I live in Arizona, my son is non-verbal and autistic. My wife visited the public school that our son would have been attended and found that the staff were larg

I live in Arizona, my son is non-verbal and autistic. My wife visited the public school that our son would have been attended and found that the staff were largely disengaged. Only one person in the room had any real qualification (she was engaged and competent), but that teacher would only have 20 minutes a day to spend with our son. Due to my son's developmental trajectory, he qualified for the ESA before it was generally available (although AZ's attorney general's office had to get quietly involved due to race-based discrimination during the application process). He now has a tutor that works with him 2-3 hours a day one-on-one and he is making audible verbal progress. His tutor is in a master's program for speech language pathology at our local state university. We pay her out of pocket and get reimbursed through the ESA. AZ's ESA program is the ONLY shot my son has to be functional and avoid living on disability his entire life (which will cost the state a LOT more than getting him a competent tutor). Should public schools be improved? Yes. Will they be improved before my son's developmental window for language is closed? No. Funding ESAs are like diversifying your societal investment by funding startups vs just buying more IBM stock. Hopefully, the difference will be more like startups vs Microsoft, which has turned some things around. Sclerotic institutions need re-invigoration, which requires real incentives to break out of their current ruts.