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Did you know that more and more states are allowing parents to use their tax dollars to fund their child’s private or homeschooled education? Join Jenny Clark, founder of Love Your School, and Marlin Detweiler to learn about these funds, known as an Education Savings Account (or ESA). Discover what states currently support them and how to be equipped to get your state to pass legislation to approve ESAs.

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.

Marlin Detweiler:

Hello again. Welcome to Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. I want you to listen up to this episode very closely, though, because your state may give you money to help you toward online classes from Veritas Press or education in general.

Even as a homeschooler or somebody involved in a private school. Today, we're talking to Jenny Clark. She runs a nonprofit called Love Your School and is the most knowledgeable person that I know. I don't know if she's the most knowledgeable person in America, but she's the most knowledgeable person that I know about education savings accounts. Jenny, welcome.

Jenny Clark:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to have this conversation about education savings accounts today.

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, before we get into that, tell us a little bit about yourself. I know that you are a left coaster– sort of, Arizona, Scottsdale. Of course, we're in the east. But tell us about your family and your circumstances and that sort of thing, so that you'll become a human to us.

Jenny Clark:

Yes, absolutely. So I was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. I went to public school here from kindergarten to 12th grade and then on to get a business degree from the University of Arizona. After that, I moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where I had the pleasure of getting an M-Div from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary there in Louisville; spent a couple of years also right after that in Oklahoma with my husband, who is teaching at a university there.

And then we moved back to Arizona, gosh, ten years ago now with our family. We have five children, three boys and two girls, and we have utilized so many different curriculums and so many different programs and things for our children. We homeschooled for years and years, and we currently have three children that are being homeschooled still—one that is in a private school and then one that's in a preschool.

Marlin Detweiler:

Wonderful. Now, do you have any favorite homeschool curriculum that I might ask for?

Jenny Clark:

Of course! We love the Veritas Press Logic workbooks with all of our boys right now, and it's been going really well.

Marlin Detweiler:

Oh, that's great. That is so good to hear. Does your husband is he still teaching in a university? Is that what took you back to Arizona?

Jenny Clark:

So what brought us back to Arizona is that my husband, after he had his Ph.D., decided that a law degree would also be fantastic to have. So we moved back to Arizona, and he got a law degree from ASU, and he's currently an attorney now.

Marlin Detweiler:

Oh, wonderful. In the Phoenix marketplace.

Jenny Clark:

Yes, absolutely. He does education and public policy. And he was a big reason that I ended up getting involved in kind of this whole issue of education. So, yeah, it's been very good.

Marlin Detweiler:

Very good. So you have two significant involvements that I know of professionally. One is an organization called Love Your School, which is a nonprofit and one that is your consulting business. What's the name of it?

Jenny Clark:

Yeah, that's called First Day Public Relations.

Marlin Detweiler:

Okay. So tell us about– and we're going to focus our efforts on the growing trend in educational finance, I'll call it for now. So maybe you focus on your consulting first, and then Love Your School will probably lead us into most of our conversation here.

Jenny Clark:

Yeah, absolutely. So little teeny background before I go into First Day. But essentially we had so many organizations and groups coming to Love Your Schools saying, “We love what you're doing with promotion; we love what you're doing with talking about ESAs. We love what you're doing with connecting businesses to ESA families. Can you do that for us?”

And of course, as a nonprofit, it didn't really fit everything that we could do. So actually my board chairman and I launched First Day. And First Day is evoking those feelings and emotions that kids have on their first day of school, whether it's, you know, home school, whether it's public school, whether it's private school. There's a lot of excitement both from the child and the parent. There's a lot of anxiety. So many emotions go into that. And we really wanted to help education entrepreneurs, help organizations, curriculum companies and businesses realize how amazing this wave of school choice is. That's just, you know, flowing across the United States, how amazing it is and how they can launch new businesses or how they can connect with families who now have this unbundling of education.

So that's what we do at First Day. We had the pleasure of designing the branding and logos, and graphics for the recently passed Utah Education savings account called the UT Fits Scholarship. So a beautiful campaign. We had a lot of fun designing that and kind of putting that together with a wonderful coalition in Utah. Very excited that Utah now also has an education savings account program.

