Supreme Court rules in favor of school choice

  The Supreme Court has been in the news quite a bit lately and earlier today the highest court in the land handed down another decision. The decision was on school choice and this time liberal Justice John Roberts sided with the four conservative justices on the court. Here is more:

In a huge win for backers of school choice including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with three Montana families who asked the court to declare that excluding religious schools from student aid programs is unconstitutional.

The case, which has drawn intense interest from the Trump administration, could have major implications for the use of public dollars to pay for religious schools. At the White House, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that the ruling removes “one of the biggest obstacles” to better educational opportunities, preventing states from hiding behind rules “motivated by insidious bias against Catholics.”

Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue looked at whether the Montana Supreme Court violated the U.S. Constitution when it struck down a tax-credit scholarship program that allowed students to attend private schools, including religious schools.

Justices held that the application of Montana’s “no-aid provision” discriminated against religious schools and families whose children attend or hope to attend them in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority in the 5-4 decision.

Proponents of school choice said it was a major triumph in the courts. “The weight that this monumental decision carries is immense, as it’s an extraordinary victory for student achievement, parental control, equality in educational opportunities, and First Amendment rights,” said Jeanne Allen, the founder and chief executive of the Center for Education Reform.

  Not all agreed with the last statement in the block quote above, notably the teacher unions, but it seems to me as if giving children the chance to attend a better school would be hard to consider a bad thing. However, I do have to admit I have never followed this issue closely so I do not know all the arguments opposed and in favor of school choice.

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium