Flat earthers and universal school vouchers, a match made in Cuckooland (Arizona)

More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle and the mathematician Eratosthenes used fairly simple observations and uncomplicated arithmetic to determine that the Earth is round and, at its circumference, measures roughly 40,000 kilometers.

Apparently, there are individuals in Arizona — some of whom are collecting thousands of taxpayer dollars in the form of education vouchers — who never got that memo.

Or worse, they simply have decided that facts are … opinions.

The Arizona Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl this week wrote about an online discussion on the 19,000-member Empowerment Scholarship Account Networking Group, where individuals collecting Arizona’s essentially unregulated school voucher money meet to exchange “ideas.”

(Yes, air quotes.)

Voucher program is an educational disaster

In this instance, Pitzl reported how one participant asked — seriously, “Anyone know of a flat earth curriculum?”

When another person online wondered if that was a joke, the flat earther responded, “Why would it be a joke? There’s plenty of people out there that believe the earth is flat. It’s not our job to judge. How do you know they’re not teaching both round and flat so their kids can decide for themselves.”

Absolutely. And 2 + 2 = 4.

Or 5, or 6, if that is what students decide for themselves.

I’m guessing this does not surprise you. Anyone living in Arizona has learned by now that the state’s universal school voucher program is both an out-of-control financial disaster and an educational nightmare.

Some of the self-declared academic gurus collecting our tax money would disagree, of course, particularly while they’re trying to use that money to purchase things like dune buggies, golf simulators, Rolex watches and more.

Arizona law protects parents’ flat earth lessons

Just as those same sage tutors, who refuse to believe that astronauts landed on the moon, might enthusiastically provide young, impressionable students with a curriculum promoting the existence of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and, of course, zombies.

I am not making this up — they could do that.

Horne admitted to The Republic that nothing in state law prevents purchases of “educational materials” such as a flat earth curriculum. Just the opposite. The law actually prohibits “any government agency to exercise control or supervision over any nonpublic school or homeschool.”

Opioid victims:Could pay for Arizona’s school voucher scam

So, if voucher users want to spend taxpayer money telling little Johnnie and Janie that vaccinations for COVID-19 contain microchips to track recipients and turn them into communists, they can.

Arizona taxpayers will cover the cost.

Their most delusional belief is about money

In a way, does this not help us to better understand why Donald Trump’s followers did not collapse in laughter or recoil in disgust while he ranted about immigrants eating house pets?

(Which, I’d guess, will figure into more than a few of this year’s voucher-driven civics lessons.)

Horne expressed concern that the voucher program’s (HA!) reputation could be harmed by recipients making ridiculous expenditures, saying, “If we let anything go, it ultimately will destroy the program.”

Too late, my friend.

Besides, the worst part of the universal school voucher program is not the luxury items participants want to waste our money on.

It’s the kooky belief in concepts like a flat earth.

Although, in the end, perhaps the most delusional notion held by Horne, the Empowerment Scholarship Account recipients and the Republicans who forced our universal voucher system through the Legislature, is their apparent belief that money … grows on trees.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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