Editorial Staff

Nationally Syndicated Columnist George Will Covers Pioneer’s SCOTUS Amicus Brief Topic on School Choice

/0 Comments/in , , /by Editorial Staff
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

For many years, Pioneer Institute has been a leader in the effort to repeal the Blaine Amendments, legal barriers in Massachusetts and nearly 40 other states that prevent more underprivileged schoolchildren from being able to attend religiously affiliated schools.

Now, nationally syndicated columnist George Will is lending his powerful voice to this important cause with a Washington Post op-ed calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to repeal these harmful amendments. In his column, Will echoes points Pioneer has raised many times over the years (most recently in The Daily Caller), exposing the ugly roots of opposition to school choice: 19th-century anti-Catholic bigotry promoted by the Know-Nothing Party and later in that century by corrupt GOP leader, James Blaine, “the continental liar from the state of Maine.”

The sad legacy of the Blaine Amendments today is the struggle of millions of parents to cover tuition costs to send their children to non-public schools better suited to their individual needs. A tuition tax credit scholarship program that would have helped parents like Kendra Espinoza, a single mom in Montana, was shut down by the Montana Department of Revenue and the state Supreme Court, citing the Blaine Amendment.

The U.S. Supreme Court is now deciding whether or not to hear petitioner Kendra Espinoza’s appeal, and Pioneer recently filed an amicus brief in support of her case. As Pioneer executive director Jim Stergios said, “Kendra Espinoza, like so many other parents, sought the education that best suits the needs of her children. It is hard to believe that an amendment steeped in anti-Catholic bias still stands in her way 130 years after its passage.” The Court is expected to announce whether it will hear the case in early summer.

Kendra Espinoza and her two daughters

Photo credit: Institute for Justice

Closer to home, Massachusetts has the oldest Blaine Amendments, thanks to the anti-Catholic Know-Nothing Party, which arose in response to a spike in Catholic immigration during the Irish Potato Famine. Pioneer Institute has published numerous reports and op-eds, held public forums, and made countless media appearances calling for their repeal. In 2018, Pioneer produced a documentary, “Big Sacrifices, Big Dreams: Ending America’s Bigoted Education Laws,” that chronicles the struggles of four families from Massachusetts (in Framingham and Fall River), Michigan, and Georgia, all states with Blaine Amendments, to send their children to parochial schools. View the film here:

Related Research & Commentary:

USED Asst. Sec. Jim Blew Talks Sec. DeVos, School Choice, & K-12 Politics

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Jim Blew, the assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy development at the U.S. Department of Education. Assistant Secretary Blew shares lessons from leading and implementing K-12 public education reform efforts in often contentious policy environments, and the unique challenges of the current partisanship and gridlock in Washington, D.C.

New Study Provides Toolkit for Crafting Education Tax-Credit Scholarship Programs

In the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a key impediment to private school choice, Pioneer Institute has published a toolkit for designing tax-credit scholarship programs. Now available in 18 states, nearly 300,000 students nationwide use tax-credit scholarships to attend the school of their family’s choice. TCS policies create an incentive for taxpayers to contribute to nonprofit scholarship organizations that aid families with tuition and, in some states, other K–12 educational expenses. This paper explores the central design features of TCS policies—such as eligibility, the tax credit value, credit caps, and academic accountability provisions—and outlines the different approaches taken by the TCS policies in each state.

Education tax credits don’t cost taxpayers a cent

0 Comments
/
This op-ed has appeared in WGBH News, The Providence Journal,…

Stanford’s Prof. Caroline Hoxby on Charter Schools, K-12 Ed Reform, & Global Competitiveness

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Caroline Hoxby, the Scott and Donya Bommer Professor of Economics at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution.

SABIS® President Carl Bistany on International Education, Charter Public Schools, & At-Risk Students

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Carl Bistany, the president of SABIS® Educational Systems, an education company founded over 130 years ago that serves young women in the Middle East, and poor and minority students in the U.S.

Wall Street Journal Columnist Jason Riley on the 2020 Election, School Choice, & Race in America

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Jason Riley, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Jason shares insights on the 2020 election, its implications for the next two years, and assuming Vice President Biden becomes president, how he may govern on K-12 education.

LSU’s Prof. Andrew Burstein on Washington Irving, the Headless Horseman, & the Presidency

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Andrew Burstein, the Charles P. Manship Professor of History at Louisiana State University, and author of The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving, and with Nancy Isenberg, The Problem of Democracy: The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality.

Cheryl Brown Henderson, Daughter of Lead Plaintiff in Brown v. Board of Ed., on Race & Schooling

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Cheryl Brown Henderson, president of the Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence, and Research. She shares her experience as the daughter of the lead plaintiff in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, and thoughts on how the historic decision contributed to advancing civil rights in our country.

Harvard PEPG’s Prof. Paul Peterson on Charter Schools, Digital Learning, & Ed Next Polling

This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Paul Peterson, the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government and Director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University.

Watch: Pioneer’s Jamie Gass Presents History of Blaine Amendments at Heartland Institute – National School Choice Week 2017

Learn more about how you can help end bigoted education laws!