On September 29, the Nevada Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the state’s education savings account (ESA) program on two of the three fundamental questions brought before the court and rejected challenges suggesting only certain types of schools could benefit from the ESA program. The Court did say however, the state must find an alternative funding source for the program.
One remaining challenge to the ESA program’s success is the state’s Blaine amendment, which also serves as a barrier in a number of other states as well. Blaine amendments were first promoted by nineteenth-century politician James G. Blaine.
In 1875, Blaine unsuccessfully pushed for a federal constitutional amendment that would have prohibited aid given to “sectarian” schools, so he instead turned to pressuring states and prospective states into passing similar amendments to their state constitutions. Policy Analyst Tim Benson says in a recent Research & Commentary on the subject, “Blaine amendments are anti-Catholic pieces of legislation that were designed to prevent public money from being sent to religious schools. They currently exist in 38 state constitutions.”
Blaine amendment supporters routinely employ them in lawsuits against state voucher programs that some students use at private religious schools. They tend to characterize the amendments as an important and secondary safeguard to the separation of church and state.
Advocates seek legal ways to administer school choice around Blaine amendments or by trying to dispose of the amendments entirely through re-amending state constitutions. They criticize Blaine for its formidable barrier to extending better education with public money and its discriminatory history and intent.
In a recent blog post for the Cato Institute, Cato Policy Analyst Jason Bedrick discusses the different ESA programs in existence across the nation and argues that of the five existing ESA programs, Nevada’s is the most expansive and would be the most beneficial for kids and parents.
“Florida, Mississippi, and Tennessee restrict their ESAs to students with special needs,” wrote Bedrick. “Arizona originally restricted ESA eligibility to students with special needs, but has since included foster children, children of active-duty military personnel, students assigned to district schools rated D or F, and children living in Native American reservations. In Nevada, all students who attended a public school for at least 100 days in the previous academic year are eligible.”
Bob Luebke, senior policy analyst at the Civitas Institute, argues in a 2015 Civitas article ESAs can spur educational innovation. “ESAs empower parents with the ability to customize educational markets. In so doing, ESAs will help propel educational innovation. Market forces will come to bear on all schools, public and private. If school suppliers are responsive to these changing forces, they will adapt and survive. If not, they will fail. Parents will drive these changes.”
Reason Foundation Education Policy Analyst Tyler Koteskey argued in a recent Reason Foundation article the Nevada Supreme Court’s ruling highlights a larger ideological education reform shift school choice advocates still need to work toward, stating, “If we define ‘public education’ as education available to every child, why should we conceive of it as coming exclusively from government sources? If we’re going to spend public money to support all students having an education in the first place, why shouldn’t they be able to be use it at a variety of schools, whether traditional public, public charter, or private?”
States with Blaine amendments should follow Nevada’s example and pursue school choice through ESAs, a decision that would benefit kids and parents everywhere.
What We’re Working On
Budget & Tax
Congressman Offers Online Sales Tax Proposal
In this article from Budget & Tax News, writer Michael McGrady examines a draft proposal to create a federal framework for collecting and remitting sales taxes on online purchases made across state borders. McGrady highlights Curtis Dubay, a tax and economics research fellow with The Heritage Foundation, who argues although the Online Sales Simplification Act is better than previous online sales tax proposals floated by lawmakers, it is still flawed. “It’s a better approach, but it still falls short,” Dubay said. Read more
Education
Public Support for Common Core Falls to New Low
Jenni White, cofounder of Restore Oklahoma Public Education, reports a new report – titled Ten-Year Trends in Public from the Ed Next Poll and published by Education Next, a journal published by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Education Policy and Governance – found public support for Common Core has dropped from nearly 90 percent in 2012 to 50 percent in 2016. Uniform state standards, the survey finds, are still broadly popular, but “the Common Core ‘brand’ holds a negative connotation for many people.” Read more
Energy & Environment
Research & Commentary: Shale Revolution Has Been a Giant Boon to Pennsylvania’s Economy
A new report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (USCC) paints a bleak picture of what a post-2009 Pennsylvania would look like without the “energy renaissance” in oil and natural gas extraction that has gone on over the past decade. According to the report, $13 billion in state gross domestic product (GDP), $7.2 billion in labor income, and more than 117,000 jobs would have been lost had the energy revolution never occurred. Of the total costs, $4.5 billion in lost GDP, $2.3 billion in labor income, and 27,500 jobs would have been directly related to the oil and gas industry’s extraction process; the remaining economic costs would have been the result of substantially higher energy costs. In this Research & Commentary, Policy Analyst Tim Benson examines the USCC report and hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania. Benson says drilling is being conducted in a safe and responsible manner and “has significantly transformed the energy outlook of the Keystone State for the better.” Read more
Health Care
Research & Commentary: Wisconsin Deserves ‘Right to Try’
In order to speed up the U.S. drug-approval process and improve access to potentially life-saving drugs for extremely sick people, several states have introduced new laws, commonly called right-to-try (RTT) laws, that would allow terminally ill patients to obtain experimental drugs without getting federal approval. Currently, almost half of all U.S. states have implemented RTT laws. In this Research & Commentary, Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Glans discusses the drug-approval process and the potential benefits right-to-try reform would have in Wisconsin, where it is now being considered. “Under the [proposed RTT] model, access to experimental drugs is limited to use by terminal patients who have exhausted other available treatments. Additionally, the experimental medications would be made available only if the manufacturer chooses to make them available, and the request would require a doctor to diagnose a terminal disease and declare the drug would provide the patient with his or her best chance of survival. Patients would also have to provide informed consent, limiting legal exposure for the drug’s manufacturer,” Glans wrote. Read more
From Our Free-Market Friends
The Buckeye Institute’s Recently Updated Government Salary Search Engine
The Buckeye Institute recently updated its popular government salary search engine using 2015 data, the most recent information available. The Buckeye Institute’s search engine allows users to see how the salaries of Ohio’s public sector employees compare with those in the private sector. Such tools give citizens, policymakers, and the media the ability to hold government accountable for its spending practices. The search engine can also help the public and researchers answer the perennial question, “Do our public institutions reflect the communities they’re funded to represent?” View the search engine here
Nathan Makla is a former state government relations manager for the Government Relations Department at The Heartland Institute.
