The Long Con
Congrats, Gov. Ducey, on pulling off a heist for the ages.
Sometimes, you just have to appreciate a long con.
And Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey last week pulled off a flim-flam hustle that even worked in that old Arizona classic, a land scam.
We should add that it wasn’t so admirable from the perspective of children, teachers and advocates for public education—but then, the marks of a con are rarely left happy.
We’re talking, of course, about Arizona’s new law expanding “empowerment scholarship accounts,” which is a clever marketing slogan for school vouchers. Here’s how they essentially work: Rather than send their kids to a traditional public school, parents can opt to ask the state for $5,600, which is 90 percent of what the state spends on a per-pupil basis on public schools. Then the parents get debit cards they can spend on tuition, books, tutors or other educational expenses at private and religious schools.
The expansion of ESAs will continue the ongoing efforts of Republican lawmakers and the governor to dismantle public education in our state.
So here’s how it all went down: First, Ducey had to resolve some lingering legal problems for education funding. So last year, he came up with Prop 123, which asked voters to bust into the state land trust. The principal of the state land trust had heretofore been off-limits because somebody way back when had realized that growing a massive endowment for schoolkids while providing interest payments for education would ensure extra funding for schools into perpetuity (and that politicians would squander that money if they could get their grubby mitts on it)
Ducey managed to persuade leaders in the education community to settle a long-standing lawsuit by busting into the trust and giving that money to schools for a decade. Those education leaders, recognizing that a drawn-out court battle would mean they’d see nothing for the foreseeable future (and maybe nothing ever at all), went along with the plan and voters approved it by a narrow margin in May 2016.
Then, in his State of the State earlier this year, Ducey came out with a whole list of ways he wanted to support public education: pay raises for teachers, signing bonuses for teachers who agree to work in districts with low-income students, expanding all-day kindergarten, hooking up rural schools with broadband internet, loan forgiveness for STEM teachers, a funding boost for career and technical education—a total of 15 new initiatives.
And then, in the last few weeks, the con was finally on: Ducey began hammering reluctant GOP lawmakers to support the ESA legislation that was struggling to get enough votes to make it through the Legislature. This was a massive change in state education policy he had somehow neglected to mention in his State of the State when he was outlining his many goals.
And by the end of last week, he prevailed in flipping enough holdouts to get 31 GOP votes in the House of Representatives and 16 GOP votes in the Senate.
It’s a thing of beauty, really: Busting open the state land trust to find enough money to hand out taxpayer dollars to wealthy parents who want to send their kids to private and religious schools that aren’t held to the same testing and regulatory standards as public schools.
Ducey doesn’t see it that way, of course. He praised the legislation as an expansion of “educational freedom” that helps kids get “an education that’s customized to their unique needs and circumstances.” And he suggested that the ESA expansion “prioritizes low-income students and families.”
It actually does the exact opposite, because tuition at good private schools costs more than $5,600. And those low-income parents don’t have the other resources they need to attend private schools—a car to get there, or time to transport the kid before and after work, or any number of other barriers.
Those low-income parents depend on having decent public schools in their neighborhood—and Arizona has been shortchanging those public schools for so long now that classes are overcrowded, teachers are demoralized and fleeing the state, and the quality of education continues to decline. So those who have financial resources abandon the public schools, leading to further declines. And now they have a bigger financial incentive to do just that.
Congrats, Gov. Ducey, on a heist for the ages.
Meet Your Deadline
Register now if you want to vote in next month’s special city election
If you’re interested in voting in the city of Tucson’s upcoming special election to approve a temporary half-cent-per-dollar sales tax, you have until Monday, April 17, to register.
The sales tax would dedicate the revenues, estimated at $50 million a year for the five years the tax would exist, to road repair and equipment and facilities for the police and fire departments.
The city will be conducting the election by mail, so all registered voters will be receiving a ballot in the mailbox. The votes will be tallied on May 16.
The televised edition of Zona Politics with Jim Nintzel returns next Friday, April 14, at 6:30 p.m. on the Creative Tucson network, Cox Channel 20 and Comcast Channel 74. The radio edition of Zona Politics airs at 5 p.m. Sundays on community radio KXCI, 91.3 FM, and at 1 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. Sundays on KEVT, 1210 AM. Nintzel also talks politics on The John C. Scott show at 4 p.m. Thursday on KEVT, 1210 AM.
This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2017.
How dare parents be allowed the choice of where to educate their children. Don’t they know that being pro-choice only means the right to kill the unborn.
