Sparking the evolution of education choice
Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida TALLAHASSEE – Nearly three years after lawmakers passed a controversial measure that sought to bolster charter schools, the Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a constitutional challenge by county school boards. The Supreme Court, as is common, did not explain its unanimous decision[Read More…]
This is the second of two posts on the judicial history of Florida’s Blaine Amendment with regard to public aid to private religious institutions. Part one can be read here. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on the constitutionality of state Blaine Amendments in 2020. Lawyers defending[Read More…]
Jim Saunders / News Service of Florida TALLAHASSEE — A fiercely divided Florida Supreme Court on Friday rejected a nearly decade-long lawsuit that challenged whether the state has properly carried out a 1998 constitutional amendment that called for ensuring a “high quality” system of public schools. The decision upheld lower-court[Read More…]
Editor’s note: This post was written by Bert Gall, senior attorney with the Institute for Justice and the institute’s lead attorney in the Indiana voucher case. Yesterday, in Meredith v. Pence, the Indiana Supreme Court held that Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program (CSP) does not violate the state constitution. By unanimously[Read More…]
Editor’s note: This op-ed ran in today’s Orlando Sentinel. Florida allocates five different scholarships from prekindergarten to college that allow students to attend faith-based schools. They don’t violate the U.S. Constitution because students choose, and government doesn’t coerce. Both factors were why, in 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that[Read More…]
Amendment 8 debate. Video at the Naples Daily News. Featuring Jim Towey, Ave Maria University president, and Howard Simon, Florida ACLU executive director. The Naples Daily News also runs this op-ed in favor of 8. Drug-sniffing dogs. The U.S. Supreme Court considers arguments in two cases, including one in Florida, with potential implications for[Read More…]
Having a judge determine how much money to spend on Florida schools and where to spend it is “an exercise in futility, and madness, and a waste of funds,” Florida Board of Education member Roberto Martinez said today. Martinez’s comments came after a Department of Education attorney updated the board on[Read More…]
Our preoccupation these days with a Florida amendment removing the state’s no-aid-to-religion clause may strike some redefinED readers as a touch obsessive, and we won’t argue the point. But the truth is that we agonize over whether to write at all, and we want to explain why. At the end[Read More…]
