From run-of-the-mill to radical, Gov. Doug Ducey is leading the school-reform revolution

For all the sparks it generates, the continuing clash over school vouchers in Arizona provides conservatives and liberals a moment to understand one another.

This is the issue in which Arizona turns the tables.

The conservatives become the broadminded reformists; the liberals the door-slamming cynics.

The Republicans say think big, think bold. The Democrats say, slow down and, by the way, you’re nuts.

Usually it’s Democrats who love to push the envelope – a Green New Deal, defund the police, transgender rights and legalize pot.

Conservatives are content to stand athwart history and yell, “Stop!,” as William F. Buckley once prescribed.

Public school vouchers flip the script

But that’s not happening with Arizona school vouchers, called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts.

This is the revolution.

And it's changing the way I see the leader of our state.

I’ve always thought of Gov. Doug Ducey, a product of Akron, Ohio, as the embodiment of a famous character from his neck of the woods.

Had Ducey not been born in 1964, I’d swear he was the Robert Francis Brown whom Charles Schulz met in art school in Minneapolis in the 1950s and turned into his beloved cartoon character Charlie Brown.

Like Charlie Brown, Ducey is a creature of the Midwest, perpetually beige and mundane. He’s the “caretaker governor,” as retired Republic columnist Robert Robb dubbed him. The very essence of ordinary.

I think he’s been a good governor. He put Arizona on a live-within-your-means budget. Balanced well the health and economic priorities of the pandemic. Worked to push more money into public schools while holding the line on taxes and spending.

Yeah, he’s boring, but boring has its charms.

Gov. Ducey is no longer the affable caretaker

One of Ducey’s most endearing qualities is the way he infuriates the political left.

In Arizona, they don’t just hate him, they hate him with the intensity of hellfire, with words dipped in acid.

It’s amusing to watch and read, because, really, who hates Charlie Brown?

Well, hold that thought. Things are changing.

Charlie Brown is no longer Charlie Brown, which is to say Doug Ducey is no longer the affable caretaker. He’s not the former ice-cream franchiser in a white apron and bow tie.

He’s a subversive. A rebel.

Charlie Brown has grown out his hair, slapped on shades and picked up a Molotov cocktail.

He’s leading the marauders against the stuffy old establishment – the traditional public school – toppling desks and burning the flag.

The school choice push is nothing new

Republicans are pushing forward into the future with edgy new ideals that disrupt long-held traditions. They passed House Bill 2853 to expand the state’s voucher system to all Arizona school children. The new law allows students to opt out of public school and carry their public funding to a private school, as The Arizona Republic’s Yana Kunichoff has reported.

In a way, this is nothing new.

Republicans have been working to reform the state’s public schools for a quarter-century now. As a result, some 232,000 students attend more than 560 Arizona charter schools, according to the Arizona Charter Schools Association.

In his State of the State address in January, Ducey said, “This session, expand school choice any way we can ... . Send me the bills, and I’ll sign them.”

And sign he did, approving the most expansive school choice legislation in the country.

The difference is that charter schools are still public schools freed from many of the traditional regulations.

Vouchers could potentially lead to the creative destruction of the public school system or finally force it to reform in ways it has resisted in the past.

We've long said that public schools are failing

Had American public schools been models of excellence over the last half-century, these universal Empowerment Scholarship Accounts would set off alarms in every household with children in the state.

But the last 60 years in America have been spent raising fears about U.S. public schools as they fall behind other advanced nations and our major adversaries.

In 1964, a new Civil Rights Act ordered a study that found a yawning “achievement gap” between white and Black students. Unequal public education was holding back African American kids.

In 1983, a federal commission issued its report “A Nation at Risk,” and warned, “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”

In 2001, the federal “No Child Left Behind” report argued that our schools are failing if they lift the children of the white majority and lose the children of color.

In 2015, President Barack Obama backed by the “Every Student Succeeds Act” said, “There was a time ... when upward mobility was the hallmark of America. We’ve slipped on that front.”

COVID-19 ignited a grassroots backlash

Today, the defenders of public education in Arizona are preparing to once again use the ballot initiative to drive back vouchers. They were successful before and they are confident they will do it again.

But there was another landmark moment in public education in 2020-21, when teachers’ unions across the nation opposed the return to in-class instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That rigid refusal to return to normal infuriated parents and helped launch a national grassroots movement. Already we have seen its political reverberations in Virginia, where suburban voters turned the governor’s mansion red.

It will take years to know if Arizona’s expanded voucher system will improve K-12 education in the state, or whether it can withstand expected ballot and legal challenges and excite the private-education market to meet demand. If so, it could revolutionize how children learn in this state and beyond.

Why we need both sides on vouchers

As the “conservatives” on this issue, the Democrats are challenging the law and asking smart questions like “Where’s the accountability?” and “Where are the metrics to determine success and failure?”

That’s an essential question, because a learning marketplace needs to provide parents with information about the product – especially on something as crucial as a child’s education.

As the “liberals” on this issue, the Republicans are making the case that society needs to change and adapt when old systems stall out.

In a way, the vouchers debate in Arizona is an excellent opportunity for the left and the right to walk in each other’s shoes, to begin to appreciate each other and to understand why opposing forces are essential in politics to pursue new ideas and to test their worthiness.

All of this can be done in civil and constructive ways.

Which leaves only one more question:

Which side is going to bail out Charlie Brown?

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist at The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Gov. Doug Ducey is now the leader of a school reform revolution