Choice words

Education reformers had their eyes on Las Vegas last week as the Nevada Supreme Court took up the issue of school choice in a case likely to have ramifications across the country.

Lawmakers last year passed Senate Bill 302 — along party lines, with Democrats opposed — to create perhaps the most expansive choice program in the country. It allows Nevada parents who take their kids out of the pubic schools to access state per-pupil funding of about $5,100 per child for use on private school tuition, tutoring, home-schooling or other educational endeavors.

“It’s impossible to overstate the importance of Nevada and this litigation,” Leslie Hiner of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice told the Review-Journal last week. Ms. Hiner noted that lawmakers in as many as 18 states may this year consider similar choice plans.

The Nevada program has been on hold pending litigation, leaving in limbo hundreds of parents seeking improved educational opportunities for their children. The high court hearing on Friday in Las Vegas involved two separate legal actions to quash the reform.

Among the objections raised by those hoping to derail the program: that the education savings accounts violate a state constitutional provision demanding a “uniform” system of public schools and that they run afoul of the document’s prohibition against the state directing “public funds … for sectarian purposes.”

In fact, the decision on how to spend the money rests solely with the families, not the state. The law provides parents, not the state, with the power to direct the funds toward the educational endeavor of their choice. The state remains completely neutral on the matter of religion, instead providing scholarships to parents and children —not schools — looking to escape underperforming public campuses.

As for the state creating a “uniform” system of public schools, nothing in SB302 will lead to the elimination of public school districts that are open to all Nevada children. And under the new law, all funds the Legislature allocates for education will still be spent on such, while districts will continue to get the same per-pupil state funding regardless of how many students opt for the educational savings accounts.

More than 15 years ago, reform opponents contested a ground-breaking Cleveland choice plan, arguing the initiative violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause because it allowed parents to spend tax stipends at religious schools. But the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the program in 2003 on the grounds that the state had no role in where the funds were used.

Since then, the momentum for increased educational options has spread throughout the country and choice proponents have enjoyed consistent success in the courts. The fate of the Nevada plan, of course, hinges on legal issues and interpretations unique to the state’s statutes and constitution. But Senate Bill 302 was carefully crafted with precisely that in mind in an effort to expand opportunity for Nevada families.

Let’s hope the state high court agrees.