Marlin Detweiler:

That is really cool. And I know that the people listening can't wait to hear about the details of that, how it might directly benefit them. But tell us about Love Your School, kind of the high level down and how it came about as we lead into that conversation.

Jenny Clark:

Yeah, absolutely. So I think that any homeschooling parents and especially those that might be listening to this episode knows that feeling of when you are teaching your child and something is not working, something's not clicking, something's not right. And that was me a little over four and a half years ago as it related to my two oldest children and our journey, teaching them to read.

And I wasn't sure if it was the curriculum. I wasn't sure if it was me as a home school parent. I didn't know what it was, but I knew something wasn't right. And so our family went through the process of getting our children evaluated through the local school district, which is something that every parent, homeschool parent all across the U.S. has the legal right to do. And through that process...

Marlin Detweiler:

Hold on. I'm going to pause on that for just a minute. Worth mentioning. So if I suspect my child has some form of learning impairment or disability, I have the legal right in every state to go to the school district in which I live and say, I want you to evaluate my child for concerns that are related to his learning.

Jenny Clark:

Yes, that's absolutely correct. Yes, it's federal law, federal I.D.E.A. law, which stands for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the particular law that relates to the evaluation process for children ages three and above is called Child Find. And so each state has a process set up for how they implement Child Find. Most of them are very, very similar. But the parents simply request an evaluation from their local school district that they reside in, and then that triggers this process of what is known as Child Find. So it's a very important thing for families, especially homeschooling families, to be aware of.

Marlin Detweiler:

Unbelievable! That is really good to hear. Thank you. Okay.

Jenny Clark:

Yeah, absolutely.

Marlin Detweiler:

So back to your story.

Jenny Clark:

We went through that process! We went through that process. And again, it was difficult. It was challenging. At the end of that process, we discovered that our two oldest boys had severe dyslexia and dysgraphia, which has to do with handwriting. So it was a relief to know, okay, it wasn't us, it wasn't our fault. It wasn't something that we had done. Our children actually have a learning disability, but we were very disappointed to discover that the school actually that we went through the evaluation process with. We said, okay, well what could you guys offer? Because we were curious. And they said that they had no programs to remediate dyslexia for children.

So not only was that just a total shocker in and of itself, we'll put that on the table. At that point, we discovered that we qualified for our state's ESA education savings accounts, and we got on this ESA. We were disappointed to find out we could have qualified two years earlier, but that's another story. We got on this ESA, and all of a sudden we were able to use the education dollars that were allocated for our child's education to get our kids dyslexia remediation therapy, purchase curriculum, get other therapists and tutors covered, which is just absolutely remarkable.

Arizona was the first state to have an ESA. It passed here in 2011. And, of course, we were the first state just this last year to have that program become universal, meaning not just for students with learning disabilities or special needs, not just for kids leaving D or F-rated schools for everybody. And so Love Your School started because we wanted to help more families know about these evaluation processes, understand school options in Arizona, and specifically know that ESA program was something that was available for their family.

Marlin Detweiler:

Arizona has been really forward thinking, even prior to that and prior to the law that made education savings accounts available to all students, K-12 students by– I forget when this was, you'll probably know the date, but they initially had the income tax credit, educational opportunity that allowed you to avoid state tax, state income tax, moving those dollars into an educational format.

And I don't remember the law in Arizona and how it applied, but I do know is living as a resident of Pennsylvania for a long time that Pennsylvania, I think, was the second state to do that. And I know a little bit about how they did that. But what is it about Arizona that has caused them to really be forward-thinking and leading the nation in this kind of thinking?

Jenny Clark:

Arizona has really always had a culture that was pushing the envelope as it related to education. Of course, we adopted open enrollment, which is an inter-district kind of transferring very, very early on. We were one of the first states to really push and pursue charter schools back in the nineties when other states are still, you know, considering whether or not to allow charters or allow a very limited number of charters.

