This report was first published by The 74tha nonprofit national education newsroom.
Two years ago, Katie Switzer advocated for a novel one School choice program This will provide homeschooling families in West Virginia up to $4,900 for their children’s education.
She was on the winning side when opponents sued to stop the program. But now, she says, the Hope Scholarship story has entered a frustrating novel chapter.
Due to glitches in a novel online shopping system, she can’t spend money to order headsets for her three children in online classes. Her kindergartener got the wrong laptop and she spent weeks trying to get a refund. Their children are among thousands whose learning has been disrupted this school year because of backlogs in orders for curriculum and materials. Families were forced to wait or spend their own money and ask the state for reimbursement.
“We fought so hard to get this program,” said Switzer, mother of five and founder of a Facebook group This has become a forum for dozens of families frustrated with the payment system. “Now we have a number of parents who didn’t get what they ordered.”
In April, the West Virginia State Treasurer’s Office, which administers the Hope Scholarship, awarded one almost $10 million contract to Indiana-based Student First Technologies to manage purchases and payments to education providers, replacing a nonprofit the state contracted with last year. But the system struggled to keep up as enrollment in the education savings account program skyrocketed 6,300 students last year to over 10,000. According to the country, almost 3,000 of the 9,000 orders received via the company’s platform had not been processed by the end of September. By Thursday, the system had reduced that number to 1,600 out of 11,300 — or about 14% of orders.
Last week, the treasurer’s office hosted a forum for parents to voice their concerns. But Switzer said the meeting lacked concrete information
“I think, ‘We want answers; “We don’t just want to yell at you,” she said.
Student First’s problems aren’t just narrow to West Virginia. In one Letter dated September 16thArkansas State Superintendent Jacob Oliva told CEO Mark Duran that his company had missed deadlines, including one to provide a “fully functional” purchasing platform for homeschool families participating in the state’s Education Freedom Account program. The company was fined $395,000 for delays and the risk of contract termination.
Student First officials did not return calls or emails for this article.
As Republican-led states continue to adopt and expand ESAs, they are building centralized systems through which homeschooling parents can purchase curriculum, services, and materials. Much of the controversy surrounding ESAs has focused on individual cases of fraud, including fraud financing “Ghost Students” in Arizona and extravagant items purchased by parents llike ski passes And Espresso machines. But school choice advocates argue that one of the biggest threats to the programs is impoverished customer service, including online platforms that malfunction or block orders for items that should be allowed.
Parents complain about “long waits for approvals and problems paying bills,” said Mike McShane, director of national research at EdChoice, an advocacy group. “It is difficult to say whether it is the platforms or the states that are causing the problems. I imagine that if you ask the platforms they will blame the states, and if you ask the states they will blame the platforms.”
The West Virginia Treasurer’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.
Last year, McShane urged calls for no savings in the “slow, tedious and boring work” of implementation. He called the difficulties “teething problems” as states open programs to more families.
“Through the Roof”
Under ESAs, parents can employ their accounts to pay tuition at private schools or to fund the costs of homeschooling or a mix of in-person and online learning.
Current data from Johns Hopkins University and other Sources shows homeschooling rates remain above pre-pandemic levels. In the 2022-23 school year, nearly 6% of students were homeschooled, compared to 2.8% in 2019. Researchers suggest ESAs “will potentially expand homeschooling practices even further.”
While it’s relatively uncomplicated to employ ESA funds to pay tuition at a private school, advocates say Student First probably didn’t anticipate the hustle and bustle of homeschooling families, who often place dozens of orders for curriculum and supplies.
“The demand for these programs is tremendous,” McShane said. “So expanding the technology and infrastructure will take time.”
But critics argue that such “middlemen” not only cause headaches for families, but also enhance the costs of running the programs themselves. For example, Iowa increased its contract with Odyssey, a similar payments company, to cover additional fees Transaction fees when shopping.
Josh Cowen, a professor at Michigan State University and a leading opponent of school choice, said it is typical for states to contract with third parties to administer publicly funded programs. But Cowen, who recently published a book about some of the wealthy donors behind the school choice movement, pointed to a “chronic problem” with vendors running ESA programs, particularly as the list of eligible items grows.
“I think the burden should be even higher on states that empower providers to explain why we need them and why they are worth the price,” he said.
Arkansas, where the ESA program provides $6,800 per student, received one $15 million contract in April to become Student First, replacing ClassWallet, the industry’s largest company, with contracts in 11 states.
The program began in 2023-24, but this is the first year some homeschoolers will be able to participate, including the children of first responders, military personnel and children in failing schools.
“Not all homeschool families are eligible this year, and that’s really a good thing given the delays in processing,” said Lisa Crook, director of the Education Alliance, a network of homeschooling families in Arkansas. Parents are calling her for answers, but she said the state is reimbursing the costs as quickly as possible. “It was frustrating, but I don’t feel like they ignored us or anything.”
The West Virginia Treasurer’s Office has also created some transient workarounds. In a Sept. 23 email, the state said it would provide refunds to families who had to pay upfront for exorbitant items like school uniforms and musical instruments. But advocates point out that not all families can afford to pay for the items out of pocket and wait for reimbursement.
In addition to the backlog, Student First’s “TheoPay” platform only works as an extension to Chrome for now – a violation of Chrome contract that requires The program works in multiple browsers and is mobile warm.
Switzer said parents who don’t have Chrome or home internet service have been coming to her house to place orders
“This is a high-poverty state,” she said. “Parents can’t use their phones [to place orders] Or they can’t use the local library computer to order because you can’t install the Chrome extension on a library computer.”
As director of education partnerships and strategy at the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy, a right-leaning think tank, Tiffany Hoben advocates for ESAs.
She also has an 11-year-old son who receives a Hope Scholarship. She uses the funds to purchase science, math and reading materials from various vendors and to pay tutors. Student First’s website promises “frictionless technology.” But the system is blocking orders for some parents while giving other families the green airy to buy identical items.
“It’s hard for families,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Damn, I should be able to have this because it’s on the list.'”
“In the Dark”
Most states with ESA programs have had some problems with their payment systems. But in Arizona, which has a contract with ClassWallet, Many of the problems have been resolved, he said Kathy Visser, who runs a Facebook group for ESA parents. When there are delays in permits, it is usually due to a backlog at the state level or because authorities have changed the rules about what is allowed.
“For the most part, when you contact ClassWallet with an issue, they respond very quickly,” she said. “And if it’s their fault that you had a problem, it will be resolved quickly.”
She worries that problems with providers in other states will bolster critics’ arguments that the ESA is wasting state resources.
“They’ll say, ‘Look, you can’t even manage the programs,'” she said. “They want to make sure parents stop doing this. If the parents get fed up, the program fails.”
The Cardinal Institute’s Hoben said in the rush to set up West Virginia’s purchasing system, families were “left in the dark” about why their orders weren’t being processed.
“Other countries,” she said, “are watching us out of the corner of their eyes and asking themselves, ‘God, do we even want to mess with this?’” ”
