ADE recently spent $600K to advertise ESA program

The Arizona Department of Education spent more than $600,000 in the past two weeks to broadcast advertisements for the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, according to invoices from the department.

This marketing effort targets Spanish speaking and low-income families in an attempt by the department to keep “accelerating the trend,” of students departing public schools for the ESA program, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said at a press conference last week.

Horne contends further enrollment from public schools will “save the state money,” as ESA students are funded at 90% of the per-pupil charter and public school cost.

“The problem that we’ve had is that the people at the top of the economic ladder knew right off the bat that the ESAs were available. People in lower economic areas did not know that,” Horne said.

“We’re solving that by letting them know, so everybody has an equal opportunity, so people at all economic levels have the same opportunities that rich people have always had,” he continued.

ADE paid $300,000 on May 25 and another $319,000 on June 2 to the Arizona Broadcasters Association.

The department is one of about ten state agencies contracting with the ABA to run public service announcements in preferential unsold broadcast spots, meaning both audio and video ads could run on any TV or radio station in the state. They also recorded ads in Spanish to run on Telemundo, Univision and other Spanish media.

At the press conference last week, Horne said the department was “advertising heavily on Spanish language media,” and the ESA department is “primarily hiring bilingual employees” to address the influx of calls from Spanish speaking parents.

By targeting communities more likely to be enrolled in public schools, the department expects departure from public schools to ESA will continue trending upward.

“As a result of that, the burden on the budget will be much less,” Horne said. “We’re talking about students that would be educated one place or another and if they chose the ESAs, it costs the state 10% less.”

Horne refers to the ESA statute, which holds that students enrolled in the program are funded at 90% of the base support level and additional assistance of a child attending a charter school, which is higher than if a student were attending a public school.

The latest estimates from the department find about 51% of students in the ESA program had never been enrolled in a public school, compared with an estimate from the prior administration which found 78% of students enrolled in the program had never been enrolled in a public school.

The push for public school students comes as the department projected the program to cost the state $900 million by this time next year – though the Joint Legislative Budget Committee cautioned that enrollment projections for next year made now should be considered “highly speculative.”

ADE provided some glimpse into enrollment breakdown in the most recent quarterly report sent to the State Board of Education.

The report takes stock of about 50,000 students enrolled as of March 31. Of the 50,000, about 24,000 have been associated with a public school before.

The department does not track how many English Language Learners are currently enrolled in the program.

But per a provision passed with the fiscal 2024 budget, the department is expected to issue an additional quarterly report to the governor, Legislature and the Joint Legislative Budget Committee covering ELL students and zip codes, among other data points.

In the third quarter, the most common award amount was $6,763.81, with about 36,000 students receiving awards of $6,000 to $7,999.

About 5,143 students received more than $30,000. The highest award amount was $43,595. These higher amounts generally go to students with special needs.

Since the end of the third quarter reporting period, more than 8,000 new students joined the ESA program.

A spokesperson for the department said they started airing ESA PSAs on May 1 and plan to eventually expand the advertising effort to social media.