School choice is not just for public, charter, and private schools, but homeschoolers can also ask to be a part of the conversation. In this video, Jenny Clark of Love Your School explains the difference between vouchers and Educational Savings Accounts (ESAs) and why all homeschoolers should advocate for legislation that includes an Home Educating ESAs (that are defined separately from homeschoolers without an ESA.)
If you find this video helpful, please share it with your local friends and send to your state representatives and tell them "I WANT ESAs IN MY STATE with the same freedoms offered to Arizona parents!”
(If you live in Tennessee, you may follow this conversation over at my other Substack: Tennessee School Choice.)
Learn more about Jenny and Love Your School here: www.loveyourschool.org/
Find her on Instagram here.
Here is a fabulous article I mention that shares how ESAs can be structured to offer the most freedom and support to students and the most accountability to schools to improve. Check it out, it's very helpful: https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/wp...
Here’s the transcript from the interview is here:
Joy Cherrick:
Welcome today. We are meeting with Jenny Clark. My name is Joy Cherrick, and I am with naturestudyhacking.com. It is a resource that gets families to go outside and use their nature journals. I'm also the host of the However Imperfectly podcast and the However Imperfectly Substack. Over there, we talk about homemaking and homeschooling and how those two can work together. But today, I'm here with Jenny Clark, and she's actually helping me get a little bit more of my bearings around all of this push for school choice. You may wonder, why are you talking about school choice on a homeschool channel, and you're a homeschool mom? Here’s why.
Let me give you a little background on Jenny, and then we'll get into our conversation about why school choice matters to homeschoolers. Jenny is an Arizona native and a mother of five. She knows full well the unique variations in how children learn and thrive in different educational environments. She has a degree in business economics from the University of Arizona and a master's of divinity from Southern Seminary. Today, she utilizes a variety of schooling options for her own family and loves sharing with other families about their options and helping them find the right fit for their kids. That's what inspired her to launch Love Your School in 2019. She wanted to create an avenue for families to get direct support navigating their school options, requesting evaluations, and accessing scholarship programs like ESAs.
Jenny Clark:
Thank you so much for having me, Joy. I'm so excited to talk about all of these things with homeschooling and ESA with your audience.
Joy Cherrick:
Yes! Jenny and I actually knew each other when I lived in Arizona, and we were in classical conversations together. That’s how we know each other, and we’ve stayed connected through Instagram. I saw Jenny was really helping with a lot of the work going on in Arizona to get an educational savings account launched. I texted her and was like, "Jenny, how do we get that in Tennessee?" This is kind of a long conversation we’ve been having over time, probably the last ten years, trying to find ways to get different states to adopt the ESA. But you might not even know what we're talking about yet. Jenny, can you explain what school choice is and what an ESA is? What is a voucher? We just need to define our terms first.
Jenny Clark:
Absolutely. School choice has a long and rich history over the past 25–30 years. Much of the school choice movement really came from the mind of economist Milton Friedman. He actually started a foundation to help push the idea of education savings accounts, called the Milton Friedman Foundation, now known as EdChoice. A couple of states very early on adopted small voucher programs over 20 years ago. Around that time, we also started seeing charter schools, which your audience might be more familiar with. Charter schools were one of the first school choice options, essentially public schools that states allow to open independently of public school districts.
You have public school districts where kids are assigned, charter schools as a form of school choice, homeschooling, which we’ve always had—though some states are more flexible, and others are stricter—and in the last 25 years, vouchers or education savings accounts (ESAs). These two are different, and I know we’ll define them more.
Regarding the education savings account, we had an ESA in Arizona and were one of the first states to get one. It’s a portion of the state's funding for education that would normally go to the public school, but it's now controlled by the parent. These funds, in the form of a scholarship, can be directed to the private school or home education environment of their choice. Arizona’s ESA started in 2011, making it a great example for us since we’ve had it for over a decade. We’re a good case study on what can and can’t happen with an ESA. Our ESA started with limited categories and is now universal, so every student qualifies.
Joy Cherrick:
Right! When I lived there, I remember families would allocate their money toward private schools, and after we left, it expanded to include a home education piece that wasn’t considered homeschooling. I think it's important to distinguish terms. You mentioned ESAs and vouchers. Can you explain the difference between these two and how their bills are set up? I think there’s confusion in the homeschool community about whether to support them or not. Can you clarify?
