It was almost better when the Arizona legislature just flat out lied to us

This is the abandoned School of Pripyat in Chernobyl in Chornobyl, Ukraine. If the republican majority in the Arizona legislature
has its way, your local school will look like this in just a few years

They don’t even try to hide it anymore.

This was the week when the legislature finally dropped all pretense of wanting a strong public education system for Arizona’s kids. Both houses voted to expand private school vouchers to . . . well . . . everyone. The practical side effect of this — at least in the fertile minds in the republican majority at the legislature — is that by offering scholarships to everyone, we can pretty much strip the public from our public schools somewhere down the road. Should Governor Doug Ducey sign the bill — and the chances that The Deuce will let this opportunity slip are about the same as an ice cube surviving for more than a 45 seconds on an Arizona dashboard in July — more dollars will be siphoned from Arizona’s already woefully underfunded public education system because . . . FREEDOM!

Lovely.

Of course, they don’t call them vouchers. They call them empowerment scholarships, but a rose by any other name . . . amirite?

And have I mentioned that there is NO accountability attached to these scholarships? That’s right, we’ll toss public dollars into private schools and no one will have to prove kids are learning, and not one of those students will ever have to take a ridiculous state-mandated test because, in the trifling minds of Arizona legislators, private is a synonym for successful (And if you really want to get sick, watch the video of Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Koch Brothers, as she explains why this is a good idea sans any evidence. The Arizona senate isn’t exactly a beacon for intellectual heavyweights, but Lesko, R-ALEC, is the dimmest of all the bulbs in that musty old room. Sweet Jeebus on a SmartBoard).

Why Arizona taxpayers —especially public school teachers and parents — are not howling at this is an absolute mystery.

Vouchers are a disaster, and that’s not hyperbole. There’s a right good battle going on in Oklahoma right now over these same type of scholarships. Vouchers have already proven themselves to be a disaster in Louisiana, where, after just a few years of the free market getting a chance to tee up school kids for profit, student achievement has gone more dixie than a king cake a week after Mardi Gras.

Vouchers are the way republicans, like those who control the Arizona legislature, like to cover themselves in compassion. After all, they tell us, these scholarships will put poor families and children on the same footing as families and kids with great wealth. This is really funny coming from a group that worships at the altar of the free market. Why? Because when you open the market to, say, private schooling to everyone, the cost of that schooling will go up.

Here’s how it works: Say you own a private school. You can enroll 100 kids (so long as none of those children are special needs or require lessons in how to speak English). Right now, based on the interested parents you attract, you can charge $7,000 for a seat in your school. Suddenly, someone — like . . . I don't know . . . the Arizona legislature? — opens the door for pretty much everyone to go to your school. You still only have 100 seats, but the value of those spaces has increased dramatically, so much so that you can now charge $15,000 per seat. Pretty sweet deal for you, eh? The empowerment scholarships cover less than a third of that cost. So who is going to fill those seats? Pretty much the same group of people who fill them now. So screw YOU poor kids and families.

All things considered, last week was a lousy one for education in Arizona.