AFC Growth Fund launched new digital and broadcast ads in Iowa highlighting a family who says education savings accounts have made a difference for their children.
Rather than focusing on policy arguments or statistics, the ads put Iowa parents at the center of the conversation. They describe what school choice has meant when tuition became difficult to afford and when a child needed a different educational setting.
When tuition becomes harder to afford
One ad focuses on this family facing an unexpected financial setback. They had already made a choice about where their children should attend school, but a change in their circumstances put that choice at risk.
The ad makes a point that is sometimes lost in debates over Iowa’s Students First Education Savings Account program: choosing a private school does not mean tuition is easy for a family to pay.
Jobs change. Expenses rise. Family circumstances can turn quickly.
An ESA can mean the difference between keeping a child in the school his or her parents believe is the best fit and having to make a change because the tuition bill has become too much.
That is part of what school choice is supposed to accomplish. Iowa parents should not have to surrender an educational choice they have already made simply because their financial circumstances change.
Seeing a child succeed
The second ad focuses more directly on what happened after one Iowa family found the right educational environment for their children.
“The ESAs have had a tremendous impact on how our world revolves around learning,” the father says.
He explains that teachers and administrators recognized that their children were struggling and responded to their needs.
Then he describes a result any parent can understand.
“We’ve seen our daughter go from failing grades to As in a subject that was normally difficult for her.”
That is a MUCH better way to understand the school choice debate.
Parents do not look for a different school simply because they want something different. Sometimes a child is struggling academically. Sometimes the school environment is not working. Sometimes a family has already found a school where a child is thriving but needs help keeping that education affordable.
The Student First ESA program gives parents another tool to address those situations.
School choice is about real families
Critics of education savings accounts often debate the program almost entirely in terms of budgets, institutions and enrollment numbers. Those questions have their place, but they can obscure the people the program was created to serve.
These ads bring the discussion back to Iowa families.
For this family, an ESA helped keep tuition within reach when life took an unexpected turn and it helped provide an environment where their daughter went from failing to earning As in a subject that had been difficult for her.
Those experiences will not look exactly the same for every family. They do not have to.
The point of school choice is that children are different, families face different circumstances, and parents should have the ability to choose the education that works best for their child.
That is what this family says education savings accounts have helped them do.