The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
When a smiling stranger with a clipboard approaches you and asks for your signature “to help protect education,” I urge you to pause. For the sake of families like mine, please decline to sign.
My family’s story is proof that Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program is not a policy debate. It is a lifeline.
For years, my children suffered in Arizona public schools that failed to meet their educational needs. My daughter was viciously bullied from second through eleventh grade across six different public and charter schools. Her schools did not protect her. Instead, she was either punished or the adults responsible for educating and protecting her looked the other way. The damage went far beyond academics. Her mental health spiraled. She considered dropping out. We were on the brink of losing her.
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Everything changed when universal ESA became available. I was finally able to remove my daughter from the dangerous environment she was in and place her in a safe space where she could heal, learn, and grow. Her mental health improved. She earned her high school diploma. Today, she is an independent adult, thriving in her career and raising her own family. I believe the ESA program literally helped save my daughter’s life.
My son’s story is just as powerful. When I removed him from public school, he was struggling immensely. He had speech impairments that made communication difficult. He scored below the 1st percentile in reading. He could only write his name. One of his IEP goals was to focus for two minutes without being redirected more than twice. The public school environment overstimulated him. Even simple instructions were impossible for him to follow. He was misunderstood and overwhelmed. He came to see himself as a "bad boy."
Later, we learned his needs were even more complex than the district had recognized. He was diagnosed with autism, which helped to better explain why he was struggling. When I tried to have his disability needs properly reflected and tried to obtain the services he needed, I met resistance and hostility instead of support.
The ESA program gave him immediate options and a plan. With ESA, I could finally afford the specialized education, tutoring, and support he needed. The private school he currently attends did not reject him because he has a disability or because he is a minority or because our family isn’t wealthy. It welcomed him, supported him, and works to meet his unique needs.
Today, my son reads above grade level. He can focus on academics for nearly two hours at a time. He has friends. He enjoys basketball and taekwondo. He volunteers in children’s taekwondo classes, and he serves on the tech team at church. Since being on ESA, his standardized test scores have soared. His reading composite increased by nearly 70 percentile points, his math by 41 points, and his writing by 47 points. He no longer needs speech therapy. However, his most important change isn’t based on a test score. My son no longer believes he is bad. He knows he is good because of who he is and how he serves others in our community.
There are currently two ballot initiatives in Arizona seeking to restrict or dismantle the ESA program for over 103,000 Arizona children. The signature gatherers may sound convincing. Their petitions may sound harmless. But families like mine know what is really at stake.
These initiatives would not “protect education.” They would rip opportunity away from tens of thousands of Arizona children and push them back into systems that already failed them. For children like my daughter, that means returning to places where they are unsafe, unheard, and unprotected. For children like my son, it means losing the support that finally helped them learn. These petitions would put children’s mental health, physical safety, and academic progress at risk, while erasing hard-won progress.
When someone asks you to sign an education petition this summer, please remember my family's experience and the futures of over 100,000 Arizona children.
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Dreama Peterson is a parent in Tucson, Arizona, with two children who have utilized the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, including one graduate and one current student. A Volunteer Grief Recovery Educator with 22 years of experience in healthcare, she writes and speaks on access to appropriate educational support for students with disabilities and the importance of providing families with individualized educational options for their children. As the mother of an autistic son, she has seen firsthand how the right educational setting and tools can change a child’s confidence, progress, and future.
