Arizona Chooses Students Over Systems
Arizona Chooses Students Over Systems
Good News for School Choice in the States
Last week I reported on a huge victory for state-based liberty in Arizona, where Governor Doug Ducey recently signed into law a bill that makes school choice available to all K-12 students in the Grand Canyon State.
HB 2853 made universal an earlier “Empowerment Scholarship Account” program that grants parents a choice over where Arizona’s tax dollars are spent for their kids’ schooling.
Matt Beienburg, Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute, touts the reform as the gold standard model for the rest of the country, and other states are sure to follow suit once politicians realize how overwhelmingly popular school choice has become with parents.
The popularity of school choice has been steadily rising but reached a tipping point in Arizona during COVID-19, when parents could see firsthand the extent of indoctrination taking place in virtual public school classrooms. In the end, it would seem that teacher’s unions’ insistence on extended remote learning has backfired dramatically, as the parent-led revolution in taking back control over education continues.
Beienburg joins the show this Sunday to discuss the Goldwater Institute’s role in crafting the original ESA legislation that empowered particularly disadvantaged students to opt out of failing public schools. He will also answer some of the many objections to school choice trotted out by the left to insulate the government from competition in the arena of education.
I previously covered many of these myths on my show with Corey DeAngelis, and it’s thrilling to see the ideas from the book translated into concrete policy in Arizona:
Catch the show on Sunday morning at 8 am PACIFIC or subscribe to the podcast.
New Installment of “Make Immigration Legal Again” Highlights a Conflict of Visions
It’s been a slow news week, although there’s still plenty to sift through from the recent spate of Supreme Court decisions. Peter Wallison puts the West Virginia v. EPA case in its historical context and argues that the decision in favor of West Virginia against the climate change czars represents “a restoration of the Framers’ original constitutional vision, after more than a century of progressivism.”
The progressive worldview empowered federal administrative agencies over and against the people and the states, which had been the locuses of power until the progressive era.
I argue in the most recent installment of my immigration series that the quotas and restrictions on would-be immigrants – beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act of the 1890s – stem from the same progressive mindset that seeks to control outcomes rather than live and let live. Read the whole thing here:
Immigration Federalism and Restoring the Guardrails on Democracy
Speaking of immigration, Ilya Somin has a great post on the Volokh Conspiracy making a conservative case for sanctuary cities, much as my series attempts to convince conservatives and the Republican Party to adopt a more open immigration stance. He points out that conservative states like Montana have used the same legal basis used in sanctuary cities for “gun sanctuary” laws. Perhaps the idea of federal immigration reform, which has eluded us for so long, was never the right way to think about the issue. Should we go back to the system the founders envisioned and let states make immigration policy?
Ilya happens to be joining me next Sunday as well to represent Team Libertarian on the National Constitution Center’s Restoring the Guardrails of Democracy project.
Stay tuned.