The Louisiana Supreme Court has ruled, 6-1, that the state’s means of funding its statewide private school voucher program violates the state constitution.
The state legislature passed the so-called “Act 2” last year, a law that substantially modified the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program, also known as the state’s voucher program. The changes required the Louisiana Department of Education and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to transfer funds directly “to each participating [nonpublic] school on behalf of the responsible city or parish school district.”
The Louisiana Federation of Teachers first brought a claim, along with local unions, one parent, and one teacher of public schoolchildren. They sought declaratory judgment against LDE and BESE, as well as preliminary and permanent injunctive relief, arguing the diversion of money away from public elementary and secondary schools was unconstitutional. The suit charged LDE and BESE with unconstitutionally diverting funds based on the state’s Minimum Foundation Program to private schools, parochial schools, post-secondary education institutions, corporations that provide vocational or technical courses, parents who choose home schooling, and new charter schools outside of the parish or city school system.
The Louisiana Supreme Court agreed with the LFT on critical points in the complaint:
The sole issue before this court is whether the educational funding mechanisms or other content of two legislative instruments, SCR 99 and Act 2, violate constitutional restrictions. …
Therefore, even if the first two sentences of Article VIII, § 13(B) could be construed as permitting BESE to include voucher and other nonpublic school programs in the MFP formula once the minimum baseline for public education is met, the MFP funds still must be allocated equitably to “parish and city school systems.”
As noted earlier, the discretion of BESE and the legislature is vast. However, we hasten to reiterate, we are not deciding the merits of the challenged programs. It is only at the stage in which BESE has invoked the MFP process for funding these programs and the legislature has nominally given its approval that this court is concerned. Pursuant to Article VIII, § 13(B), whatever discretion existed prior to the funds being dedicated to the MFP is no more; the state funds approved through the unique MFP process cannot be diverted to nonpublic schools or other nonpublic course providers according to the clear, specific, and unambiguous language of the constitution.
There is no question that state MFP funds are diverted under the challenged legislative instruments and that the diversion of state MFP funds is unconstitutional.
What’s going on in Louisiana?
When Gov Bobby Jindal signed this law, I had problems, mainly on religious freedom grounds, understanding why a governor would do such a thing. It took money away from the government’s public schools and sent it to whatever school—usually a religious school—that students would attend.
In my opinion, the Louisiana Supreme Court saw the wisdom in the challenges to this law: the voucher law stripped power away from elected officials in the legislature and gave that funding power to parents who want to remove their children from the state’s public schools. Parents can be sold a bill of goods, and even if they take the bait thrown into the muddy water by for-profit companies, private schools, and so on, tax dollars shouldn’t support their decision.
We pay taxes, in part, to support the operation of government, and this law doesn’t support one important operation: public education of children in Louisiana. Private schools and for-profit content providers are many things, but they are definitely not the government. Even if they provide a better education for Louisiana’s children, they’re still not what people pay taxes to support.
The one dissenting opinion in the Louisiana Supreme Court said the majority failed to take into account that funds would be diverted away from a public school or district if a student decided to leave the district, such as by moving to another district or parish. But in my opinion, this argument doesn’t apply to the specific situation of the state’s voucher law. It’s not a question of how much money the LDE sends to a given school district; it’s whether public funds are supporting a government-controlled, transparent school or a private education provider not subject to accountability laws.
