These hallowed words came to define freedom for our burgeoning country.
When I first ran for State Senate in 2022, I listened to my Republican opponent and his colleagues champion the expansion of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) – sometimes referred to as school vouchers – to promote “choice.” In theory, children from low-income families could leave underfunded public schools and the state would subsidize their “choice” of private or alternative education. But without any restrictions or oversight on participants, our Department of Education has opened the floodgates to abuse and fraud.
The result of this Republican-led initiative to promote “choice” is that 84% of the children enrolled in today’s ESA program were already attending private schools; they didn’t switch over. In just two years, the surplus that our current legislators vowed to manage with caution (and for our benefit) has become a $1.8 billion deficit. Just last month, it was uncovered that $1 million of those tax dollars were approved for wealthy ESA families to purchase premium toy Lego sets. Unregulated distribution of ESAs has, and will continue to, bankrupt the state budget, causing painful cuts to public resources and disenfranchising millions of students statewide.
Usurping the concept of choice or freedom to funnel public money to private interests like this doesn’t just destroy rural public school budgets (like the one I oversee on the Chino Valley School Board). It undermines our entire economy.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt devised the New Deal, he was guided by freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Following this interpretation led us to the greatest rise of the middle class in U.S. history, and they are the same set of principles that guide me as a candidate for public office. By contrast, MAGA extremists throughout state and local government today have persistently tried to pass policies that control, exploit, censor and menace us. They have supported abortion bans written when the age of consent was just 10. They have refused to protect the right to access contraception. They have attempted book banning in our libraries and have dragged our teachers into dangerous culture wars. The differences between these two contrasting sets of freedoms are stark. FDR’s four freedoms are the building blocks of a humane, egalitarian society, which is a basic premise for universal public education. ESAs subvert the American desire for an egalitarian society.
Businesses will suffer short-term consequences of financial malpractice like the ESA program, too. Health care, nutrition and housing programs will get put on the chopping block to save money now that ESAs and tax cuts drove us into the red. Part-time workers who survive with the help of these services fall further and further behind, impacting their stability at home and eventually their reliability at their jobs.
In the future, businesses will inherit a workforce that was inadequately trained by unregulated private programs or public programs that couldn’t afford to provide quality instruction. Society will absorb ESA “educated” citizens who have not been required to pass a basic civics or constitution test before graduating from 12th grade. This is a major liability for preserving our democratic republic, and it should concern all of us whether we are parents of schoolchildren today or not.
If we can come together in November to reject MAGA’s budget-busting schemes, we will have a shot at preserving the majesty and the true meaning of the Fourth of July for generations to come. QCBN
By Mike Fogel
Mike Fogel is a retired educator, a member of the Chino Valley School Board and a candidate for Arizona Senate.
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