It’s not a choice to kill the unborn.
It’s a choice between a woman and her doctor.
Although I do understand why you get so worked up about it.
It’s because you’re a trolling moron.
Get the fuck out of here.
You are so unwelcome.
Seems like its time for a Citizens Initiative on education, i.e. no tax dollars for private schools, at all. Let the free market determine which private diploma mills survive or not.
Three things I already knew, but the Tucson Weekly confirms over and over again:
First, Governor Ducey and his gang in Phoenix are lying, conniving elitist who will continue to steal from the land and the people by any means necessary to ensure their own positions and to guarantee that future generations are denied an education, a political voice and the natural resources that belong to all the people.
Second, elections in Arizona have been fixed so long that having them only demonstrates how long this has been going on. All you have to do is figure out the way the powers to be want it to go and surprise! The election will go that way, but it will always be by a “close” margin as a concession to EVERYONE that opposed it.
Lastly, feeding the trolls only results in more trolling. My grandfather used to say, “Never wrestle with a pig — you both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
What, Again. Parents have always had a choice of where to send their kids. Now the rich parents will get to be subsidized when they send their kids to a private school. I thought you were against using tax dollars to underwrite private ventures.
I love the way you dismiss the poor. They deserve access to the best education. And by the way, this term “a traditional public school,” has been replaced with, another failing public school.
I’m liberal on most issues, but I don’t get why most liberals are against vouchers. The state is still funding education, they are just allowing the funding to be used by different schools. Given that the U.S. spends more on public education per pupil than most developed nations (yet has less to show for it), I don’t see much of a downside to seeing if private schools can make better use of the money. If it turns out that they do a good enough job that some public schools shut down because the students that used to go there are getting a better education, isn’t that a win for everybody?
ac/dc “It’s not a choice to kill the unborn.”
How many of those children with beating hearts make it out alive?
Not your choice Wrong, Again.
The choice is between a woman and her doctor.
Get a hobby and quit harassing people which you have no business to harass.
retrorv – “I thought you were against using tax dollars to underwrite private ventures.”
Have no clue where you got that. Governments are by far the least efficient organizations to deliver services.
Lots of trigger words in your post so let me interpret for you.
“Rich parents…” You really mean white people. And I can see why you’re scared to death by that. When it comes to Sunnyside and TUSD that would mean you might as well be in Nogales, MX.
What’s wrong ac-dc – don’t have the mental capacity to answer a very simple question?
I answered your question.
It’s NONE of your business when it comes to abortion. Unless it’s your child.
It’s between a woman and her doctor, sometimes the father in special circumstances.
What would you know about a beating heart anyways? Your heart obviously stopped frozen cold years ago.
Beat it and take your fake Christianity with you.
Then I’m correct ac, dc, you don’t have the mental capacity to answer the question nor the intellectual integrity.
I’ll repeat it for you.
How many of those children with beating hearts make it out alive?
I’ll even give you the answer because obviously it’s way past your IQ.
0
What would you know about IQ?
Your IQ dips into the negatives.
It is not, and it will never be your decision, unless it’s your child.
If your simple mind can’t comprehend that, there is no hope for you.
But hey, it’s alright, you lost hope years ago.
Quit making the personal business of others your own.
As a less-than-wealthy parent who, nevertheless, would like to send my kids to decent schools, please accept my thanks for making me aware of this program.
Me too. I can’t wait to access it for my grandchildren.
There is absolutely no evidence that the Republicans want to “dismantle” public education so enough of the Obama-Dem lies, thank you very much. The vouchers make it possible for poor students stuck in bad public schools to get what they think will be a better education elsewhere, so what is the objection to that?
Republicans always trash big government when the Democrats are in power. But wait. the government is the largest under the Republicans, larger debt too. Republicans are great at switching blame to anyone others then themselves. It like Trump blaming Obama for everything when he is President and has the power. But I understand him, being mentally ill as experts are now saying outloud.
Has anyone considered that the so called debit card can be used to pay tutors? What standards are there for the tutors? Why can’t a parent who doesn’t like the personal scrutiny of public schools pull their kid out and claim they are home-schooling the kid, and then use the voucher to pay a family member or friend to “tutor” their kid? I have worked with too many abused children who were removed from school under exactly such circumstances and been horribly abused in their own families for this to be a fictional situation. Second part of the scam is $5600 will pay the cost of sending a kid to a private profit-making tutoring organization for kids with questionable or non-existent results. Another way to make private profit money off kids and parents.