The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear a case that could dramatically shape the future of K-12 religious education in America.
The case, Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, involves the Montana tax-credit scholarship, a 2015 school choice program that increases educational freedom for families. Under the program, individuals and businesses who donate to private scholarship organizations within the state receive a modest tax credit of up to $150 per year. The donations are then awarded as scholarships to families who want their child to attend private school.
Yet, the Montana Department of Revenue refused to implement the policy as the legislature intended — instead, it passed an administrative rule that barred scholarship recipients from attending religious schools. This arbitrary rule effectively killed the program, as most of the state’s private schools are religiously-affiliated. And eventually, the Montana Supreme Court struck down the program.
Though the Supreme Court’s final say on the case will obviously have an impact on Montana families, it could also open the door for true educational pluralism in America.
Montana and 36 other states have archaic Blaine Amendments within their state constitutions that restrict public funds from going to religious organizations. These are provisions written in a time of anti-Catholic sentiment and religious intolerance. Public school status quo defenders have used Blaine Amendments to argue that no money passing through state coffers can end up in religious schools, even if parents directly choose those schools for their children.
State courts have interpreted their Blaine Amendments differently, depending on the context of each individual case. Supreme Court precedent, however, says that as long as school choice programs aid parents rather than religious schools specifically, they are constitutional.
So if Espinoza is decided on behalf of families and children seeking a religious education, teachers’ unions and others hostile to educational freedom will have a difficult time barring families from choosing religious schools by invoking Blaine.
Recent research out of the Manhattan Institute displays that the fight over educational pluralism in this case is worth it.
In the United States, secular district public education is compulsory if you cannot afford private school or live in an area without any school choice programs. Powerful special interest groups, most notably teachers’ unions, have strong incentives to keep this system intact.
“But merely because we have equated ‘public education’ with the district model for a hundred years does not mean that we should continue doing so,” Manhattan Institute researcher Ashley Berner writes. “Uniformity was not always our norm, is not the current international norm, and benefits some children but not others.”
If the Supreme Court decides to overrule decades of anti-religious animus that Blaine amendments continue to sanction, it will be an important first step toward bringing the U.S. in alignment with international norms and restoring true educational freedom.
Kate Hardiman is a contributor to Red Alert Politics. She taught high school in Chicago for two years while earning her M.Ed. and is now a J.D. candidate at Georgetown University Law Center.
