Data Matters. Families Matter More: Addressing Criticisms of the ESTF Program
Last Monday, the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee (EOC) released a report titled “Education Scholarship Trust Fund, Year One (School Year 2024-25): A Formative Review of Data Quality and Transparency.” What followed was a barrage of criticisms looking to cast a shadow on the program, much of which lacks context. We want to take a minute to address some of the criticisms leveled against the program and offer some additional commentary.
Data Quality Concerns Should Be Expected
The 2024-25 school year was not an easy one for the ESTF program. The South Carolina Supreme Court struck down the program just a couple of months into the school year citing concerns with how funding flowed from the state, through the program, and to education service providers. Thousands of children were left without the academic and financial supports upon which they relied while the General Assembly worked to address the Court’s concerns and relaunch the program.
During that time, there was no real structure around these children’s schooling from a state accountability perspective. In fact, were it not for millions of dollars in private donations to these families, many may have been forced out of their chosen schools and into one that is not adequately meeting their needs solely because of a lack of financial resources.
The EOC report does concede this point, admitting that “Viewed in context, these conditions are not unexpected for the first year of a program of this complexity, particularly one whose authorizing law was altered by the courts and the General Assembly during the year it was first being implemented.”
WIS10 broke down the testing data in a recent article, highlighting the fact that only 1,440 students were active in the ESTF program at the end of the school year. Of those, 629 students did not (or were not required) to submit test scores, as follows:
– 446 students were enrolled in grades K5 through 2nd, which are legally exempt from standardized assessment mandates under state law.
– 102 students were graduating 12th graders.
– 42 students failed to submit approved testing and were removed from the program.
– 19 students complied with submission rules but encountered technical data-transfer issues.
– 14 students submitted unapproved assessments and received program violations.
– 6 students qualified for documented disability testing exemptions.”
We agree that financial transparency is absolutely essential for this program (and truly, any program that receives taxpayer funding), but we must remember that this program has been through more scrutiny and criticism than most. In fact, despite what the calendar says, this past school year, the 2025-26 school year, is the first full year of implementation. Therefore, we would fully expect this data to satisfy the EOC and yield actionable, reliable insights into student performance in the ESTF.
Offering a Variety of Testing Options Preserves School Choice
The EOC highlighted concerns with the alternative assessments approved by the South Carolina Department of Education for program participants, saying that “…several of the assessments submitted, though nationally normed, lacked evidence of alignment to South Carolina’s academic standards or the linking studies needed to relate them to the state test.” To that end, WIS10 reported that “Department officials argued the EOC chose to ‘winnow down’ the data set for its own statistical modeling by excluding 177 K–2 test submissions, tossing out 242 approved summative tests (including the Classic Learning Test, Iowa Assessments, and Stanford 10), and excluding scores submitted outside a narrow testing window,” leaving the EOC with less than 300 usable test scores.
The authorizing statute of the ESTF program requires that participating students in 3rd through 8th grade take the annual state summative assessment or its alternative (i.e. SC READY), a nationally norm-referenced summative assessment, or a formative assessment three times per year. Further, these assessments require a linking study, alignment with state standards, and approval by the Department.
High school students must take “…a department-approved, nationally norm-referenced assessment, formative assessment, or assessment that demonstrates the student’s college or career readiness.” This is likely the biggest “pain point” in the data, as formative assessments for 3rd through 8th grade students include references to state standards, though it is unclear whether a linking study exists for them, and it appears that the options are much more broad for high school students.
Admittedly, comparing student performance across a variety of tests is a challenge, and we cannot dispute the importance of valid linking studies and alignment to state standards. However, we must hold this requirement with an open hand. The ESTF program, by its very nature, requires flexibility in testing. Students are attending a wide variety of schools, including charter, religious, and independent schools, each of which has their own style and methods of instruction. If we force ESTF participants to take the same government-approved assessments, we reduce school choice to little more than a change in venue. When standards and assessments are the same, choice suffers. The same things that made the alternative so attractive to their families will fade as standards, and therefore educational models, conform.
Connecting ESTF Spending Data to Individual Test Results is Invasive and Misleading
In its report, the EOC recommended giving them access to fund-use records so they can connect how funding is spent to their assessment performance. Although this makes sense on its face, the conclusions generated from this data is likely to point to correlation, not causation.
It should not come as a surprise that education is a highly complex, highly personalized topic. Even within the same school, each student will have different needs and levels of support. One ESTF participant may use the bulk of their award to pay for tuition and fees, while another may use it for tutoring or other occupational therapies. We cannot conclude that a student who spends more on tuition and scored better on the required assessments means that higher tuition means better results, just like we cannot conclude that a student who spent their award on occupational therapies and scored less means that occupational therapy is not a good use of funds. Each child needs what they need, and the flexibility inherent in our ESTF program ensures that they are able to access what they need to thrive.
Students are Thriving
Finally, and most importantly, students are thriving in the ESTF program. During the 2024-25 school year, parent satisfaction with the program was off-the-charts. Just over 96% of parents indicated that they were “Very Satisfied” or “Satisfied” with the program on the annual Parent Satisfaction Survey. Parents had the following to say about the program:
“Finally seen my son smile again, he was depressed and hated school. This opportunity changed all that and helped him finally make friends for the 1st time in the 8 school years.”
“Having the freedom to add tutoring. Math tutoring, especially, is expensive but so helpful!”
“This program has helped me be able to provide a decent education for my daughter. (Unnamed) county has some of the worst public school environments and I wanted to be able to send her to a private school without worry of the constant violence.”
“My child/learner has complex needs that would not be met in a traditional classroom. I have been able to order instructional materials that are tailored to his interests, which sparked his interest in learning. This learner has avoidant behaviors but is very smart. So by ordering regulating material as well as custom material based on interest, we have been able to make great progress in learning. Additionally, the learner is often sick, and by at home educating, we don’t have to worry about missing days or being absent, as in a traditional school setting.”
The value of the ESTF program cannot be measured only in dollars and cents. Thousands of families are, many for the first time, able to make a real choice in their child’s education. The reason that they utilize choice varies, but the end goal is the same – to do better for their children.
Final Takeaways
The EOC is right about one thing: South Carolina should expect accurate, transparent, and meaningful data from the Education Scholarship Trust Fund. Taxpayers deserve to know how public dollars are being used, and policymakers need reliable information to evaluate and improve the program.
But good oversight requires more than identifying limitations in a first-year dataset. It requires putting those limitations in context and recognizing what the data can and cannot tell us.
The ESTF was launched under extraordinary circumstances. Its first year was interrupted by litigation, changes to the law, and uncertainty that affected both families and administrators. Against that backdrop, it is premature to use the imperfections of Year One data to cast doubt on school choice writ large.
More importantly, accountability should not become an excuse to undermine the very flexibility that makes the ESTF valuable. Parents did not seek out the program simply to replicate the same educational experience in a different building. They chose it because their children needed something different. For some, that means a private school. For others, it means tutoring, curriculum, therapy, online learning, or a combination of services. A successful choice program must preserve the ability of families to make those decisions for themselves.
There is certainly room to improve the collection and reporting of ESTF data. The state should continue working toward better measures of student progress, clearer financial reporting, and more meaningful longitudinal information. But those improvements should strengthen the program, not gradually transform it into another version of the traditional system it was designed to complement.
Ultimately, the most important question is not whether the first year of a complicated new program produced a perfectly clean dataset. It did not. The more important question is whether South Carolina families are using the program to give their children opportunities they otherwise would not have had.
The evidence from the families themselves provides a compelling answer.
For the parent whose child is finally excited to go to school, the student receiving tutoring that their family could not otherwise afford, or the child whose unique needs are finally being met, the value of educational choice is not theoretical. It is personal.
South Carolina should demand accountability from the ESTF. But we should also remember what that accountability is supposed to serve: the students and families who depend on the program. Better data should help us understand and improve educational choice, not become a justification for taking choice away.
