North Carolina won’t wait for a court to rule on vouchers. It will start giving them out next month before the court hearing.
“RALEIGH, N.C. — Taxpayer money for private or religious school tuition may start flowing to North Carolina families before a judge rules whether the program is legal.
“The state agency in charge of the Opportunity Scholarships late last month advanced to August 15 the date it planned to distribute tuition funding to families of students who won a lottery. That date is a month earlier than the North Carolina State Educational Assistance Authority previously projected and a week before a scheduled court date intended to debate the law’s constitutionality.
“The educational assistance authority isn’t setting its timetable based on the legal dispute, executive director Steven Brooks said Thursday. The agency decided distributing the money sooner was better than later, he said.
“I think we just said let’s get it out there as soon as we can,” Brooks said.
“But distributing the money before a court hearing late next month would cause needless chaos, said Burton Craige, an attorney for plaintiffs who are challenging the voucher program.
“It’s taxpayer money. It makes sense to have a ruling on whether it’s constitutional before we release that money to private schools,” Craige said. “Once money is paid out, it’s hard to get it back.”
“Wake County Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood blocked the program in February until the issues raised in two lawsuits could be fully considered at a trial. Lawyers for two dozen taxpayers and groups representing teachers and many of the state’s 115 school boards had challenged whether it was constitutional for the state to spend public money on K-12 education at private or religious schools.”
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/07/17/4012139/nc-school-vouchers-may-flow-before.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is being done for one reason, to put children’s faces in front of cameras if vouchers are ruled unconstitutional by a judge. We will then get to hear all the sob stories about lost opportunities due to some in our state government. This is nothing but a sick, win at all costs game for some of our elected officials.
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If you are a scheming, privatizing, pro-voucher type: It makes sense to do it now, knowing that the UN-doing might be a political headache. “I’d rather do something now and apologize later than ask permission first” I once heard someone say.
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Don’t you mean, “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission”?
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The right wingers just can’t do enough to undermine public education at the expense if our neediest children. The Chrustian cult leaders and the John Locke Society are cheering loudly to get public $$ in private hands before the start of the new school year.
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I just read in my newspaper last night that our state of Ohio board of education and the FBI are investigating a charter company in Ohio which runs around 20 charter schools (in Ohio). There have been horrible things happening there..too evil to put in print. Our Governor Kasich, who despises teachers and public schools, have given charters in Ohio millions of dollars. When he reads about the evil acts that are going on in these charters, I don’t know how he will sleep at night. Maybe he just doesn’t care…because his twin daughters do not attend public schools or these horrible charters. Kasich is intent on destroying the public schools and the teachers’ unions. I pray he doesn’t get elected again, but he has TONS of money. I hope he likes very, very hot places. He certainly is headed there.
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tell them to seek an injunction
Sent from my iPad
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Someone needs to tell Mr. Craig that he should apply for an injunction. Why hasn’t he done this on his own? As a lawyer, shouldn’t this have been his “reply” to Mr. Brooks?
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It will backfire if they do that.
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What will backfire if they (who does the they refer to) that (what is that referring to)?
Please clarify, Joanna, as you have me confundido!
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If they go ahead and start the program before the judge’s ruling, they will create a mess that while it might look like will help them probably won’t. Despite “creative disruption,” I think messes are not good things.
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As wise old charterer once vouched “Better to have sinned and repented than not to have sinned at all”
“Sin and Repent”
Get ‘er done
Before the ruling
Do end run
Before annulling
Laws, you see,
For circumventing
Fait accompli
And then repenting
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TGS!
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That’s Good Stuff!
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larry,
You made my day! Thanks.
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““The educational assistance authority isn’t setting its timetable based on the legal dispute, executive director Steven Brooks [MENDACIOUSLY] said Thursday.”
I guess if you’re going to lie you might as well make it a BIG BALD-FACED LIE!
Now, Steve, you need to repeat that lie ad infinitum so that it will be believed by one and all.
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Educational Assistance Authority. . .
I cannot believe this is happening in NC. I truly cannot. I saw the storm clouds coming and here they are. It’s the mark of an era. . .a sign of the times. When you look at publications like “Our State” (a wonderful magazine about NC), you’d never know there was a movement afoot driven by paranoia and an insistence that the people of the great state of NC can’t work together on how to educate our children. Instead, we need to slap a dollar value on each child’s head (which sounds like communism to me), take in no accounting for the institutional costs in establishing a school, and hand out chunks of money at the discretion of an EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANCE AUTHORITY for private use. And that’s free market, huh? That’s saving kids from failing schools, huh?
Whatever. I believe this state, as reflected in the glossy pages of “Our State” magazine, can do better. And I believe we will.
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Maybe I’m being more than a tad naive, but public money to support religious institutions seems like a no-brainer unconstitutional. Period. But nothing surprises me anymore.
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Let the disenchantment continue. (snark alert)
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this song stays on my mind a lot lately in NC. . .because teachers are leaving
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