Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program enables families to customize their children’s education. But critics like reporter Craig Harris at KPNX 12News in Phoenix have been pushing a misleading narrative about widespread fraud.
Their stories falsely claim that 20% of spending in the program involves fraud or unallowable purchases.
This figure stems directly from a misinterpretation of data from a risk-based audit conducted by the Arizona Department of Education (ADE).
By definition, a risk-based audit targets accounts flagged for potential issues, making it nonrepresentative of the overall population of ESA participants. Using that 20% to generalize about the entire program distorts the truth and could harm families who rely on these scholarships.
To understand the flaw in Mr. Harris’s approach, consider this analogy. Suppose 20% of people accused of a crime were found guilty of a felony. Under Mr. Harris’s flawed logic, that would mean 20% of all Americans are felons.
The risk-based audit focuses on a subset of accounts selected for higher scrutiny, much like how law enforcement investigates suspects rather than the general public. Extrapolating from that skewed sample to the whole population creates a false picture, yet that’s exactly what 12News has done with their reporting on the ESA program.
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