Add Fund Education Now to the list of influential groups who are distorting what Amendment 8 is about. Like the Florida Education Association, the Florida School Boards Association and the Florida PTA, Fund Education Now claims the ballot initiative is really all about vouchers.

The amendment would remove the “no aid” to religion language in the Florida Constitution. That language, Fund Education Now says in its just-released 2012 legislative report card, “has prevented voucher proponents from enacting law to provide state vouchers directly to private religious schools.”

This is false. As we’ve noted before, Florida’s first voucher program wasn’t declared unconstitutional in 2006 because of the no-aid clause; the Florida Supreme Court shot it down because of another constitutional provision that mandates a “uniform” public school system. The court conspicuously avoided the no-aid language, even though a lower court used it, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, that parents could use public funds to pay for religious schools as long as they were making an independent decision.

On a related note, the Bradenton Herald weighed in today with, as far as we can tell, the first newspaper editorial on Amendment 8. It urges a no vote because “the real goal is future school voucher programs,” but provides no supporting evidence to show why that’s the case.

There’s a legitimate debate to be had over Amendment 8, but it’s not happening. Ironically, it’s educators, public school "defenders" and journalists who are clouding what should be a vigorous exercise in civics.

There are times when it’s appropriate for a journalist to boil down a story into a he-said, she-said. And there are times when it’s just lackluster reporting.

As Jon East has noted in this blog post and this op-ed, Florida’s Amendment 8 – the “religious freedom amendment” – is not about private school vouchers. It’s clear if you look at the legal history for private education options in Florida. It’s clear if you look to see who is and isn’t bankrolling the campaign.

And yet, one news story after another has allowed the Florida Education Association, the Florida School Boards Association and other school choice critics to posit that it is about vouchers – and to let those assertions go unchallenged. Often it’s in terms so deep into an alternate reality, they beg for a little scrutiny. According to the Gainesville Sun, for example, an Alachua County School Board member described Amendment 8 as “the very death of public schools.”

With six weeks left before the vote, statements like these are surfacing in major newspapers nearly every day. Here are a few examples, along with how the story captures the legislative intent of the amendment, the constitutional underpinnings of school vouchers, the lack of a campaign or financial support by school voucher advocates, the factual history of private options in a state that now provides them to more than 200,000 students, or just some form of a statement from those with an opposing view:

From the South Florida Sun Sentinel (Aug. 21):

“Amendment 8 would remove the long-standing restriction in the Florida Constitution that prohibits the expenditure of public funds to support religious programs," the resolution (from the Broward County School Board) reads. "Passage of Amendment 8 could result in state funds being awarded to non-public schools, instead of allocated to support public and charter schools.”

The resolution stops short of saying whether those would be good or bad outcomes, but it was obvious where board members stood.

"We have a limited amount of resources, and you would continue to strain the resources for public and charter schools," board member Robin Bartleman said.

Response from other side: None

Supporting evidence: None

***

From the Daytona Beach News Journal (Sept. 15):

The title and wording of the amendment were the subject of a lawsuit in which Ormond Beach school principal Susan Persis and Palm Coast rabbi Merrill Shapiro were plaintiffs.

They and other representatives of school-related organizations and clergy tried to get the amendment thrown off the ballot, but a judge allowed it to go before voters after Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi rewrote the proposal.

Persis said she fears passage of Amendment 8 would divert money from public schools to religious ones. "This would further reduce funding for public education," said Persis, who's principal of Pine Trail Elementary. "Any further reduction will be devastating to our schools." (more…)

The battle over an amendment to Florida’s no-aid-to-religion clause has taken another intriguing turn. In campaign contribution reports released today, the money war pits the Florida Education Association against Catholic groups. FEA is winning 6-to-1.

Through the Public Education Defense Fund, the FEA contributed $1 million through Sept. 14 to defeat the amendment, according to the reports. On the flip side, a long list of Catholic groups has contributed the bulk of the $158,500 raised through the same time frame to support the effort. The pro-Amendment 8 group, Citizens for Religious Freedom & Non-Discrimination, has spent about $43,221. Vote No on 8, meanwhile, has spent $759,003, mostly on media buys.

The amendment removes a clause in the State Constitution that has historical origins in anti-Catholic church bias, which hits home with church members to this day. A New York-based group, the Council for Secular Humanism, has sued to stop a prison ministries program to help inmates get off drugs, and religious providers fear the suit could lead to challenges involving other faith-based community services, such as Catholic Charities and the YMCA.

Meanwhile, FEA is waging its own campaign – against school vouchers – even though this amendment does not change the one constitutional provision that was cited by the Florida Supreme Court when in 2006 it outlawed a voucher that was the signature effort of former Gov. Jeb Bush. Voucher advocates are no longer interested in the no-aid amendment because they think two U.S. Supreme Court opinions provide ample protection.

So this showdown is looking stranger by the minute. One side fights against vouchers, the other for soup kitchens.

(Image from political-reform.net)