So Arizona has just always had that culture and that leadership from elected officials, state legislators, that said, “What can we do? How can we help these students learn better, especially students with unique needs? How can we provide more innovative opportunities for kids?” And that environment has really been cultivated over the last almost three decades now.

Marlin Detweiler:

Wow, that's wonderful. Now I want to focus the conversation on these educational savings accounts. Tell us what it is exactly as a starting point. And then so I can ask the second question so you don't have to hear me talk so many times. Talk about the states that have approved it and the variations among those states in terms of well, keep it at that for now.

Jenny Clark:

Yeah, absolutely. So education savings accounts, which we refer to as ESAs for short, should not be confused first of all, with 529 college savings accounts, that's the number one thing that we always tell parents out front because it can be very confusing. Education savings accounts are, generally speaking when a state decides that they're going to allow the budgeted dollars– per student per pupil spending, to not only go to a public school, but they're going to allow those funds to be directed by a parent to a school or education environment of the parent's choosing.

So every state, you know, budgets for education, they may give $8,000 a student, they may give $20,000 a student. An ESA says we're going to give a portion of those dollars to the parent. The parent is going to decide how to use it. In Arizona, that calculation is that families get 90% of the state funding per student.

So we don't get any of the federal dollars. We don't touch any of the local dollars. A lot of the local dollars actually stay at the school, even if the student leaves for an ESA. But the average family gets around $7000 to $7500 per student to direct either to a private school or to home education. The neat thing about Arizona's program is that it's a percentage. So if state funding goes up, the ESA award goes up. And also, if your child has a special need or learning disability, for example, autism, your child is getting significantly more money because the public school would get more money. So children with autism in Arizona on an ESA can receive around $28,000 per year for their child's education until they turn 22.

Marlin Detweiler:

Wow. Well, I want to do a little self-indulgent shout-out here for just a moment. We've been remarkably successful with online education and classical educational pedagogy, with children, with special needs. And so that's exciting. And I want people to realize that they're listening, that if you're in that category, we'd love to hear from you because we may be able to do things for you that you didn't think possible.

But secondly, it was it is a really exciting thing for me because one of the burdens I have carried in this 30 years now of being involved in classical education is how valuable it is for families that want it. And yet how costly it is in how difficult it is for someone to pay for the education of their children twice, once with tax dollars and another with their after-tax dollars to pay for some form of private education, whether that's in a bricks-and-mortar school, an online school, or even at home, teaching it as a pure homeschooling experience.

And with this money now coming to bear, it's opening up this opportunity for many people. And I think you are doing a wonderful job of getting the word out. We want to help do that. So tell us more about what's going on now with Arizona, how it happens, and then other states that have approved it, other states that are planning to approve it, and how those processes seem to be different, others similar. Help us understand how to get involved.

Jenny Clark:

Absolutely. So there definitely is a political element to getting an ESA passed in a state, but we really want to encourage parents that don't think it's impossible. This issue is actually a very bipartisan issue. When you look at data and research and polling families from all different socioeconomic backgrounds, families from all different political parties support school choice in crazy numbers. So that's the first thing I want to say. So don't be discouraged if your state traditionally has been a state that does not have school choice.

That being said, the states that have advanced the school choice measures recently have been states that usually have a Republican majority. West Virginia received a or rather voted in and passed a Hope scholarship ESA, and that was last year. That is also an element of universal. Families can switch out of the public school, get on the HOPE Scholarship receive $4300 either for private education or for home education in West Virginia. After West Virginia, Arizona passed our universal ESA. But our universal ESA is, you know, what we would call truly universal in that homeschooling families qualify and current private school families qualify. So all 1.1 million school age children in Arizona qualify for our state's ESA.

As I mentioned, Utah just passed their ESA. They have a few different guidelines there that are going to phase in over three years. The first is a certain income cap. You have to be meet a certain income qualifying cap, like if your family you know, if your family of five, it has to be a your income has to be at 185% of the poverty level that goes down each year until eventually, the program opens up for everybody, any three.

Marlin Detweiler:

Its in year 3 the qualifying cap goes away?

Jenny Clark:

Yes, I believe it is in year three that the qualifying cap goes away. And there is the first year it's 5000 students can get on their ESA and then it kind of shifts from there, and then Iowa also just recently passed an education savings account. I don't know all the details of Iowa’s, but presently, for at least this first year, it can be used for private tuition. So not for home education yet in Iowa, for private education at any accredited school, which I believe Veritas then would qualify.

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, let me. Yeah, since you mentioned it, let me just say that we have the ability for people to buy our curriculum and take our courses and be either homeschooled for legal considerations or in a private accredited school with an accreditation that's recognized internationally. And so we can meet all of those standards. And it's a little bit like, well, you know, the question is, do you want to be considered homeschooled or do you want to be considered in a school? We can have it either way with no real difference in substance.

Jenny Clark:

I love that. I love that. So that's very important for families to know, especially some of these states that are passing ESAs that do require the funds to be used at a private school. And then the other states right now that have– presently have ESAs are Florida, Indiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Tennessee's program right now is for students who are in two counties, so their program's not universal yet.

Some of these other states have similar guidelines. You know, special needs. The other ones I've mentioned so far, not yet universal, but Tennessee's is if you are living in either Shelby County, Nashville County, or your child is switching out of an achievement school district, which is like a poor performing school, they have access to the ESA. So those are the states that currently have some form of an ESA.

But the exciting thing is that we are seeing multiple states this spring. While legislatures are in session either propose and potentially get signed and pass new universal ESA programs. So we're looking at places like Florida going universal. We're looking at Idaho now, I think is on the list. Ohio. Texas is looking at something we’re hearing from Arkansas, and Mississippi for Universal.

So this is a very exciting time to be watching what's happening in different states. I think now that the first domino has tipped with Universal ESA in Arizona, we've got families all over the nation that are going, “Hey, I want access to my child's education dollars too. I'm the parent. I want to direct my child's education.” And so those parents really have the power to talk to their legislators and their leaders and move things like these ESAs forward in their states.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, well, funding for education has been a state activity through public schools for well over 150 years. Maybe. I'm not sure how long it would have been funded that way and maybe even longer. And now giving parents real choice with that money is, I think, a very significant thing. I'm sure there are those listening who would not want to say, I don't want to take the state's money, but I think it is a sense in which we should remember it was our money, and it's not quite that simple.

But the state doesn't have any money that they don't get from us in the ultimate sense. And that I know what your dreams would be. But what do you realistically expect this will look like in two years or four years or something like that?

Jenny Clark:

Yes, absolutely. So realistically, I think in two years we could easily see 10 to 15 more states passing these ESAs. I am an eternal optimist. So I think that we might even see some of these what people would describe as like purple or blue states start to consider school choice legislation. And I think the reason why is not just because what I mentioned earlier about just how supportive voters are of these programs.

I think that we are at a place in America where we are looking at our numbers, we're looking at our students, we're looking at things like our NAPE scores that recently came out for the whole United States, which tells you how students are doing in reading and math at third and eighth grade. And we've got a big problem.

Marlin Detweiler:

Our international ranking is unbelievably deplorable.

Jenny Clark:

Yes, exactly. This. And so this becomes an issue not just of, you know, public versus private ESAs versus, you know, public dollars, homeschool, all these questions. This really becomes a future of our of our country and our kids. And every individual, every business owner, every citizen should be concerned about that. And if we can find policy levers that are going to enable kids to get the education that they need so that they can be successful citizens, then we need to be looking at all different options and ways to do that.

And so ESAs are just one, I think, incredible option. When I think about my kids, I don't think that they would have done well in the public school system, even though I had a totally fine time in the public school system because of that dyslexia piece, because of what I know of, if a child is not reading well at third grade, what that means for their future and what my local school was able to offer.

An ESA, completely transformed their lives, transformed their education, it transformed their future. And so it's my hope that down the road we will see every state start to move in this direction because we realize that we need solutions for our kids.

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, there there are additional elements for those of us. And most of the people here listening are people who want godliness for their children and I'm convinced that godliness requires a Christian education, that if we want to raise our kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord that involves understanding history from a biblical perspective, that involves understanding that God has been providentially involved in everything.

