US states consider limits on school voucher programs

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.Capitalizing on headlines about misspending and concern about ballooning costs, some Arizona public school advocates want voters to do something lawmakers haven’t: add certain guardrails to the state’s education savings account program.A proposed ballot measure in Arizona is one of several recent efforts nationwide to scale back or add oversight to state voucher programs, which direct public funding to private education expenses.Together, Democratic and Republican Ohio lawmakers proposed a bill in January that would place a $500,000 income limit for families receiving a type of state voucher. West Virginia lawmakers tried and failed to curb voucher spending by limiting how families could spend the money.These efforts might signal that opponents are taking a measured approach to battling this form of school choice, rather than coordinating all-or-nothing campaigns to kill vouchers. Th