House Ways and Means Committee advances unconstitutional ’empowerment scholarship accounts’
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Snap quiz class. Tell me what is wrong with this headline from the Arizona Daily Star's creative headline writer: Expanding state aid to private and parochial schools on track. Congratulations class! You are all way smarter than the Star's creative headline writer.
This is a clear violation of the Arizona Constitution which prohibits state funding to private and parochial schools:
Article 2, Section 12: "No public money or property shall be appropriated for or applied to any religious worship, exercise, or instruction, or to the support of any religious establishment."
Article 11, Section 7: "No sectarian instruction shall be imparted in any school or state educational institution that may be established under this Constitution, and no religious or political test or qualification shall ever be required as a condition of admission into any public educational institution of the state, as teacher, student, or pupil;"
Several years ago, the Goldwater institute convinced the Arizona Supreme Court to accept a sort of "straw man exchange" argument common in real estate transactions to uphold tax credits that supported private and parochial schools. The argument was that the money went to the parents, not directly from the state to the schools, and thus did not violate the constitutional provisions above. The legal fiction created by the Court was in error, but established a legal precedent that the Goldwater Institute has been trying to exploit ever since.
And this is exactly what our Tea-Publican controlled legislature is hoping to accomplish with these so-called "empowerment scholarship accounts." Howard Fischer reports:
A House panel agreed Monday to allow hundreds of thousands of children to attend private and parochial schools at public expense — a vote one legislator said is part of a radical agenda to destroy public schools.
