n a column published last week in The Oklahoman, Lindsey M. Burke and Brittany Corona of The Heritage Foundation discussed the innovative Education Savings Account (ESA) program in Arizona, which allows parents to bank a portion of their child’s per-pupil funding and use it to customize an education for their children.

ESAs are the first of their kind, giving parents full control over 90 percent of the funds that would have been spent on their child in their assigned public school. Once parents choose to withdraw a child from the public system, funds are deposited onto a restricted-use debit card; the parents are then able to direct spending to any education-related service or provider of choice. Families can use ESAs to pay for private school tuition, online learning, and private tutoring. Parents are even able to roll over unused funds from year to year, and can even roll those funds into a college savings account.

I encourage you to read their entire column here, and to learn more about ESAs here. And to see how ESAs are benefiting one particular Arizona family, check out the heart-warming video below.