Jenny Clark:
Of course! As you mentioned, we were both traditional homeschoolers for many years. Our family was in Arizona, and to give a little backstory, the reason our family transitioned from traditional homeschooling to home educating with an ESA was due to our children’s diagnosis. Three of our children have dyslexia, and in those early years, when they struggled to read like their peers, even with similar support, we qualified for the ESA because of their diagnosis. The tutoring and remediation programs were costly, and on a single income, the ESA was life-changing for covering those therapies.
The main difference between a voucher and an education savings account is that a voucher typically sends funds directly to a private school. For example, in Oklahoma, you access the dollars, but they go directly to the school for tuition. In contrast, an ESA is more flexible—like a savings account or scholarship. In Arizona, it’s about $7,500 per student, going up to $30,000 per year if a child has a diagnosis like autism. The funds go into an online account managed by the Department of Education, with approved expenditures for the family. A voucher isn’t as flexible, while an ESA allows the family more control over how the funds are used.
Joy Cherrick:
As a conservative, I’m cautious about taking government money, especially given concerns about government control in homeschooling. Can you explain why Arizona’s ESA structure avoids that kind of government interference? I know there are distinctions that protect parents' right to home educate freely or receive state funding support. Can you explain those distinctions?
Jenny Clark:
Absolutely. We always want to protect homeschoolers’ rights to educate their children without government intervention. In many states, traditional homeschoolers already deal with challenges to keep the government from overstepping. Arizona, fortunately, is very flexible.
With any school choice legislation, whether for a private school, voucher, or ESA, policies should prioritize freedom for parents. But, like traditional homeschoolers, we need to protect against hostile legislation and attempts to increase government control. In Arizona, we’ve separated traditional homeschoolers from those educating with an ESA under the law. This allows homeschoolers who don’t want an ESA to continue under Arizona’s homeschool law without interference, while families who use an ESA are in a distinct category. We advise other states considering ESAs to keep homeschoolers separate from ESA participants to ensure homeschoolers' independence.
Joy Cherrick:
What we’re seeing, though, is resistance from homeschoolers in many states, where they’re pushing back against including homeschoolers in ESA bills. There’s also opposition funded by unions. Could you provide a fuller picture of why that is?
Jenny Clark:
Certainly. First, I believe homeschoolers should at least not oppose ESAs. Here’s why: In the U.S., we have the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which is federal funding that flows to every state and those funds allow homeschoolers and private schoolers in every state to have their children evaluated for free for any type of learning disability, such as ADHD, dyslexia, or autism.
I bring that up because we've had that for decades, and many homeschoolers are already participating in receiving government funds when they go to their local school district to have their children evaluated. I point that out because getting onto an education savings account or choosing to participate in one isn’t that different.
For example, if you want your child evaluated for dyslexia or autism and you're a homeschooler, you are essentially using government tax dollars to get a service, which is an evaluation for your child. You can get that evaluation every year and access different kinds of services. Homeschoolers can even receive services from the public school system, and we've been doing that for years.
As a former traditional homeschooler, I think we sometimes forget that. So, when it comes to ESA programs, I really want to encourage traditional homeschoolers to not remove options and opportunities for families whose life situations or family dynamics, or even the specific educational needs of their child, give them the desire to get on an ESA. That was the case for our family. One in five children in the United States has a learning disability in reading, and one in 33 children now has autism. We could dig into all the reasons why those numbers are so high, but that’s not the point. The point is that those numbers exist. Families who are home educating and have children with these needs should at least have the option to get that funding to provide services for their kids.
In Arizona, we believe that it’s not just beneficial for students with learning disabilities, even though that's how our ESA started. We believe that within a single family, the other children—what we would call neurotypical children—also deserve access to those funds. As a homeschooler, you don’t have to take your state’s ESA, but we shouldn’t be removing the opportunity from families who need it by opposing it.
Joy Cherrick: I have a couple of questions about that.
First, can you explain ESA to someone who doesn’t understand it and what the potential is, especially now that it’s not just funding for disabilities in Arizona? For example, my family has middle and high schoolers taking classes from a tutorial. If we were in Arizona, I could pay that tutor through the educational savings account. That presents so many opportunities for entrepreneurs, like our tutor, to come in, share their gifts and abilities, and earn a living wage.
Jenny Clark: Absolutely. When we made our ESA universal in Arizona, we pushed other states to start by limiting it to specific families, such as those with disabilities or military families, and then consider making it universal. We argued that even current private school or homeschooling families should qualify, and now, around 81,000 families are on our state’s ESA program. We use our ESA for everything—guitar lessons, dyslexia tutoring, woodworking classes, gym class at the rock gym, and even faith-based curriculum. Homeschoolers shouldn't worry about buying a faith-based curriculum because the Supreme Court has already established that it’s allowed. Arizona families have been doing this for over 10 years without any problems.
