Public schools include regular neighborhood schools as well as charter schools. 

This school year, ProPublica has been examining Arizona’s first-of-its-kind “universal” education savings account program. We are doing so both because other states have been modeling their own new ESA initiatives after this one, and also because President-elect Donald Trump has prioritized the issue, most recently by nominating for secretary of education someone whose top priority appears to be expanding school choice efforts nationwide. (And Betsy DeVos, his first education secretary, was and remains a leading school voucher proponent.)

These programs, in other words, are where the U.S. education system is headed.

In our latest story, Eli Hager documents how the private schools funded by taxpayers in Arizona don’t have to disclose academic or financial performance. The lack of transparency and accountability measures in Arizona’s ESA model is perhaps the most important issue for other states to consider as they follow this one’s path, even some school choice supporters say.