And we're not going to get that from secular places. And so it is so encouraging to me to see financial resources available to people who couldn't afford it otherwise. And that is really, really exciting.

Jenny Clark:

Absolutely.

Marlin Detweiler:

Do you have any concern that this movement will backfire and end up somehow putting controls over Christian education that they wouldn't want coming from a government?

Jenny Clark:

It's a fantastic question. I think that's something that we always have to be on guard about. I note that conservative public policy organizations, conservative Christian organizations, homeschool organizations, always every year in every state, have to be on guard against what we would call hostile legislation in those areas. So that's always been the case, and that will always continue to be the case, even as it relates to education savings accounts.

One of the things I can say, and my husband actually recently did an article on this issue for Utah. It was published on the Goldwater Institute's blog, but it was essentially answering those concerns and those questions. The good news is that for ten years, where we had an ESA in Arizona, we did not see any additional regulations on private schools or on home education as a result of the ESA.

The reason why and it's very important with how these are kind of produced is that (these ESAs are produced) is that when you have an ESA, the dollars are not flowing directly to the school. In that case, it would be considered a traditional voucher program.

Marlin Detweiler:

Right. Yeah.

Jenny Clark:

With ESA, the dollars are flowing to the parent and that is in the form of a scholarship and that is where then the parent is directing those dollars. So there is a separation.

Marlin Detweiler:

There is a one-step separation there. That's right.

Jenny Clark:

That's exactly right. And so legally, that's how in Arizona, at least, our law was challenged in 2014. But it was upheld as constitutional because the money is not flowing directly to the school or the end provider. It's flowing to the account holder, to the parent first.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, I love that. This is incredible. Where can people that want to learn more get more information? I know you maintain websites. Don't be bashful. Tell us about them. Tell them what they can find on your website Love Your School.

Jenny Clark:

Yeah, absolutely. So our website is Loveyourschool.org. We're also on social media, on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook, on our website. We actually have the opportunity for you to do a drop down if we're not operating in your state and to fill out a form that says, “Hey, I'm interested.” We love doing an initial phone call to connect with families in different states and we welcome that because we want to find those incredible parents and parent advocates that are looking to advance ESAs or just school choice in general in their states.

So we'd love to connect with you to either let you know what's happening in your state or also help you potentially launch something in your state. Another resource that I love sharing, they helped get Love Your School launched back in the day four years ago is EdChoice.org. Ed Choice.org is fantastic in that their website allows you to select your state and see what legislative options scholarships, tax credits might already be available in your state.

Because some of these states do have existing programs, they might be very tiny, but you might be surprised what your family may already qualify for in other states.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, that is great. Thank you so much. This has been incredible. You and I have spoken before, and I know you spoken to staff and are helping us with various things, but this has been a real learning experience for me. And it's so good to catch up with you again and to learn that this is not a fixed target.

There's a lot of dynamics here, and tomorrow things might even be better than they are today in terms of legislation, other things going on. So will going to LoveYourSchool.org be a place where parents will understand how to get started? They can go there to find out how to get started in their state if a state if they happen to be in one of the states that's approved the legislation?

Jenny Clark:

Yes, that's exactly right. And a big piece of that is we like to provide one-on-one what we call parent concierge service to families. So even families that are looking to transition to homeschool, we like to support that. Families who are looking to get their child evaluated. We can help you understand the rules and the regulations that might be slightly different in your state.

So that's a great place to go and get started and kind of in the school choice world, Marlin and I wasn't the one who coined this. I need to figure out who did. But we like to say that school choice and ESAs are a tsunami, so everyone better just grab their surfboard!

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, if you have to surf in Arizona, it will have been a big tsunami.

Jenny Clark:

This is true!

Marlin Detweiler:

Today. Folks at Veritas Fox, we have had Jenny Clark. I hope you found this helpful. I sure did. Jenny, thank you so much for joining us.

Jenny Clark:

It's been a pleasure!

Marlin Detweiler:

Thank you. This is Veritas Vox, The Voice of classical Christian education. Thank you for being with us today.