Arizona unfortunately has a bad record of respecting the rights of marginalized populations, whether that’s minorities, LGBTQ+ people, and those with special needs. Which is why it’s especially concerning that our state has become ground zero, basically a national laboratory, for new voucher programs meant to circumvent legal restrictions.
School vouchers in America became incredibly popular in the South after school segregation was outlawed, and has been an effective tool for maintaining school segregation.
In Arizona, most voucher programs are illegal because they violate prohibitions on providing tax dollars to religious institutions. But people with special interests help create a new kind of voucher that gets around the rules, and let’s people use our public tax dollars to pay for private school tuition at places where the schools can legally discriminate against students for any reason. Many won’t even take children with severe special needs, the ones we were told the voucher program was made for.
Now our legislature and governor will allow people to take our public school tax dollars and send them to out-of-state private religious schools. This is not what our tax dollars are for. They are supposed to invest in the public good, in our public institutions. Like our public schools.
The Save Our Schools Act will put an end to this continual growth of these discrimination enabling voucher programs in Arizona, and help us keep our tax dollars in Arizona. Please join me in supporting the Save Our Schools Act.
RANDI GOODWIN
Flagstaff
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