The Nevada Supreme Court blocked the funding of the state’s sweeping voucher program, which would have given money to every student to spend anywhere. Despite the total absence of any evidence for the efficacy of such programs, the Nevada legislature undoubtedly will go back to the drawing board to devise another voucher giveaway that won’t improve education but will divert funding from the state’s underfunded
Unlicensed schools.
The Nevada State a Constitution has explicit prohibition against sending public money to sectarian schools, but that hasn’t stopped the anti-constitutional impulses of the Republican majority.
What part of the Nevada constitution does the legislature not understand?
The Constitution of the state of Nevada clearly states in Article 11:
Sec: 9. Sectarian instruction prohibited in common schools and university. No sectarian instruction shall be imparted or tolerated in any school or University that may be established under this Constitution.
Section Ten. No public money to be used for sectarian purposes. No public funds of any kind or character whatever, State, County or Municipal, shall be used for sectarian purpose.
[Added in 1880. Proposed and passed by the 1877 legislature; agreed to and passed by the 1879 legislature; and approved and ratified by the people at the 1880 general election. See: Statutes of Nevada 1877, p. 221; Statutes of Nevada 1879, p. 149.]
I was just in Nevada. I was taken aback by the luxurious hotels and promiscuous spending in Las Vegas. An additional 1% sales tax would be a boon to the public schools. But the legislature offers choice instead of resources.
Why won’t the legislature fund the education of the kids in public schools, as the Constitution commands?
Is it because they don’t care about the kids, the kids whose parents clean the hotels and wash dishes in the restaurants?
Or are they protecting the 1% who own the casinos, hotels, and restaurants?
Or they just don’t give a damn about the Nevada state constitution?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Before they can convert public education into a commercial industry, complete with bloated corporate hierarchies that suck tax dollars to the top, they have to destroy the democratic social institutions that the people already have.
The parents would be given $5,000 a year to use for a private school. Elite private schools can cost $30k and up. So would rich parents be allowed to use that $5k to go to an elite private school with 10 kids in a class? Would they be allowed to use the money for religious schools? What happens if the parents hate the private school and return to the public schools? What happens to the $5,000? This is a GOP initiative in Nevada, Harry Reid’s son was against it.
Yes
According to the state constitution, No
Nothing other than the public school then has one more student to take care of without the proper funding.
The private school will keep the monies.
Hard to believe my state has no money when you have been to the strip. And the other part of the state has one trillion dollars in gold ore in the Carlin Trend.
Nevada has money, money, money but none for brown kids.
Some parts of town have world class schools where the rich who would take advantage of the Nevada Super Voucher live.
Joe: “So would rich parents be allowed to use that $5k to go to an elite private school with 10 kids in a class? Would they be allowed to use the money for religious schools? ”
Yes and yes.
Second yes according to the supporters of this law. No per the state constitution.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Here in Ohio, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati revised the contract with teachers to discipline or dismiss teachers who are gay or even support their gay children. Putting aside the very un-Christian behavior of the diocese, the question becomes, if private schools receive public funds, do they forfeit being shielded from laws affecting public schools? With a national trend towards secularism or at least non-denominational practice of religion, it seems certain the private and religious schools are headed towards public governance. Can’t wait for that lawsuit and watch the conservative heads spinning.
They worship profits and don’t give a damn about democracy when the vote gets in the way of the profits of the 1 percent.
Part of this is the whole western ethic of individual freedoms. The west was founded on those principles, and the idea of collective responsibility is sometimes difficult to suggest to those from out this way. It actually explains a lot of the limited funding and the fighting against public lands by Ammon Bundy and his ilk, in many of the western states. It’s hyper-individualism.