Arizona clears the way for school choice with new bill

"The bill passed the House Ways & Means Committee 6 to 4 The bill already passed the Arizona Senate 16 to 14 Senate Bill 1452: 'Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Accounts,'" reported the Reason Foundation's Corey DeAngelis.

Area pastor Drew Anderson passionately supported the bill in an address to the committee.

'There's nothing more important than the people - not the building. I don't care about my church building I care about the people in there," said Anderson. "All I hear is 'people concerned about buildings, buildings, buildings.' When are we going to be concerned about the people?"

He went on to talk about the necessity to break, in his worlds, the "public school to prison pipeline", where, among other things, children are often unduly influenced by pervasive criminal elements in public school environments.

The issue of school choice has come to the forefront even more in the past year or so, due mainly to the pandemic, and the resulting school closures. Arizona is now joining up with many other states in offering alternatives to parents who otherwise may not be able to afford them.