Over the last three and a half years, I have had the privilege of leading the fight for school choice in California. I have been all over the state. I can say confidently that except for the ideologically demented, the entrenched union leadership and the politicians they own outright, I have encountered very little opposition to school choice. Continue reading

Take No Counsel of Your Fears-George S. Patton During our first effort to qualify the Educational Freedom Act for the 2022 ballot, we accomplished many things. The most important thing we accomplished was to transform school choice from a mere issue to a movement in California. This is no small thing. School Choice Now a Movement in California Families have long wished to be able to pick a school better suited to their children’s needs. They just did not have the money. Those who did, however, sent their children to private school. (Just ask Gavin Newsom.) there are about 500,000 children in private schools and another 250,000 being homeschooled. This comes to about 12% of the 6.2 million K12 children in California. Continue reading

Last week, the so-called National Education Association floated a proposal to change the language in its contracts. It proposed to change terms like “mother,” “father,” and “maternity leave” with gender-neutral terms. In one instance they sought to change “mother” to “birthing parent,” “father” to “non-birthing parent,” and “maternity leave” to “parental leave” in the name of LGBTQ inclusion. When the press got hold of this, the NEA quickly tabled the proposal. Tabled or not, it is coming soon to a school district near you. Continue reading

In the last two messages we discussed the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Carson v. Makin. A majority of the court held that any tuition assistance plan that excludes religious schools unconstitutionally infringes on the religious freedom of parents. The three dissenters argued that allowing public funds to be used to pay tuition at a faith-based school unconstitutionally compels taxpayers to effectively “establish” a religion as proscribed by the religious freedom clauses of the First Amendment. Continue reading

In Sunday’s message I discussed the very positive impact of the United States Supreme Court’s striking down a Maine tuition subsidy statute that excluded “sectarian,” i.e., religiously affiliated schools. The court wrote that “a State need not subsidize private education, but once a State decides to do so, they cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.” The court held that conditioning the availability of benefits in that manner, Maine’s tuition assistance program effectively penalizes the free exercise” of religion. We couldn’t agree more, Chief Justice Roberts! Continue reading

In the wake of landmark decisions on abortion and the Second Amendment it is easy tooverlook the United States Supreme Court’s equally important decision on school choicein Carson v. Makin. The facts of this case are simple. The State of Maine is one of themost rural states in America. Its school age population is scattered throughout the statemaking it uneconomical to build public secondary schools. Rather than increasing thefunding to build and operate these schools, the Maine legislature enacted a tuitionassistance program that paid up to $11,773.92 per student for the 2021-22 school year sothat a student could attend a private secondary school. Continue reading