Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Arizona voucher reax

The East Valley Tribune gets reaction on Arizona’s new voucher programs.  Highlights:

“If you had asked people at the beginning of this session to bet this would happen, you would have gotten very few people making that bet,” said Chuck Essigs, a lobbyist for the Arizona Association of School Business Officials, former Mesa Unified School District official and an observer of the Arizona Legislature for more than 25 years. “It would be like a 50-to-1 long shot at the Kentucky Derby.”

Yet, to some educators, it’s precious little to celebrate. John Wright, president of the Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, has posted an ominous message on the AEA Web site: “The deal is not worth the damage.” 

An "ominous message".  Gasp!  In case you missed it, here’s our reply to that statement by Robert Teegarden, our director of state projects.  Horrors!!! 

Eric Kurland, president of the Scottsdale Education Association, said he believes Napolitano did the best she could do in tough circumstances, but he is not happy with the trade-off.

“There are some things in the budget that are not palatable. Vouchers are among those, because they’re taking money away from public education,” he said. 

"Taking money from public education", eh?  Let’s go back and look at how the final budget turned out.

Nearly half a billion dollars. Full-day kindergarten in every school. Raises for teachers. Millions more for special education funding. When it’s all tallied up, Arizona’s public schools will get an increase in state funding of more than $480 million — more than double the amount they have been getting each year for the past 15 years…

While state law required the Legislature approve an increase of at least $217 million for teacher pay, benefits and enrollment growth, lawmakers went above and beyond that, adding another $100 million.

Napolitano also convinced lawmakers to push up the timeline for implementing statewide full-day kindergarten, allotting enough money to bring the program to every school by the 2007-08 school year.

Next year, $118 million will go for kindergarten programs — more than triple the $38 million spent on the program this year.

In the 2007-08 school year, the state will increase that by $80 million to a total of $198 million — more than five times the amount spent this year.

In addition, the budget includes a $5 million increase for special education students and $5 million more for school districts’ transportation costs.

But in order to get these measures, Napolitano had to agree to spend $5 million on new voucher programs that allow children who are disabled or in foster care to attend private schools with taxpayer dollars.

The budget also doubled the size of corporate tuition tax credits for private schools, allowing businesses to donate up to $10 million for private school scholarships for lowincome students. 

School choice programs are getting $20 million.  Public schools are getting nearly half a billion dollars.  Look, just be honest–this isn’t about the money, it’s about the monopoly, isn’t it?  Go read the whole thing. 

CORRECTION: It has been brought to my attention that the first quote is in reference to the overall increase in eduspending and not to the voucher programs in particular.  My mistake.