School Choice: Victory in Colorado

[Valin]

The Foundry:

 

 

Andrew Kloster and Brittany Corona

March 28, 2013

 

In a huge victory for school choice, the Colorado Court of Appeals last month overturned the injunction placed on the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program (CSP).

 

The CSP is Colorado’s only school-choice voucher program. Any student who lives within the Douglas County School District, and has resided there for at least one year, is eligible to apply to receive up to 75 percent of the state per-pupil funding to attend a school of choice. If there are more applicants than scholarships, a lottery is held to award the vouchers. Parents may also pay out of pocket to supplement the voucher coverage.

 

In 2011, the ACLU of Colorado, the National ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and others filed suit in Colorado state court, claiming that the school choice option violated the statutory provisions of the CSP itself and seven provisions of the Colorado constitution, including, importantly, the establishment clause in the Colorado constitution. As an ACLU spokesperson said after winning an injunction to prevent the program from being implemented: “By paying for students to attend religious schools, the state was unconstitutionally promoting and subsidizing particular faiths.”

 

The Colorado Court of Appeals saw things differently, overturning the injunction......(Snip)