Very bad news on the voucher front

by David Safier

A judge has given her OK to Arizona's "Education Empowerment Scholarships," which is the state's vouchers-on-steroids bill. She accepted the dual arguments that (1) creating "savings accounts" somehow launders the money of its government connection and it can therefore be used for religious education; and (2) because the parents can use the money cafeteria style, splitting it up for a variety of educational uses, that also takes away the religious education prohibition.

Of course, the decision is being appealed. But if this plan gets a final judicial blessing, it will quickly move from just being for children with educational disabilities or who have been in foster care to being available to every child in the state. That's a full blown voucher system, something which has been voted down every time it has been put up as a state initiative anywhere in the country.

Right now, even though the ink is barely dry on the original "Education Empowerment Scholarships" legislation — it only passed last session — an amendment, HB2626, has been proposed to broaden its scope. Children would be eligible if their school gets a D or F on the state evaluation, attended a public preschool the previous year, or — and this could be a loophole you could drive a Humvee through — "was deemed eligible by a School Tuition Organization for a scholarship under section 43‑1505." Who can be "deemed eligible"? There's room for interpretation here. It could add many people to the pool.

Another addition is that some of the "Scholarship" money can be used to pay for classes or extracurricular programs at public schools. That means a student could be enrolled in calculus or band during the school day and participate in a sport after school, by paying for those specific programs.

If this legislation is declared constitutional, everything changes in Arizona education — for the worse, in my opinion, for the better in the opinion of the Goldwater Institute and every other conservative "pro choice," "education reform" advocate in the country. This will be the SB1070 of education bills, the original which is copied by other states.