We’ve been saying for many months that THIS is the school choice moment we’ve all been waiting for. So we are standing on our desks cheering that Arizona’s legislature has passed what might be the most ambitious school choice bill in American history. The bill will allow every one of the state’s 1.1 million students to take advantage of this $6,400 education scholarship to attend a school of their choice – public, private, religious, or charter.
Kudos to GOP Governor Doug Ducey who has pushed this agenda and promises to sign the bill into law.
The Empowerment Scholarship Account program (ESA) was first passed in 2011 but has been limited to 11,800 students – the children of military families, foster care kids, and Native American students on reservations. But now any parent will be empowered to spend ESA dollars on everything from tuition for a private school to tutoring to homeschooling materials.
The expanded ESA bill passed the House 31 to 26 and the Senate by 16 to 10.
GOP Rep. Jake Hoffman said the impetus for its passage came from the “woke agenda” of many public schools as well as parents learning during the pandemic how poor the quality of public education often is. “Public sentiment against public schools hasn’t been lower than it has been now,” Hoffman said. The state is using its budget surplus money thanks to billions of dollars from Uncle Sam to expand the program. So smart. So sweet!
Kudos to our friends at ALEC, who have pushed this bill for years.
2) Headline Of The Day: Krugman Gets It Wrong Again
This one’s a blast from the not-too-distant past. We are starting to wonder if Krugman, the dean of the progressive economists, has gotten anything right in his whole life.
This coal update shows Russia and India scaling up and China way, way up in coal production – while the American coal industry has been crushed by the Green New Deal climate change agenda.
We reported last week that Germany is increasing its coal use as our other European countries, but instead of getting it from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming (where we have clean coal), they are getting it from countries like China with dirty coal.
So the green strategy of unilateral energy disarmament isn’t even good for the environment!
The British Broadcasting Corporation celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. It’s the world’s largest broadcaster, but the one-time gold standard of broadcasting is becoming a swamp of political correctness and “woke” ideology.
Its staff has been told in “training” sessions” that there are more than 150 genders and they must develop their “trans brand” by declaring their pronouns on email sign-offs.
The BBC has been getting advice from a training group called Global Butterflies, which advises that the use of “he/she” pronouns “can create “discomfort, stress and anxiety” for "gender non-conforming people.” The “trainers” also warn that “in young trans people, using correct pronouns and names reduces depression and suicide risks.” Employees were advised to avoid gender pronoun badges.
The BBC receives an annual subsidy of $5.1 billion to peddle this nonsense. We’re sure that here at home, taxpayer-financed NPR isn’t far behind in its wokeness.
President Biden quoted the liberal icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he first addressed Congress last year, laying out a policy plan with New Deal-sized ambition: curb climate change, reduce college and drug costs, raise corporate taxes, subsidize child care and continue tax rebates for parents, among other initiatives.
Fourteen months later — despite unified Democratic control of the House, Senate and White House — none of that has passed into law. At the same time, the conservative rebellion birthed in response to Roosevelt’s legacy notched major public policy victories in the courts and in states across the country….(In states) like Texas and Florida, where conservatives control all branches of elected government, Republicans have expanded school choice, reformed school curriculums, curbed voting access, lowered taxes and launched a new wave of culture war fights.
The Washington Post summarizing the utter frustration of liberals to enact the sweeping transformation of the country they thought President Biden would usher in.
