Well funded voucher push gets even more funding
by David Safier
People don't like vouchers. Voucher initiatives have been voted down every time they've been presented to voters. Arizona's two voucher programs, Tuition Tax Credits and Education Savings Accounts, were passed by our conservative state legislature, and that's true in other states as well.
Big money conservatives like vouchers, so they keep pumping more money into the idea. Here's the latest. The Walton Family Foundation — the WalMart fortune — is putting $6 million into the Alliance for School Choice, a pro-voucher lobbying group working in Arizona and a bunch of other states, doubling the group's budget. For the Waltons, $6 million barely counts as lunch money. Their foundation is one of the financial pillars of the conservative "education reform" movement, and many, many millions more go into supporting charter schools as well as efforts to promote vouchers.
Let's connect a few dots. The head of Alliance for School Choice is headed by Betsy DeVos of the Amway fortune. She also founded the American Federation for Children (AFC), a conservative pro-charter/voucher/privatization organization. The AFC is joined at the hip to Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a PAC that works to elect Dems in Democratic-heavy districts who support the privatization agenda, including vouchers. DFER opened a branch in Arizona this spring and along with the AFC has thrown its support behind three Democratic legislators: Sen. Barbara McGuire (LD-8), Rep. Mark Cardenas (LD-19) and the recently appointed Sen. Carlyle Begay (LD-7).