Constitution likely to sink voucher plan
Published February 18, 2014
Editorial by Fayetteville Observer, February 18, 2014.
It's no surprise that a Superior Court judge in Raleigh refused Monday to dismiss a lawsuit against the state's new school-voucher program.
The "Opportunity Scholarships" appear to be anything but a fit with the North Carolina Constitution, which is not even a tiny bit ambiguous about school spending.
Article IX, Section 6 of the constitution says all funding for the state's public schools "shall be faithfully appropriated and used exclusively for establishing and maintaining a uniform system of free public schools."
We're not sure how the General Assembly hoped to get around "exclusively" when it created the scholarships. But short of a constitutional amendment or really creative rulings from the courts, we expect that the program is doomed.
That's just as well, since the law also imposes no requirements for private-school curriculum. It lets recipients of the scholarship grants - up to $4,200 a year - pick any private school they want. Despite picking up the tab, state education officials have no say in the qualifications of private schools getting taxpayer dollars. That's not proper stewardship of our money.
We could support a responsible voucher program, but this isn't it. Settle the constitutional issue and then let's talk.
February 18, 2014 at 8:22 am
TP Wohlford says:
Doesn't matter whether or not vouchers are declared legal.
Oh, sure, some kids can better escape their dismal local community with vouchers. No argument there.
Rather, the argument here is that educational outcome is based on the values of the local community. If the local community is anti-education -- ie, little Johnny gets beaten up for "acting smart" when he reads a book, and little Susie's mom moves three times to new "daddies" over the course of a school year -- then nothing is gonna help.
Teachers keep screaming that no one, up to and including Socrates and Aristotle, could teach some kids. And they are correct. And we all know that. But we want to pretend that some new darling program from the left, or right, will get around that. Sorry, but when half of the freshman class gets pregnant (and the other half is... male), very little good happens in the classroom.
February 18, 2014 at 10:19 am
Norm Kelly says:
Is it possible to draw some conclusions about the author of this editorial simply from it's content. Maybe.
First, the author is concerned about the actual wording of the Constitution of NC. This indicates the author is probably NOT a lib. Libs don't read the Constitution, and if someone reads it to them, they choose to ignore the parts they don't like. Like most religions, libs take what they want and leave the rest. They figure if they ignore certain parts, the rest of us will also. It's their version of re-writing the Constitution without the hassle of changing the Constitution.
Second, since the author appears to oppose competition in the education business it's likely the author is a lib. Maybe I'm reading the 'maybe we could support a voucher program' line wrong, but it seems this is so unexpected that it can be said without fear.
Funny when conservatives appear to ignore the Constitution, it's the libs who come out of the woodwork to force compliance. There's got to be a way to implement competition in the education business that will pass muster of both the courts and libs. Providing school choice to parents/families is critical. This is an idea opposed by libs everywhere, everytime, with every excuse in the book. But they refuse to explain why. They use straw man arguments like taking money away from big education, but that's bogus also.
Take the Opportunity Grants for example. Here in Wake County, the public school system spends upwards of $10-12,000 per year per student. If the opportunity grant is provided to a family, which is only $4,200, then isn't some money left over for big education? Even libs can do simple math like this, even libs who graduate from government-run schools. But for those libs who can't, let me: 10,000-4,200=5,800. So 1 entire student is taken out of a school. But only a part of the money is taken out of big education's budget. If government-run schools main/only/loudest/most repeated/continuous complaint/rant is that they lack sufficient funds, then taking out a whole kid but leaving more money than you take out seems to bolster the budget of big education. Am I missing something here? Is it the lack of funds that irritates libs/big education? Is it the competition that irks libs? I posit that it's the idea of competition that sets them off. Cuz if the money works out as I describe, then it's not the money that bugs them. I believe big education/government-run schools fear the competition because the competition might just show that kids are educable and non-government schools just might be able to improve learning levels. This would be disastrous to government and libs in general, so they try to avoid it. Just like they try to avoid competition in every other market they take over. Like health care.
