The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that states with private school scholarships must provide similar funding to religious schools. This was bizarre because the Montana Supreme Court had already banished the state’s private school scholarship program, which offered $150 to families that chose private schools and sought a state scholarship. So the state of Montana will not owe $150 to the Espinoza family.
Pastors for Texas Children criticized the ruling:
For Immediate Release June 30, 2020
Statement on the Supreme Court Decision in Espinoza
Contact Charlie Johnson, Executive Director charlie@pastorsfortexaschildren.com 210-379-1066 Cameron Vickrey, Associate Director cameron@pastorsfortexaschildren.com 704-962-5735
Fort Worth, TX – The Supreme Court decision today in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue is an attack on God’s gift of religious liberty for all people.
In ruling that states must allow religious schools to take part in programs that provide state-sponsored scholarships, the freedom of religion for us all is jeopardized.
“For the State of Montana, or any governmental authority, to divert money from public schools to underwrite religious schools is patently wrong,” said the Rev. Charles Foster Johnson, executive director for Pastors for Children.
A tuition tax credit for religious school scholarships takes dollars away from the state treasury for public schools and diverts those dollars to subsidize private religious schools.
Why does the State of Montana, or any state, have any role or agency whatsoever in religious schools?
Public schools accept all children regardless of race, class, status, disability, sexual orientation, and religion. They are where students of all faiths and no faith encounter one another in mutual understanding, where our nation’s constitutional values of religious liberty and respect across lines of difference are lived every day. They protect marginalized students, especially poor students, disabled students, students of color, and LGBTQI+ students.
That’s why the taxing authority of state government supports them.
And why it should stay out of our church schools.
Will Montana religious schools now be required to accept all students who apply?
It is the very nature of a private school to be exclusive. Private religious schools were not formed to be religiously neutral. They are voluntary assemblies protected by the First Amendment to advance and establish religious conviction and teaching. These religious schools constitute a core religious mission. They should be protected from government intrusion.
Let private schools remain private, public schools remain public. Common sense Americans know this. Such wisdom that has sustained our country since its inception escaped the Supreme Court today.
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About Pastors for Texas Children:
Pastors for Texas Children works to provide “wrap-around” care and ministry to local schools, principals, teachers, staff and schoolchildren, and to advocate for children by supporting our free, public education system, to promote social justice for children, and to advance legislation that enriches Texas children, families, and communities.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Will Montana religious schools now be required to accept all students who apply?”
This is just one question. There are so many. Will private schools that accept state money be required to teach that evolution is real? That science supports climate change? That Jesus was from a planet near here and came in a space ship?
What religious tradition would you like to support with your tax dollars? How about the anti-Catholic Klan churches that proliferated I the 1920s? Methodism almost split over the support of some congregations of the church, especially in the north. Interested in supporting the followers of Jim Jones? He might have started a school. I know of churches near me where racial hatred is explicitly taught from the pulpit, according to a friend of mine who has lived around there. And who can anticipate the bruhaha when a private school receiving state funds produces a jihadist?
I think I will send my child to Bob Shepard’s school I Florida.
Oh just wait. What is a “private” school? Charters are independently run. Espinoza says if states provide benefits to “private schools” they can’t discriminate against religious schools. Does this mean that every religious school can now apply to be a charter and get the same per pupil funding as charters do? What can the State legally do to regulate curriculum if it is required to fund religious schools in the same manner as charters? What if the school insists, for example, that science standards or inclusiveness training violates their religious beliefs? Would it be “discrimination” to require a school to teach science standards that include evolution or teach that gays are not perverted? This short- sighted Supreme Court has opened a huge can of worms. Fun fact – Alito cited the Blaine Amendments in his concurrence- which he says were enacted to discriminate against recent Catholic immigrants. 100% of the justices who joined the majority or concurred are Catholic or Catholic educated. This is why we need to diversify the Supreme Court from people who graduated form Yale or Harvard who are mostly East Coast Brahmins.
crucial points: and knowing how the start-a-school-pull-in-profits game has grown to massive size, the three words which begin this new era really are: Oh, just wait.
What about IDEA? Private and religious schools do not have to support students with learning disabilities. Some do but many don’t. How can this be legal? Or is this part of BD’s plot to do away with special education? And go back to the “good old days” when children suffered needlessly.
I was corresponding a friend who knows a thing or two about constitutional law about the comments here on this case. His summation was golden: “Anything that makes that scumbag DeVos happy is a day for mourning.”
Thanks for posting the quote.
Ed reform rolls out their millionaire professional expert witness to deliver another scathing criticism of public schools:
“Focus on Teaching, Not Just Masks and Hand-SanitizerMake schools better than they were by relying more on the best teachers
By Eric A. Hanushek 06/30/2020”
The Professional Public Schools Critics Association members are really on a roll with this Covid crisis. They’re not doing any actual advocacy for or work on behalf of public school students, but they are killing it on the sheer word-count volume of public school criticism.
We employ about 20,000 very well-compensated people who are full time critics of public schools in this country. It’s all they produce.
Thanks to Charlie Johnson for talking about religion.