A judge has ruled North Carolina’s $10 million Opportunity Scholarships unconstitutional. You may recall the harmful education bill passed at the end of the 2014 session in Kansas included a $10 million tax credit scholarship program. The Kansas legislation doesn’t provide a direct payment from the State General Fund but instead takes the money out as a tax credit, a distinction that may matter from a legal standpoint. However, the judge’s criticisms of the program reflect concerns we have about the Kansas program as well.
“’The General Assembly fails the children of North Carolina when they are sent with public taxpayer money to private schools that have no legal obligation to teach them anything,’” Hobgood said.
“In his ruling, issued this morning from the bench, the judge broke down the program and detailed the many reasons why it failed constitutional muster:
This legislation unconstitutionally
1) appropriates to private schools grades K-12, by use of funds which apparently have gone to the university system budget but which should be used exclusively for establishing and maintaining the uniform system of free public schools;
2) appropriates education funds in a manner that does not accomplish a public purpose;
3) appropriates educational funds outside the supervision and administration of the state board of education;
4) creates a non-uniform system of education;
5) appropriates taxpayer funds to educational institutions that have no standards, curriculum and requirements for teachers and principals to be certified;
6) fails to guard and maintain the rights of the people who privilege the education by siphoning money from the public schools in favor of private schools; and
7) allows funding of non-public schools that discriminate on account of religion. . . .
“’The General Assembly cannot constitutionally delegate this responsibility to unregulated private schools by use of taxpayer opportunity scholarships to low income parents who have self-assessed their children to be at risk,’ he said.”
“Hobgood noted that the private schools receiving the scholarships are not subject to any requirements or standards regarding the curriculum that they teach, have no requirements for student achievement, are not obligated to demonstrate any growth in student performance and are not even obligated to provide a minimum amount of instructional time.
“The collateral effect of the program, he added — whether intended or not — is to remove the Leandro protections from the hundreds of students who have been determined ‘at-risk’ solely by their own parents.
“’It appears to this court that the General Assembly is seeking to push at-risk students from low income families into non-public schools in order to avoid the cost of providing them a sound basic education in public school as mandated by the Leandro decision,’ he said.