The AZ legislature has been busy. Back in the spring, it decided to allow businesses to take a tax credit for donations to tuition scholarship organizations. These organizations help low-income families pay for tuition at independent schools. The bad news is that the legislature originally capped the total value of such creditable donations at a mere $5 million annually. The good news is that they just doubled the cap to $10 million, and put it on a track for reaching $21 million within four years.

Lawmakers also created two new voucher programs: one for disabled students and another for children in foster care.

Not everybody is happy about it, but the families who will benefit from these programs are lucky indeed. And with the passage of these bills, Arizona inches closer to the time when every family in the state will be able to easily choose the public or independent school best suited to their kids.

One thing to watch out for: while education tax credits have already survived constitutional challenge in Arizona, vouchers have not. The two new voucher programs may well be challenged by the public school employee unions and their fellow travelers on state constitutional grounds, and if so the outcome is not at all clear.

Even if the voucher programs are challenged and struck down by the courts, however, a combination of donation and personal use tax credits can provide universal access to the education marketplace.

The future is freedom. The monopolists just haven’t realized it yet.