This program has transformed our lives because we’re no longer limited by our family’s income, and we can do so much more for our children. We encourage flexible use of ESA dollars in other states. In Arizona, we agree to educate in five subjects, but we don’t report back or submit anything. Some states might have more requirements based on their homeschool laws, but ours is flexible and amazing.
Joy Cherrick: And what about accountability? People might wonder who is making sure that ESA families are providing a good education.
Jenny Clark: That’s a common question, and our response has been that the ultimate accountability for whether a child is learning lies with the parents. Education savings accounts are transformational because they put the responsibility back into the hands of parents. For decades, our country has shifted the responsibility of education onto the system, public schools, and teachers. But we argue that parents are the ones who care most about their children’s education, so they should have the control. Testing or regulation on ESA families isn’t necessary because parents are the best judges of their child’s progress.
Joy Cherrick: Structuring educational funding through ESAs also reflects who the government believes should be in charge. In our current system, the Department of Education appears to be in charge of each child’s education, but natural law suggests that children belong to families, not institutions.
Jenny Clark: Right. If education is a public good, and we’re using tax dollars for it, it doesn’t make sense to fund only one type of education model. In Arizona, people sometimes say, “You’re not paying enough taxes for the dollars you’re getting back.” But everyone benefits from an educated population. Arizona’s ESA only uses 90% of what the state spends per student, so taxpayers are saving money, and I’d argue my children are receiving a better education because I’m directing it.
Joy Cherrick: And you can make faster adjustments for your kids based on their individual needs.
Jenny Clark: Exactly. For example, it took only 30 days to get my kids dyslexia tutoring through an ESA. Without it, it would’ve taken months in the public school system, with lots of fighting for the services. ESAs have created what we call micro-economies, allowing people with talents to teach classes or offer specific services within the homeschooling community. A stay-at-home mom who is skilled in science or knitting, for instance, can be paid to teach, which is life-changing for her and supports homeschooling families.
Joy Cherrick: We’re near the end of our time. Is there anything you’d like to say in closing? We’ll include resources like an article from your husband about why homeschool families should support ESAs.
Jenny Clark: One of the biggest things I want to leave you with and your viewers, especially those that are traditional homeschoolers, is that in Arizona, we have not had a single new regulation on homeschoolers or ESA families in our state that have infringed upon their right or ability to educate their children in the way that they see fit. And so I know there's a lot of that floating around there. The article really addresses that with sources, but there have been no new laws or regulations in Arizona with over 10 years of an ESA in our state.
And again, every year we battle back hostile legislation for homeschoolers like we did before ESAs. And after ESAs, we do the same thing. And so I really want that fact to be out there and to that be the final point, because I see a lot of improper information that says if your state has an ESA and if homeschoolers are allowed to accept those funds, that means that you're going to hurt us as traditional homeschoolers who don't want to take those dollars. And that is not true and is not true in Arizona. And we are the state that's had ESA available for homeschoolers the longest.
Joy Cherrick: And where can everybody find you?
Jenny Clark: So our website is loveyourschool.org. We'd love for you to check out our resources. We have some really great resources on special education evaluations, dyslexia, and a lot of those are relevant no matter what state you're in. We're also looking to find more families in other states that might be interested in opening Love Your School chapters to talk about school choice, and to help families with their various education options. And we're on social media. We're Love Your School AZ. And then we also have a West Virginia and an Alabama on Instagram as well.
Joy Cherrick: Well, thank you so much for sharing all that great information with me and with the homeschool community. We're so grateful for the work that you're doing. And I'm excited to see more states pick this up. Thanks so much everyone for watching and we'll see you next time.
If you live in Tennessee and want the Arizona model of ESA's as laid out in this article by Jenny, you can join the movement to advocate for parents rights in Tennessee and follow the state-wide conversation over at Tennessee School Choice Substack in collaboration with Love Your School to get the word out to Tennessee families about what true educational freedom can look like in Tennessee. We are passionate about getting ALL children an excellent education- as determined by their parents.
I won’t post more about ESAs on this Substack account (unless I just “have” to ;).
If you are in a different state and want to find out how to learn more about what’s happening where you live, contact Love Your School and Jenny and her team will connect you with those in having this conversation in your state (let them know Joy sent you!)!
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