As school choice grows, advocates champion trust in parents over red tape

School choice growth is good, but more regulation is not the answer, according to the president of a leading school choice organization.

Robert Enlow, EdChoice president, told The Lion he’s concerned about five bills that were proposed in four states: two passed, two did not, and one is awaiting a governor’s signature.

“There is a trend towards regulating the type of people and schools that could be involved in this and it’s a problem,” Enlow said in an exclusive interview. “Utah limited its program; Arizona’s looking at limiting its program. Arkansas limited its program. Oklahoma’s looking at making accreditation harder.”

The approved bills are Arkansas SB 625, which imposed spending caps on education savings account (ESA) spending on transportation, extracurriculars and physical education, and Utah HB 455, which imposed a cap on how much ESA families can spend on physical education. It also adds reporting and compliance requirements for schools.

Oklahoma considered accreditation requirements for private schools that participate in school choice and further verification requirements of families receiving aid such as SNAP or Medicaid, but the measure didn’t pass.

In Florida, lawmakers rejected a proposal to create a “Florida student identification number” for school choice participants, then approved another bill, SB 7030, which creates the ID numbers and adds requirements such as annual financial audits for scholarship-funding organizations and other financial accountability measures. The bill has not yet been signed into law. 

Enlow said the regulations are significant because they are coming in Republican-led states. 

“This idea that Republicans are just anti-regulatory is not true,” he said. “I think the regulatory impulse is well and strong, strong and well among Republicans.” 

One reason for the regulations may be pressure coming from Democrats, who use any instance of fraud or misuse of funds as a reason to cut or eliminate school choice. 

While no supportive lawmaker wants the state’s program to look bad for wasting government funds, Enlow said burdensome regulations are not the way. 

“They’re legislating because they’re afraid that some story’s going to come out about a parent spending their money poorly,” he said. 

Calling the proposals an attempt to “limit school choice through a thousand cuts,” Enlow said the solution is for choice programs to undergo the same “spot audits” used on most government spending. 

“This is how you do every other government program in America,” he said. “You do risk-based auditing as opposed to an audit of every single expenditure.” 

Enlow said government programs routinely find 7% to 10% fraud or misuse of funds – far more than what happens in school choice. 

The overpayment rate for federal food assistance – known as SNAP – is 10%, or $10.7 billion in 2023, Enlow said. That’s more than double the amount spent by all school choice programs in the nation combined. 

In Missouri, for example, SNAP overpayments equaled $152 million in 2023. That same year, less than $20 million was awarded through its school choice program, which is funded by tax credits. 

“This is a big deal,” Enlow said. Government fraud is “way higher than any school choice thing, and no one is freaking out. But if a parent spends $1 of an education savings account to buy Lego, they’re going to freak out. 

“You can’t create a real robust free market if you say, ‘Oh, we don’t trust parents to really understand that they need to (follow the rules and) they can only spend $150 on transportation, that we’re going to limit what they can spend money on and tell them how to spend it,’” he added. 

Some regulations backfire or encourage fraud, he said, such as a lack of rollover in school choice funds. Parents may feel pressure to spend their remaining allotment rather than letting it expire, which can lead to frivolous purchases. “We really want to change that mentality by giving some better understanding,” he said. 

Enlow also objected to a provision in Florida bill HB 5101, which would have limited school choice funds based on an annual estimate. If more students chose to participate, funding would either be denied or diluted. The measure did not pass. 

“I really don’t like the trend towards regulation and I think it’s something we need to stop,” Enlow said. 

As school choice programs grow along with student participation – which topped 1.2 million across 35 states – the battle over regulation is expected to continue. 

Arizona’s Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs finally abandoned attempts to stop the state’s popular school choice program from expanding, but then proposed restricting funding from higher-income families. Republican lawmakers are fighting back, demanding that the right to school choice be added to the state’s constitution. 

The battle could come to a head before the legislative session expires at the end of this month.