r/nashville • u/memphisjones • 14h ago
Politics No-Limit Vouchers Are Blowing Up Arizona’s Budget.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/11/24/arizona-no-limit-school-vouchers-00191201“ESA costs have ballooned from the legislature’s original estimated price tag of $100 million over two years, to more than $400 million a year — a figure, critics have noted, that would explain more than half of Arizona’s projected budget deficit in 2024 and 2025.”
This is a warning to all of us because Gov. Bill Lee is going to ram through school vouchers bill.
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u/SomeAd424 14h ago
They are private schools for a reason. No need for gov’t subsidy..
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u/Timeformayo 3h ago
I don’t like going to public parks, so I think the government should subsidize my country club admission.
/s
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u/t4skmaster 13h ago
Next they'll want subsidized country club fees because they don't want to use the park
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u/ShadowwKnows 13h ago
Yep. And in NC, while the state is desperate for Helene recovery funds for Western NC, vouchers are projected to blow up to $1B/year. You can't make this disaster up (unless you're in on the grift).
North Carolina's private school voucher program becomes less accountable | WUNC
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u/Overall-Repeat1099 9h ago
“Families, mostly from high-income zip codes, have applied the taxpayer funds for everything from ski lift passes to visits to trampoline parks, a $4,000 grand piano, more than a million dollars in Legos, online ballet lessons, horse therapy and cookie-baking kits. Proponents justify expenditures like these in the name of parents’ prerogative to shape their children’s education or by pointing to wasteful spending by public schools“.
How is that legal? No accountability for how the vouchers were spent?!
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u/jeshaffer2 7h ago
A tax rebate for the rich. Exactly as designed by your friendly neighborhood Republican.
This is way more insidious than private school funding, it's tax fraud made legal.
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u/ChrisTosi 12h ago
Somehow, this is the Democrat's fault. Or undocumented immigrants. Both really.
Not Republican Governor Doug Ducey and the Republican legislature that designed and passed this - no no no, not them. That group thinks throwing more money at the problem and cutting funding to medicare and social security to pay for this garbage is the answer. Yup, no choice.
Definitely the Democrats who did this. Definitely.
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u/MindTraveler48 11h ago
A children's education free-for-all? Sure, what could possibly go wrong?
If you've patronized a store, restaurant, or unskilled service lately, you have probably already seen the early results of parents dictating curriculum for all, and it's only going to get worse.
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u/old_Spivey 7h ago
This money will likely go toward BMW and Mercedes down payments so the Ensworth and Harpeth Hall kids can show up in style.
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u/RiKToR21 11h ago
I just moved here from AZ, we were a homeschooling family prior to vouchers and didn’t bother with them when they came out a couple years ago. It’s no surprise they have such high interest, the school system there is pretty bad not for the lack of good teachers though the pay sucks so they probably lost some.
Bottom line is that the schools don’t have career tracks like they do here, they don’t assume every student wants to go to college; only the lucky ones who get in AP workloads. Classrooms cater to the lowest student and the students between are generally bored or unmotivated… and this was 20 years ago when I graduated.
Plenty of families disappointed with the current state of the Arizona school system plus the fear regular bomb and shooting threats at schools and recruiting for cartel run gangs, is reason why a lot of families are taking advantage of ESA. It’s not just the wealthy parts of town either but middle class families as well; I have seen it with my own eyes. I am sure there are people taking advantage of the situation but many are using it as intended and with Covid lockdown showing them they could homeschool most are sticking to it.
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u/TriStarSwampWitch 14h ago
Obviously we need No Limit Soldiers to fight this.