“Phew!” That’s the sound echoing around Idaho today after the state supreme court ruled yesterday in favor of the new Idaho Parental Choice Tax Credit. The program, which was enacted last year and launched on January 15 of this year, provides a refundable tax credit that families can use to defray educational costs such as private school tuition, tutoring, curricula, and industry-recognized certification exams. As of February 3, more than 5,000 applications for the tax credit had been submitted for more than 9,000 students.
The credit is worth $5,000 per student or $7,500 per student with special needs. The refundable aspect means parents can receive the full credit, up to their actual expenses, even if their tax liability is less than the credit. For example, if a parent spends $4,000 on education for a child but only has a tax liability of $3,000, they will receive the full $4,000 refunded on their taxes.
Last September, the Idaho teachers’ unions and other opponents of education choice filed a lawsuit to halt the tax credit program. The suit claimed that the Idaho constitutional requirement for the state to establish a system of public schools also forbids the state from supporting any other educational options.
Fortunately for Idaho parents and children, the court disagreed. The constitution sets “a floor, and not a ceiling,” the court ruled. “When a constitutional provision mandates the legislature do something that it has authority to do, it is not reasonable to read that mandate as restricting the legislature’s broader power to do something more.”
There are similar lawsuits winding their way through the courts in other states.
Last year, a district judge in Utah ruled the direct opposite of the Idaho Supreme Court. In the lawsuit challenging the Utah Fits All scholarship, the judge found “Utah’s Education Article Is a Ceiling,” meaning the mandate to create public schools prohibits the creation of other education programs. Families can continue using the scholarships while supporters appeal to the Supreme Court.
In Ohio, a district judge ruled last year that the EdChoice school voucher program was unconstitutional, in part because it required establishing public schools. In this case, the lawsuit was filed by a group of school districts that have a strong incentive to kill education choice programs. As in Utah, the program continues as the case moves through the appeals process.
In November, a lawsuit was filed against Tennessee’s Education Freedom Scholarships on similar grounds—the mandate to create a system of public schools means the state can’t create other programs. The law firm at the center of the suit is largely funded by teachers’ unions. There haven’t been any rulings in this case yet.
Educational freedom has made tremendous advances in recent years. More than 30 states have programs that either provide tax credits for educational expenses or allow parents to direct state education funding to the educational environment that they think is best for their kids. But, as these cases show, the “education establishment” continues to use the courts in an attempt to kill choice programs. Hopefully, the Idaho ruling helps bolster supporters in other states.