Editor’s note: This article appeared Friday on The Center Square.
The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation partnered with Bursch Law to file a lawsuit alleging Michigan’s restriction on the use of public funds to pay for private education is unconstitutional.
Five Michigan families and the Parent Advocates for Choice in Education (PACE) Foundation, a nonprofit supporting the rights of Michigan parents to provide educational opportunities for their children, joined the lawsuit after conventional public schools frustrated them after the COVID-19 pandemic. Plaintiff Jessie Bagos’s school only provided virtual school for her young children for much of the last school year. She wanted other options for her twin boys starting kindergarten instead of sitting in front of a screen.
“To have the option to choose schools would be life changing,” Bagos said in a statement. “For everyone, not just us. Hopefully this lawsuit can help with that.”
Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code allows state-sponsored savings plans to fund higher education expenses. Michigan’s plan is Michigan’s Education Savings Plan (MESP). Bagos funded an MESP and wants to spend that money on their children’s private, religious school tuition.
But Michigan’s Blaine Amendment, passed in 1970, prohibits using public funds for private education. If Bagos spends MESP money on private, religious education, the Blaine Amendment will reverse Michigan’s tax deduction the parents received upon contribution.
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