After heaping contempt and suspicion on the families participating in Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program for years, partisan activists should acknowledge that their diagnoses of the program’s ailments have been wrong, and their solutions poorly prescribed.

I am not saying that every family should use an ESA or that every child should be in a private school. What I am saying is that having no choice but to be in a public-school setting is no choice at all.

A nonprofit funded at least in part by the Koch brothers is financing a six-figure TV campaign that a spokesman said is designed to "educate'' Arizonans about school choice.

Republican lawmakers are working to line up the votes for a budget deal that would give teachers more than the 0.4 percent raise offered in January by Gov. Doug Ducey.

Democratic state Rep. Jesus Rubalcava was so upset over the passage of Republican Sen. Debbie Lesko’s legislation to expand Arizona’s school voucher system that he “wanted to punch her in the throat.”

The 4-3 vote by the Senate Education Committee followed hours of testimony from individuals who already get what lawmakers call “empowerment scholarship accounts” detailing how they have helped their children. Eligible groups range from children with special needs to those on reservations and those who attend schools rated D or F.

Just because the Republican Party has majorities in the House and Senate and in the president, it is not a mandate to destroy Medicare with a “voucher” plan to pay outright subsidies to insurance companies who make big contributions to many members of Congress.