The U.S. Supreme Court this week ruled in favor of a religious school’s right to receive government grants, setting a precedent for making Blaine amendments, which prohibit public money from funding sectarian schools, irrelevant:
A Supreme Court ruling that a church-run preschool must be granted publicly funded tire scraps for its playground seemed on Monday to be narrowly drawn, attracting even the votes of two of the court’s liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Stephen G. Breyer.
But school choice advocates across the nation saw the decision as a game changer in the divisive debate over publicly funded vouchers for private religious schools. And their judgment seemed validated on Tuesday when the legal ramifications began to reshape education debates across the country.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday sent two cases back to state courts for reconsideration in light of the ruling for Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbia, Mo. One of those cases concerned a program in Colorado—ruled unconstitutional by the state’s highest court—that awarded public funds to help families cover tuition at private schools, including sectarian ones.
The Trinity Lutheran ruling is a great victory, indeed, for school choice. Next up on the chopping block: forced union dues. Let’s hope SCOTUS keeps ruling as it has, and the two biggest impediments to education choice are soon nothing more than a distant, very bad memory.
SOURCE: The New York Times
IN THIS ISSUE:
- OKLAHOMA: Oklahoma OKs expanding school choice options for kids in foster homes.
- COLORADO: A Colorado voucher program could have new life following the SCOTUS Trinity Lutheran ruling.
- FLORIDA: Florida Gov. Rick Scott signs legislation to expand his state’s school choice programs.
COMMON CORE AND CURRICULUM WATCH
- LGBT: A Houston superintendent wants to make lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies part of his school’s curriculum.
- TEXTBOOKS: Fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s Trinity Lutheran decision has New Mexico revisiting a case involving public funds paying for private school textbooks.
- ETHNIC STUDIES: A case regarding the legality of Tucson, Arizona’s proposed ethnic studies program is back in the courts.
- CODING: The New York Times reports on Silicon Valley’s push to get coding in the classrooms.
- SILLY STRING: The inadvertent discharge of silly string led to a fight between students at a Rhode Island High School, and it’s turned into a federal lawsuit.
- WHAT TEENS WANT: A new survey from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute finds what students themselves want—and don’t want—out of school.
- FOOTBALL: Six Utah girls are suing their school for the right to play on the football team.
Teresa Mull is a policy advisor for education and an editor at The Heartland Institute.
