If your state gives your family an education savings account (ESA) or school-choice scholarship, history curriculum is an easy thing to fund and an easy thing to forget. Families spend the allocation on math and reading first, then find in spring that money is still sitting in the account. In several programs that money is simply gone at year's end: Alabama's CHOOSE Act returns unused funds to the state, and the Utah Fits All Scholarship doesn't carry balances forward either.
The purchasing mechanics are simpler than the paperwork suggests.
The three big marketplaces
Most state programs route purchases through one of a few platforms:
- ClassWallet — runs the marketplace for Alabama's CHOOSE Act, Arizona's Empowerment Scholarship Account, the Arkansas Education Freedom Account, and South Carolina's Education Scholarship Trust Fund, among others. You shop inside the ClassWallet marketplace and pay directly from your allocation. No credit card, no reimbursement paperwork.
- Odyssey — administers the Georgia Promise Scholarship and the Utah Fits All Scholarship, plus programs in several other states, through its own vendor marketplace. Utah moved to Odyssey in 2025 after the state board ended its previous administrator's contract, so older guides may name the wrong platform.
- Step Up For Students — Florida's scholarship funding organization. Its marketplace serves families on the Personalized Education Program (PEP) and the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities (FES-UA), the two Florida scholarships built as spending accounts rather than tuition payments.
The general flow is the same everywhere: log in to your program portal, search the marketplace for an approved vendor, place the order with program funds, and the vendor fulfills it like any other purchase.
History curriculum as an approved expense
Curriculum and instructional materials are approved categories in nearly every ESA program, and primary-source programs count. Letterjoy's historic letter memberships are listed in ClassWallet, Odyssey, and Step Up For Students; families in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Utah can order them with program funds. Search "Letterjoy" in your portal. Each membership delivers a real historic letter weekly on premium stationery with The Postscript, a researched companion article. The Postscript is what makes it instructional material rather than a novelty.
One caveat: every program defines eligible expenses its own way, and the rules shift year to year. Your program handbook is the final word.
A sample ESA history budget
Here's how homeschool families commonly structure a year of history with program funds:
- The spine thread: a full-year primary-source membership (e.g., Letters From American History, 52 weeks) as the standing weekly encounter with real documents.
- Student-interest additions: a themed collection matched to your child — military history, presidential letters, science & innovation, or the Federalist Papers for civics year.
- One hands-on extra: The Codebreaking Club mails one real coded message a month with step-by-step decoding instructions and the story of the people who wrote and broke it. Note that it ships monthly, not weekly.
Ordering step by step (ClassWallet example)
- Log in to your ClassWallet account through your state program's link.
- Open the Marketplace and search for the vendor by name.
- Add items to your cart and submit — funds come straight from your allocation.
- The vendor receives the order, confirms it, and fulfillment begins. (With Letterjoy, your letters begin with the next weekly mailing cycle; see when your membership starts.)
Timing matters
Several programs release funds on July 1, including Alabama's CHOOSE Act. Arizona's ESA pays out on a rolling schedule instead. Ordering in the first weeks after your funds land means materials arrive before your first week of school rather than during week four. If you're reading this in spring with money left in the account, a fixed-term product like a 6- or 12-month letter membership spends the balance on something that keeps running past the program's deadline.
Questions about whether your state's program covers Letterjoy? Write to Support@letterjoy.co and we'll point you to the right marketplace.