State Policy Network is pleased to announce that Jenny Clark, founder of Love Your School and a nationally recognized advocate for parents and school choice, has joined the organization as an Education Fellow in 2025.
Jane McEnaney, SPN’s Director of Education Policy Initiatives, notes:
“Jenny has been a valued partner to the Network for years, and we’re thrilled to formally welcome her to SPN. As a mother and former Arizona State Board of Education member, her firsthand experience with ESAs uniquely qualifies her to offer best practices to advocates and policymakers.
As more states respond to historic parent demand for school choice by enacting or expanding option-enabling K-12 programs, thoughtful program design and improved implementation are increasingly critical to ensure the success and sustainability of these hard-fought policy victories. Jenny’s expertise will help SPN offer affiliates and other stakeholders with the best strategies to ensure these programs fulfill their promise for families nationwide.”
Jenny is an Arizona native and mom of five, who saw firsthand the struggles that came with accessing education opportunities that meet the unique needs of each of her children. When she was looking for the best environment for her son with a learning disability, she looked to Arizona’s new Education Savings Account (ESA) program, which was the first in the nation and enacted in 2011. The program allowed families to take their education dollars and use them towards education expenses like tutoring, education materials, and tuition to go to a school of their choosing.
However, she found that even with a school choice program available in her state, she still struggled to navigate the process. In fact, she recalled that her family spent one year trying to fill out the paperwork and get the evaluations needed to access the ESA. For homeschool families like hers, the process was even harder than those in traditional schools.
Her personal experience inspired her to start Love Your School in 2019—so that parents could come together in defense of school choice and so that families would have a partner in navigating school choice programs once they’re signed into law. In 2018, Arizona’s ESA program was struck down by a ballot initiative, which served as a wakeup call for Jenny.
“Arizona’s first attempt at a universal ESA failed, and it made me realize that we needed to mobilize parents,” she said. “Fast forward to 2022, shortly after the universal ESA passed, the opposition tried to kill it again. But because parents made their voices heard, it didn’t even make the ballot.”
Love Your School provides one-on-one support for parents trying to use ESA programs—including how to apply, access funds, search for schools, and find the right curriculum. These are all resources that state governments do not typically provide families and if they do, they come with long wait times that families simply do not have.
The education choice boom has only grown since the pandemic. What started as two states with universal ESAs (Arizona and West Virginia) has now become 15 states in the span of three years. But education advocates understand that it takes much more than passing legislation for school choice to be successful. It takes parents knowing about the program and their eligibility. It’s vendors getting funds to parents in a timely manner. It’s the Department of Education responding when parents run into problems. And it’s the flexibility for parents to use the funds in the way that suits them without onerous red tape.
Jenny attended SPN’s Annual Meeting in 2021 and saw the many policy organizations engaged in this fight on the state level—and that our affiliates understood the importance of successful implementation. There, she saw an opportunity to partner more closely with SPN groups to bring the parent perspective.
Currently, Jenny is working in three states alongside SPN affiliates to provide parent advocacy support as they work to ensure their universal programs hit the ground running.
“As part of my fellowship with SPN, I’m hoping to bring more attention to how important ESA implementation is and specifically the concerns of parents,” she said. This includes publishing a series of papers that highlight real-world examples of parent challenges to current ESA programs, including an upcoming paper that includes hundreds of public comments to Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Program.
The education freedom wave will only continue as states feel the pressure from their neighbors. In 2025, three states thus far have passed universal programs (Idaho, Wyoming, and Tennessee). Jenny’s work alongside SPN affiliates will be critical so that families can access the best education for their children.
“The pressure is on because of the Nation’s Report Card showing that students still continue to fall behind years after the pandemic,” said Jenny. “This is our moment to turn this around for the sake of our future.”
