Derek W. Black: Supreme Court voucher decision threatens public education and US unity

Supreme Court voucher decision threatens public education and US unity

Supreme Court school voucher ruling threatens American unity and public education
Even the mildest voucher program sends the wrong message, telling individuals that there is merit in retreating to their own corner.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue could drive a value shift far more important and troubling than its narrow practical effect. The ruling demands that Montana allow private religious schools to participate in its school voucher program. But for most states, the decision is currently irrelevant. About half of the states do not fund private school tuition. Many of those that do already fund private religious education. Espinoza’s primary impact is to hand an enormous symbolic victory to those with a goal beyond religious education — a goal of shrinking public education and replacing it with government-funded private school choice.

Public schools serve the overwhelming majority of the nation’s children. At one end of the spectrum, Utah’s public schools serve 93 percent of the state’s children. At the other, Louisiana and the District of Columbia only serve 80 percent. But those numbers are rapidly changing. 

Public schools bring us together

In 2013, Indiana passed what was the largest voucher program in history. Shortly thereafter, other states proposed and passed even larger programs. Today, states fund three times as many private school students as they did in 2007 — with no signs of letting up. 

Florida, which funds close to $1 billion a year on private school tuition, passed legislation last week to double the size of its voucher program. CONTINUE READING: Supreme Court voucher decision threatens public education and US unity

'Perverse': Justice Sonya Sotomayor slams Supreme Court ruling allowing taxpayer money to be given to religious schools + DeVos denounced | The Independent

'Perverse': Justice slams Supreme Court ruling allowing taxpayer money to be given to religious schools | The Independent

'Perverse': Justice slams Supreme Court ruling allowing taxpayer money to be given to religious schools

Ruling overturns lower court order that shut down public funding of scholarships to private religious schools

As COVID-19 takes toll, Betsy DeVos denounced for new ‘craven’ public school privatization scheme – Raw Story - https://www.rawstory.com/?p=1641056

US Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor described the court’s ruling that religious private schools cannot be barred from accessing government money available to others as “perverse”.

The Espinoza v Montana Department of Revenue ruling, which has been praised by conservatives and advocates of school choice, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, struck down a Montana Supreme Court ruling against a taxpayer funded scholarship program for students to attend private schools.

The fund did not distinguish between religious and non-religious schools, though most private schools are religious. The Montana court ruled that taxpayer money could not fund religious schools, under so-called ‘Blaine Amendments’ that exist in nearly 40 states, thereby ending the program.

However, the US Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision on Tuesday that the lower court ruling violated the “free exercise” clause in the Constitution, which says that the government cannot discriminate against people based on religion.

Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the conservative majority — unlike recent decisions — writing that the state court had discriminated against religion

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“A state need not subsidise private education,” he wrote. “But once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

Justice Sotomayor took issue with this, and in her dissent wrote: “Today's ruling is perverse. Without any need or power to do so, the court appears to require a state to reinstate a tax credit program that the Constitution did not demand in the first place.”

The White House released a statement celebrating the decision saying that no parent should be forced to send their child to a failing school — an argument often used by school CONTINUE READING: 'Perverse': Justice slams Supreme Court ruling allowing taxpayer money to be given to religious schools | The Independent

Derek Black: Untangling the Supreme Court’s Espinoza Decision | Diane Ravitch's blog

Derek Black: Untangling the Supreme Court’s Espinoza Decision | Diane Ravitch's blog

Derek Black: Untangling the Supreme Court’s Espinoza Decision

Derek Black is a law professor at the University of South Carolina who specializes in education, civil rights, and equity. His new book, which I have read and intend to review here, is Schoolhouse Burning. It is phenomenal. It is a new history of American education that documents the historic role of public education in our democracy from the Founding Fathers to the recent past.

Black writes:

Through a political lens, the Supreme Court decision in Espinoza v. Montana requiring the state to include religious schools in its voucher program makes perfect sense. Conservatives have long decried the fact they must foot tuition at their private religious schools while other students receive free education at public schools. Today they got their shot at fixing that.

But through a constitutional lens, the decision can be confusing to all but the constitutional experts.

First is the question of “mootness.” The dissent argues that the case should never have been decided at all because Montana’s voucher program is no longer in operation, but the majority decided the case anyway, reasoning that but for a flaw— the lower court’s flaw in striking the entire program down—the program would be operating to exclude religious groups.

With that out of the way, the majority hinges its opinion on CONTINUE READING: Derek Black: Untangling the Supreme Court’s Espinoza Decision | Diane Ravitch's blog

Steve Hinnefeld: The Supreme Court’s Mistaken View of American History in the Espinoza Decision | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-qWw via @dianeravitch

Supreme Court deals a blow to the separation of church and state ROUNDUP - Vox - NEA - SCOTUSblog - Salon - ABC

Supreme Court deals a blow to the separation of church and state - Vox

The Supreme Court’s big decision on the separation of church and state, explained
Chief Justice Roberts just gave us a reminder that he’s still a conservative Republican.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes in dissent, “weakens this country’s longstanding commitment to a separation of church and state.” Yet Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion, which held that Montana may not exclude religious institutions from a program that provides scholarships to private schools, also reads like the next incremental step in a line of cases permitting the government to fund religious education.

As Roberts argues in his opinion, the result in Espinoza flows from the Court’s previous decision in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer (2017), which held that the state of Missouri could not exclude religious organizations from a state program that offered “grants to help public and private schools, nonprofit daycare centers, and other nonprofit entities purchase rubber playground surfaces made from recycled tires.”

But the Montana program at the heart of Espinoza involves something far more profound and important than recycled tires: Montana’s effort to subsidize private schools. The state provides a $150 tax credit to state taxpayers who donate to a scholarship program that pays the tuition of private school students. Espinoza asks whether the state is required to include religious schools in this program.

Writing for himself and the Court’s other four Republicans, Roberts answers this question in the affirmative. “A State need not subsidize private education,” he writes. “But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

This is a more moderate position than the Institute for Justice (IJ), a libertarian law firm that represented the plaintiffs in Espinoza, took in its brief. That brief seemed to suggest that the Constitution requires states to fund private religious education as an alternative to public school. (After this piece was published, a spokesperson for the Institute for Justice objected to my characterization of their brief. You can read my full analysis of that brief and its implications for public schools here.) CONTINUE READING: Supreme Court deals a blow to the separation of church and state - Vox

Opinion analysis: Court rules that religious schools cannot be excluded from state funding for private schools - SCOTUSblog - https://www.scotusblog.com/?p=294816 via @SCOTUSBlog

Symposium: RIP state “Blaine Amendments” - Espinoza and the “no-aid” principle - SCOTUSblog - https://www.scotusblog.com/?p=294819 via @SCOTUSBlog

Betsy DeVos cheers Supreme Court ruling that gives taxpayer money to religious schools | Salon.com - https://www.salon.com/2020/07/01/betsy-devos-cheers-supreme-court-ruling-that-gives-taxpayer-money-to-religious-schools/

Supreme Court boosts religious schools seeking public aid - ABC13 Houston - https://abc13.com/supreme-court-boosts-religious-schools-seeking-public-aid/6284979/ via @ABC13Houston

Supreme Court opens door to nationwide school voucher expansion - https://educationvotes.nea.org/2020/06/30/supreme-court-opens-door-to-nationwide-school-voucher-expansion/

Big Education Ape: WAPO, NPR, NEA, HUFFPOST, RAVITCH, DEVOS AND POLITICO - Supreme Court eroded the separation between church and state - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/06/wapo-npr-nea-huffpost-ravitch-devos-and.html