12News Reporter Craig Harris, with the aid of Princeton professor Jen Jennings, has been uncovering the many questionable uses of taxpayer dollars by voucher recipients in Arizona. Here’s just one sampling:
Documents reviewed by 12News Investigates show that money from Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program has been used for expenses tied to trips in 44 states and 13 other countries since 2022, the year Arizona launched the nation’s first universal school choice program available to all families regardless of income.
The records suggest that taxpayer-funded education dollars have been used for everything from Disneyland visits to international sightseeing tours.
For many children, a trip to Disneyland is a dream vacation.
But the newly released public records raise a key question: Should taxpayers be paying for it?
Data reviewed by 12News Investigates shows that at least $21,000 was spent on Disney parks, Disney stores, and Disney’s streaming service by more than 100 ESA accounts since 2022.
Disneyland is just one example.
Ivy League researchers analyzing the data say ESA-funded travel appears to extend far beyond California.
“There’s a lot of travel to New York City. There’s a lot of travel to Washington, D.C., plenty of events going on in England. There’s travel to Jordan to see Petra,” said Jennifer Jennings, a Princeton University professor who studies school choice and analyzed the spending records for 12News.
In 2023, Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne publicly rejected claims that ESA funds were being used for vacations.
In a press release at the time, Horne said purchases such as trips to Disney parks, cruises, food items, or personal vacations were not approved ESA expenses.
“They continue to say outlandish purchases such as trips to Disney parks, personal vacations, food items, ocean cruises and the like are being approved as ESA expenses when they are not,” Horne said.
However, after 12News sued both Horne’s office and the Arizona Treasurer to obtain more than 5 million public ESA spending records, the receipts were eventually released — and the data tells a different story.