While school vouchers have not been a recent topic of debate in Trenton, a court ruling last week in North Carolina overturned a state law that awarded taxpayer-funded vouchers to low-income families send their children to private or religious schools. Judge Robert Hobgood ruled that the Opportunity Scholarship program is and unconstitutional shift of state money away from public schools, upholding legal challenges filed by the North Carolina Association of Educators, the North Carolina School Boards Association and dozens of local school boards. Hobgood issued a permanent injunction prohibiting any state funds from being disbursed for vouchers, and officials were able to halt the electronic transfer of the money to various schools. Hobgood ruled that the private schools can discriminate in their admissions and dont have the same curriculum and teacher certification standards as North Carolinas public schools. Appropriating taxpayer funds to unaccountable schools does not accomplish a public purpose, he said. The General Assembly is required to ensure students receive a sound education, and Hobgood said lawmakers cant delegate that authority to unregulated private schools and to parents who have self-assessed their children to be at risk. 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 schools as mandated by the Leandro decision, he said. 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. The state Attorney Generals Office plans to appeal Hobgoods ruling. Our attorneys believe that this is a constitutional issue that must be decided by the appellate courts, Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Justice, wrote in an email. Voucher supporters have argued that the Opportunity Scholarships program would give low-income parents another educational option when public schools arent meeting their needs. They also maintained that the state could save money by shifting some students to private schools because of the high per-pupil cost in public schools. See the fact sheet we have prepared about vouchers and why they dont work: saveourschoolsnj.org/vouchers/ Read more at wral/judge-rules-nc-school-voucher-program-unconstitutional/13911842/#pOTjTBwIi4Cw4o9i.99
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 13:30:00 +0000
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