N.C. Judge Rules State's School Voucher Program Unconstitutional

No educational improvement for poor kids if it takes money out of the pockets of public schools.

A Superior Court judge on Thursday overturned a state law that awards taxpayer-funded vouchers to low-income families who want to send their children to private or religious schools.

Judge Robert Hobgood ruled that the Opportunity Scholarship program is unconstitutional, upholding legal challenges filed by the North Carolina Association of Educators, the North Carolina School Boards Association and dozens of local school boards.

About 5,500 students applied for the annual grants of up to $4,200 per child, and the first $730,000 in tuition money for more than 360 students was released last Friday.

Comments

[Smoking Frog]

Cool. Now let's adequately fund those public schools and completely eliminate private education. I don't want my tax money going to EduCorp, LLC.

[Bryan C]

Corporate interests and their shameless cronies in the judicial branch once again conspire to deny choice to vulnerable low-income families.

[Knarf Yenrab!]

From the link:

Hobgood ruled, however, that the private schools can discriminate in their admissions and don't have the same curriculum and teacher certification standards as North Carolina's public schools.

"Appropriating taxpayer funds to unaccountable schools does not accomplish a public purpose," he said.

IANALTG, but the judge calling private schools "unaccountable" is extraordinary. Not only are they accountable, the schools are accountable to the people who are most likely to hold them to high standards--the parents of the children attending them. Argumentum ad technocratum.

Whether the schools discriminate or not seems irrelevant. If the recipients of disability cheques can donate that income to churches without it counting as state sponsorship of religion, it stands to reason that education vouchers might be used for schools that discriminate against particular students for their own reasons, whether those are religious, academic, or behavioral.

[Brochettaward]

No one can make a logical argument to show that school vouchers for minorities is unconstitutional. Unless they do it in the exact opposite manner the opponents are arguing their point.

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