The North Carolina legislature created a voucher plan, which they call “opportunity scholarships.” Voucher proponents never have the courage to call a voucher what it is; they always use the euphemism “opportunity scholarship” to try to fool the public.
A number of North Carolina organizations challenged the law and the funding, and the judge ruled that the case against the law had merit and could proceed.
“The program, which was adopted as part of the budget bill signed into law by the governor in July, allows income-eligible families to apply for up to $4200 in tuition funds for use at private schools.
“A group of 25 educators and state taxpayers fired the opening salvo in December when they filed suit, contending that the use of taxpayer money for private schools violated provisions of the state constitution requiring that public dollars be used exclusively for a system of free public schools. Four individuals and the North Carolina School Boards Association filed a second suit days later making similar allegations. Since then more than 70 county boards of education have signed on to that lawsuit.
“Today, attorneys for the state as well as for the nonprofit Institute for Justice — a Washington, D.C. – based school choice organization which Hobgood allowed to join the lawsuits today on behalf of applicants to the program – tried to convince the court that the complaints lacked merit and should be dismissed.
“Attorney Lauren Clemmons, arguing for the state, said that the General Assembly met its obligation to spend public funds for public purposes in enacting the program because the public purpose was “education” in the broadest sense of the word, not just public education.”
The North Carolina state constitution clearly, unequivocally says that public funds are to be used exclusively for public schools. Vouchers are used to send children to private schools. That means the legislature’s lawyers have to do some fancy footwork to claim legitimacy for vouchers.
Funny how conservatives think of themselves as “strict constructionists” of the Constitution. Except for vouchers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
furthermore, Article IX of the State Constitution says a free, general and UNIFORM public education system.
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Conservatives are hypocrites!
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It’s nice to project hope, but a design feature of the “Rule of Law” is how “It” may be steered. While the wording seems to “Say” something, the control is NOT the wording, but the interpretation of said wording, “Steering” the implementation.
The soft-shoe shufflers of the fancy footwork variety steer the implementation.
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If the vouchers win, can this be used to fight the EOGs, grading of public schools, etc.? Voucher schools are not required to administer the EOG -they can use other standardized test (and if less than 25 voucher students are enrolled, results are not made public)?
I’m trying to make some lemonade out of the lemons….
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The way politicians use the Constitution to achieve their political and religious goals is similar to how all of the diverse Christian religious sects and denominations (there are thousands) use the Bible to justify their existence (the same could be said of Islam and the different Muslim sects that do the same with the Quran. For instance, the Taliban and al Qaeda).
There are many ways to interpret the Constitution, the Bible and the Quran.
The Church has a history of interpreting the Bible to support wars and torture even against other Christians who are not members of the Church. For instance, were Cathars and Protestants.
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But when interpreting it is in question, it must go before a judicial branch, who would have been appointed or elected and would therefore reflect the will of the populace (hopefully). That is the point here.
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Appointed judges tend to reflect the politics of the dominate party in each state. If a state is controlled by the GOP, then appointed judges are usually conservatives too.
The same applies to states where the governor or legislature is dominated by conservative or liberal critics of public education. Judges appointed in those states will usually support the same political agendas.
The only hope in that case, it being able to appeal to a higher court until you move outside the judicial stacked deck.
And in elections, judges who must run for office are also going to have the big conservative money pouring in from the same billionaire sources to support them.
For instance, the court case we are currently watching in California that’s designed to take away teacher job protection and destroy the teachers union may be in front of a judge who was appointed by a GOP governor. If so, and the case goes against the teachers, there will have to be an appeal to overturn the case in a higher court where hopefully, the judge or judges follow the law and not a political agenda.
Lower court rulings by one judge that are often political in nature tend to be overruled later in a higher court where there are several judges and the majority decision stands, and the billionaires don’t have as much influence.
What’s scary here is that for sixteen years we’ve had Presidents—Bush and Obama—who are enemies of public education appointing Supreme Court Justices and the current court leans conservative. If Obama gets a chance to appoint another justice to the Supreme Court the odds are he will pick a candidate who appeals to progressives but who is a critic of public education and will support the privatization movement in Supreme Court rulings when lower court cases come up for appeal. Then there will be no problem getting that justice approved.
Just recently, the Supreme Court made it easier for public schools to segregate students.
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The other difference here is that in our current era we are free from religious persuasions if we choose to be (in so far as their influence is not too vast). Constitutional interpretation is supposed to be kept in check by our three branch system. And it is good to see that process happening here.
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Ms. Ravicht,
I seems to me you have been blogging more now that you are on vacation!
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