Andy Spears is a veteran education journalist who tracks policy and finances across the South, but most often in Tennessee, where he lives. He has recently been following waste, fraud, and abuse in voucher programs in Arizona and Florida, learning lessons that Tennessee could learn from.

Spears wrote on his Substack blog The Education Report that Arizona passed the $1 Billion mark in annual spending on vouchers, most of which pays tuition for students already enrolled in nonpublic schools, and some of which is collected by very rich kids. Voucher money is spent on all sorts of things, not just tuition, including vacations, diamonds, lingerie, home appliances, television sets, vacations, and gift cards.

Arizona State Attorney General Kris Mayes announced that she is opening a review of voucher spending, especially the State Department of Education’s policy of rubber-stamping expenses under $2,000.

Spears also reported on Florida’s slipshod accounting of voucher students:

Where are Florida kids in school? Are they being counted as voucher students on a private school’s roster while actually attending a public school? Is the money following the student, or is it making a stop in the bank account of a private operator with little accountability?
In this story about a private school that accepted voucher funds for 80 students it never saw or educated, there’s an even bigger revelation.

In this story about a private school that accepted voucher funds for 80 students it never saw or educated, there’s an even bigger revelation.

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Crestview, said that at any given moment the state does not know where 30,000 students are in terms of school categories — traditional public or voucher-supported private or home schools — together worth $270 million in education support.

30,000 kids. $270 million. And a state audit says the Florida Department of Education doesn’t seem to know what’s going on.

State legislators last week reviewed a state audit that found the school choice scholarship program in Florida exhibited “a myriad of accountability problems.”

Oh, and that original story – also pretty alarming. Apparently, a school claimed 80 students who lived 130 miles away – students they’d never seen or educated.

According to the decision, during the 2023-2024 school year, Little Wings submitted invoices to Step Up for Students, an organization administering state vouchers, for students previously enrolled at Touched by an Angel school, 130 miles away in Lake City.

The owner of the school that took voucher funds while not providing education to kids said she was not aware that is illegal.

Harris testified that during the 2023-2024 school year, her school received state scholarship funds for students that did not physically attend the school and that she did not know it was illegal to do so.

Florida’s school voucher scheme has private school operators billing for students who do not attend their school. It can’t keep track of as many as 30,000 students at a time. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are not properly tracked or accounted for

This is what proponents of “school choice” want – unlimited “choice” options, which means unlimited ways for unaccountable private operators to get their hands on loads of taxpayer cash.