Florida – Gov.-elect Rick Scott solidified his reputation as a bomb-thrower – in a good way – by suggesting the state open education savings accounts for all schoolchildren. Parents would direct that money to any traditional public, public charter or private school they chose.
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Even before a formal proposal has been issued or any legislation drafted, the idea has been criticized as both unconstitutional and poor public policy by among other, this paper’s Editorial Board.
Not so fast. Mr. Scott’s proposal is a game changer in education policy not only in Florida but across the nation. Still, there are legitimate concerns:
* Florida’s constitution, like 38 others has a “no aid” provision, called the Blaine Amendment after 19th-century Congressman James G. Blaine . Blaine amendments forbid direct state aid to sectarian institutions, including schools.
* In 2006, Florida’s Supreme Court, ruling on then-Gov. Jeb Bush’s signature education reforms, found that the private school portion of the Opportunity Scholarships program violated the state’s constitutional requirement of “uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high-quality” public schools. Any diversion of money to a separate system violated what the court viewed as an exclusive constitutional provision: the state can fund only public schools. Additionally, it ruled that private schools by definition violate the uniformity requirement.
Some argue that ends the discussion. We think not.
First, no Blaine provision in any state constitution has ever been reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. But Blaine is a discriminatory throwback to the 19th century when anti-Catholic bigotry was given legal sanction. Despite institutionalizing discrimination against Christians, Jews and others of all faiths, Blaine survives into the 21st century through a combination of legal inertia and the political prowess of the teachers’ unions.
It’s time a court rules Blaine out of order, or the people amend Blaine out of existence by ballot. Even with Blaine still on the books, indirect aid is constitutional. By this legal logic other programs, including tax credit scholarships in Florida and elsewhere, benefit parochial schools.
Regarding the uniformity clause, it is a truism that private schools are not uniform. All the state needs to ensure uniformity is to set basic standards as to what would make a uniform education. Private schools wanting state aid would commit to those standards.
Dissenting justices in the voucher case questioned whether the state constitution really means that only public schools can receive public education dollars. Florida, other states and the federal government all provide Head Start funds, college scholarships, affordable housing stipends, food stamps and Medicare/aid coverage to people in need. They do not mandate only one location or one provider. Private preschools access Head Start and Florida’s own voluntary pre-K, private and public universities accept state scholarship funds, Section 8 housing goes to any landlord willing to accept it, food stamps are used in any grocery that will take them, and so long as your doctors accept your insurance, you can see them.
Imagine if the government owned supermarkets and required food stamps be used only there? Or required you to live in public housing? What if only government hospitals could accept Medicare?
Those questions are the game changers here. Mr. Scott is asking what our goal is for education and how best to get there. If the answer is we aim to educate children in the highest quality, most cost-efficient manner, than perhaps even if it requires amending a constitution, such policy is worth pursuing.
Whatever Floridians decide, it’s a question worth asking. We at the Orthodox Union are ready to engage in the debate. Policymakers, educators, and parents across Florida should be ready, too.
Howie Beigelman is deputy director of public policy for the Orthodox Union, the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization, representing more Orthodox synagogues in Florida than any other.
The author is engaged in wishful thinking.
First, there is NO justification for a US Supreme Court review of any Blaine Amendment, as they are exclusively a state issue. The Florida Supreme Court has spoken and that is the last word. Is a so-called conservative such as Scott really urging judicial activism. I agree that Blaine Amendments should go, but they should be eliminated through the usual process, not by judicial fiat.
Second, there ARE government monopolies in some areas in some parts of the country, including the operation of gambling businesses and sale of alcoholic beverages.
This kind of argument is an example of why after more than 40 years of trying, the number of students in the US attending Jewish Day Schools with governmental tuition support is very close to zero.
Yes! Way to go Howie Beigelman. We are paying way too much for Yeshieva. How about 1/2 of what a public school spends per chiald and we will meet any public school standard.
Keep Dreaming, Mr. Beigelman! The government isn’t going to fund us. In Florida, the state provides $4100 for qualiying parents based on income. The only sensible solution to the tuition crisis so far is what the Jewish Cooperative School is doing in South Florida. They seem to have it right.
While this argument may appeal to those paying private tuition, it is specious at best.
1) Medicaid, food stamps, and section 8 housing are not a universal programs accessible to all; they are welfare programs designed to offer temporary relief from financial hardship for the very poor.
2) There are in fact limitations of usage applied to all welfare programs be it the doctor you can visit, the food you can purchase, or the qualified housing.
3) Even if there were a way to enforce the uniformity clause, that doesn’t stop private schools from teaching Sharia Law with tax funded dollars in addition to the uniform curriculum. Additionally, its no secret that many religious schools have no intention on actually teaching things like science, math, and social studies, regardless of what they might claim. In other words, it would be impossible to enforce.
4) Rick Scott is a crook who settled with the feds for $1.7 billion dollars, the largest Medicare fraud settlement in history. Mr. Scott’s only goal is to enrich private educational corporations sure to popup and reduce already low teachers salaries, ensuring that Floridians are dumber than ever.
BS”D
Response to anonymous #4
get it at our stores”. Thank G-d we are not in that situation because it would be sad, but it would make sense. To limit a parent’s choices of which school they can send their children, given that the government school tax is the norm for how tuition is collected from everyone, is the greatest limit to our freedom in America today. The government cannot choose our news source, it cannot choose the cities we visit or the entertainment we enjoy but it decides for us where to send our children! –including the morals we teach them, what their goals will be, etc. etc.
As far as curriculum is concerned; a) like with a doctor or a food supplier there can be a licensing requirement (which of course can be violated by some, but overall works in every industry) and, b) as per above, WE pay for our tuition, the government collects it. WE should be choosing where the money goes. Whatever you accept now as permissible for a parent to send their child for schooling now, under the law of freedom of speech religion etc. etc. should not change at all, the only difference is that parents should have access to the tuition monies that the government collects (cont…)
(…cont) government collects from us and be able to apply it to the choices that we are free to make. In fact any limitation on funding of our choices, since the monies are taken from us for schooling, would be a limitation on our freedom.
Case in point: my parents, due to religious beliefs, could not send us to a school teaching secular atheism. The government collected the tuition from them but they were forced to pay separately for our schooling. They ended up having to sell our home because of this. Is this religious freedom?
Conversely, anything currently not allowed – incitement to hate, racism etc. would continue to be illegal to be taught in any school regardless of access to government tuition monies.
BS”D
Response to anonymous #4
1/3
Your comments are incorrect and backwards.
Incorrect because for all intents and purposes welfare, food stamps and medicate patients are given access to funds and get to choose where and when to spend it – at least in correlation to education. Yes, there are limits to how expensive a doctor they can see but the can chose black, white, Jewish, Asian etc. etc. They can choose to buy 10 pounds of rice or one pound of steak – it’s completely up to them.
The correlation in education would be if we give parents a voucher or similar and tell them they can use it to send their child to any ‘participating’ school i.e. any school willing to accept those funds. It would then be the ‘PARENT’S’ decision which school to send their child to, who their teachers would be, who their children would hang out with and, surprise, surprise, with child mobility would come school responsibility.
Your comment is backwards because you propose that it make more sense to limit something that is for everyone rather then a temporary assistance to a needy few. I can see a city telling needy individuals, in a crisis for example, “we will provide food, but you must (cont…)