NHEG-Magazine-November-December

www.NewHeightsEducation.org
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the country.
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the country.
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www.NewHeightsEducation.org
By Kerry McDonald
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
In an effort to secure the best education possible for their children, three mothers launched a court case five years ago that
may now dramatically expand education options for many more families across the country. Today, the US Supreme Court
struck down as unconstitutional a Montana statute that prohibited tax-credit scholarship funds from being used by families at
private religious schools. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts explains that the Montana statute “discriminated
against religious schools and the families whose children attend or hope to attend them in violation of the Free Exercise Clause
of the Federal Constitution.”
Back in 2015, Montana lawmakers passed a statewide tax-credit scholarship program, allowing individual taxpayers to receive
up to $150 in tax credits if they donated to scholarship programs aimed at providing tuition assistance to children attending
private schools. Shortly after the tax-credit scholarship program was enacted, the Montana Department of Revenue prohibited
families whose children attended religious schools from accessing the scholarship funds. For three moms with children at the
Stillwater Christian School, the scholarship funds were crucial in enabling them to afford the school’s tuition. They sued the
state, arguing that Montana’s statute was discriminatory toward religious families in violation of the First Amendment. A trial
court sided with the moms, but the Montana Supreme Court reversed the lower court ruling highlighting Montana’s Blaine
Amendment that prevents public funding for religious schools.
Blaine Amendments were passed in the late-1800s as a way to stifle the growth and influence of parochial schools. As compulsory
schooling laws were enacted throughout the country, beginning in Massachusetts in 1852, many Catholic families
rebelled against the purportedly secular but overtly Protestant “common schools” where attendance was now mandated. They
created their own network of Catholic schools, and states began passing legislation known as Blaine Amendments, named
after Representative James G. Blaine of Maine, to ensure that these religious schools didn’t receive any public funding, even
indirectly such as through individual tax-credit scholarships. Today’s US Supreme Court ruling is a step forward in weakening
these bigoted nineteenth-century rules, that currently exist in 37 state constitutions.
Some libertarians and others might argue that there is no role for the government in funding private education (or public education,
for that matter); but as Justice Samuel Alito has said, to the extent that states decide to allow funding of private education,
directly or indirectly, they cannot discriminate against religious private schools in favor of secular private schools only.
Alito explained that states are under no obligation to “fund private education at all, but if they choose to provide scholarships
that are available to students who attend private schools, they can’t discriminate against parents who want to send their children
to schools that are affiliated in some way with a church.”
Today’s high court ruling reflects the sentiments of the majority of Americans, across the political spectrum. In a spring poll
conducted ahead of today’s decision with results published in The New York Times, nearly two-thirds of all US adults surveyed
responded that “states should not be allowed to ban the use of subsidized scholarships for religious schools.” According to the
poll, 75 percent of Republicans, 64 percent of Independents, and 54 percent of Democrats agree with this statement.
Parents want more education options for their children. According to EdChoice, more than 80 percent of US K-12 students
attend a district school but fewer than one-third of their parents prefer to have them there. This represents an enormous
choice gap in American education. Prompted by three moms who found this choice gap unacceptable, today’s court ruling will
help more parents find and fund the best educational fit for their children.
Source: The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
122 NHEG Magazine | November - December
https://fee.org/
By Kerry McDonald
Thursday, July 23, 2020
This tumultuous back-to-school season has parents and teachers alike scrambling to make sense of the madness: from everchanging
district directives to COVID-19 response protocols. Some school systems have announced that the academic year will
start with remote-learning-only. Others are pursuing partial reopening options with both online and in-person instruction. Still
others are planning to fully reopen for in-person learning.
Amid this chaos, parents and teachers are increasingly opting out of the conventional classroom entirely to find or create
schooling alternatives this fall.
Parents have been vocal about their back-to-school concerns, with growing numbers of them choosing to homeschool this fall
rather than contending with remote learning options or confronting viral exposure and dystopian social distancing measures in
schools.
But it’s not just parents who have back-to-school worries. Many teachers, too, don’t want to go back and are upset at reopening
plans.
Teachers’ unions are now battling districts over these plans. In Florida, where schools are scheduled to fully reopen for in-person
learning next month, the state’s largest teachers’ union sued the governor and education commissioner this week. The
Florida union is asking for smaller class sizes and more protective gear for teachers.
More parents and teachers are choosing to avoid this bureaucratic mess altogether and are pursuing their own educational
solutions.
Entrepreneurial Educators Build A Better Way
Some parents are hiring tutors to augment their homeschooling experience this fall, and entrepreneurial teachers are serving
that need and cashing in on the opportunity. One high school English teacher in Illinois, who asked to remain anonymous, told
me that she made $49,000 a year teaching 9th grade and AP English, but several families have approached her for private tutoring
and she realizes she can make more money as a private tutor, with fewer hours and more flexibility.
In addition to homeschooling, some parents are forming pandemic “pods,” or home-based microschools that allow a handful
of families to take turns teaching their children or pool resources to hire a teacher or college student. The Wall Street Journal
reports that these pods are sprouting throughout the country, fueled by parental unrest at school reopening plans and facilitated
by informal Facebook groups connecting local families.
Recognizing this mounting demand for schooling alternatives this fall, entrepreneurial educators are helping to create more
options for families. In Maryland, longtime educators Steven Eno and Ned Courtemanche created Impact Connections, a microschool
enabler connecting educators and parents and providing learning support.
“COVID-19 exposed so many of the shortcomings we already knew about in education but also presented new opportunities
to step up and help parents and their kids,” Eno told me in a recent interview. “Microschools offer a powerful, and largely
untapped, opportunity to educate our kids in the COVID era and beyond. The best microschools offer highly-personalized
instruction that is free of curricular red tape for a fraction of the price...,” he says.
The legality of these pandemic pods and microschools is sometimes unclear. As a new model that blends features of homeschool
co-ops with small, private schools, regulations in many places haven’t caught up. Additionally, the sheer numbers of
parents choosing not to send their kids back to school this fall, and the pandemic’s overall disruption, may make enforcement
of any existing regulations more difficult.
November - December 2020 | NHEG Magazine 123