“These kids are trapped in failing public schools. It’s time to set these families free.”

— Gov. Doug Ducey, June 2022, while signing into law the bill that expanded Arizona’s school voucher program to every child

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Two years after Arizona’s universal school voucher program was created, yet another analysis shows it’s not the kids who are “trapped in failing public schools” that Ducey and the Republican-run Arizona Legislature set free.

It’s the well-to-do children of Paradise Valley and north Scottsdale — the ones who already were in private school — whose parents are now scooping up taxpayer cash to offset some of the cost of their kids’ tuition.

It’s the upper-middle-class children in the suburbs whose parents can kick in the few extra thousand dollars needed to cover the cost of private school.

Who can supply the transportation needed to get them to the private school of their choice.

You know who aren’t lining up for taxpayer-funded Empowerment........

© Arizona Republic