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Proposal To Expand School-Voucher Bill Stirs Debate

Published: Monday, February 13, 2017 - 3:00pm
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Howie Fischer talked about the Empowerment Scholarship Account bill; the House Education Committee this afternoon is scheduled to take up that bill after an identical version won the approval of a Senate committee last week.

Jonathan Butcher, education director at the Goldwater Institute, is one of the measure’s supporters, and he joins me and talks about why he thinks this expansion of ESA is a good idea. Butcher will be testifying this afternoon in favor of House Bill 2394, which would phase in an expansion of ESA, essentially offering vouchers to every public-school student in Arizona.

The proposal is making advocates of traditional district schools nervous, and joining me now to talk about that is Chris Kotterman, government relations director for the Arizona School Boards Association and he talks about why the ESA expansion is a bad idea.

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