Republicans resort to Voucher Laundering to get around AZ Constitution

by David Safier

Shameless self promotion time. I have a Guest Commentary in the Tucson Weekly discussing a subject I've posted about on a number of occasions: the new Arizona Empowerment Accounts, which "launder" state money, washing off all those inconvenient Constitutional stipulations (like not using state funds in support of religious education) so they can give parents vouchers to pay for religious private school education.

I hope journalists will cover this story a bit more. I've seen a few stories in the East Valley Trib and the Republic, but none to my recollection in the Star (though there may have been a story I've forgotten). Unless journalists have been following the national education beat carefully, they probably don't know the enormity of this legislation. It's the first "Education Savings Accounts" legislation in the country, and if it succeeds, it will serve as a prototype for similar voucher work-arounds in other states. Though right now it only can be used by students with learning disabilities, they're already talking about expanding it to students at any school that gets a state rating of "D," and Republican legislators have been quoted in print saying they want to make this available to all Arizona students.

Here are the final two paragraphs of my column.

At this point, only students with learning disabilities are eligible for the empowerment accounts (there were similar limitations on the 2006 voucher bill), but that's just a way of sneaking the elephant's privatization trunk into the education tent. If the courts rule in favor of the accounts, proponents have made it clear that they want the vouchers available to everyone.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been much talk about empowerment accounts in the press, probably because the 2011 legislative session was so full of jaw-droppers that this law was passed with little notice. But it has far-reaching implications. Empowerment accounts are the SB 1070 of the education-privatization movement: It's the first law of its kind in the country, and if it flourishes here, it's sure to be duplicated in other states.