peaked a few years ago and will lose 40,000 students by 2028. During the 2020-21 school year, public school enrollment declined by more than 50,000 students, while enrollment in charter schools increased by 12,000 and enrollment in traditional private schools increased by about 11,000 students. Homeschoolers are at 6 percent of the student population. A 2024 report from the Learning Policy Institute found that 52 percent of students using ESAs have never been enrolled in public education.
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