The Minnesota State Constitution has been clear about the nature of our public education system since 1859:
“Article XIII – MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS
Section 1: “The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it is the duty of the legislature to establish a general and uniform system of public schools. The legislature shall make such provisions by taxation or otherwise as will secure a thorough and efficient system of public schools throughout the state.
Section 2: In no case shall any public money or property be appropriated or used for the support of schools wherein the distinctive doctrines, creeds, or tenets of any particular Christian or other religious sect are promulgated or taught.”
Any taxpayer or lawmaker can express an opinion about Minnesota’s public schools and public charter schools and whether they are “uniform, thorough, and efficient,” or demand that public schools be improved or better funded. But they cannot simply ask state taxpayers to pay for students to attend private and particularly parochial schools. People who argue otherwise are often not familiar with or choose to ignore our state constitution and subsequent case law about its education clauses.
That includes Minnesota State Senator Roger Chamberlain, a Republican from Lino Lakes and current Chair of the Senate Education Policy and Finance Committee who has introduced bills proposing various forms of taxpayer funded private school vouchers during the past several legislative sessions. This session, he is holding a significant increase in basic education funding hostage to the creation of a cash voucher in the amount of the basic per student formula that students can put into an “education savings account” and use to pay for private schools.
Despite Senator Chamberlain and his supporters’ claims that such private school vouchers enhance “school choice” options for parents, the simple fact is that they are blatantly unconstitutional in Minnesota. When a parent chooses to send their child to a private school of any kind, they are opting to exit the public school system constitutionally required to be provided by the state. They are also opting to pay any tuition that private school charges to attend it. That is that parent’s school “choice” – they have already made it, and it is not taxpayers’ problem to solve the financial aspect of that choice for the parent.
In regard to Article XIII, Section 1 – there is no way, without regulating them like public schools, to make private schools “uniform” – and no way to ensure they are “thorough and efficient” without mandating state testing for them. No regulation and accountability, no state money. And according to Section 2, if the private school maintains any religious affiliation at all, they can receive no state money – period.
Private school parents also argue that they pay taxes to support public schools that they do not use – and that it is not fair that their student cannot simply take their share of state aid to any school they choose to attend. This is a flawed argument that flies in the face of virtually all taxpayer funded infrastructure and services provided by government. For instance, you do not as a taxpayer get to opt out of paying taxes to support Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport just because you never fly. And you do not get to refuse to pay taxes to support the maintenance of state highways that you do not drive on. Nor can you opt out of paying county taxes for those county services you do not use – like the jail, for instance. In short, you do not get to opt out of paying for a public service just because you do not currently use it, and that includes public schools.
One could just as easily ask: should childless couples be exempt from paying for public schools, or should empty nesters be exempted once their kids graduate? Answer: No. The Minnesota State Constitution clearly states that the stability of a republican form of government depends mainly upon the intelligence of the people. Which means that public schools are publicly funded because there is inherent value in having good public schools in all communities – past, present, and future. Public schools, like most forms of public infrastructure, are long-term, multi-generational and cross-community investments that do not just affect or benefit the families with kids who currently attend them.
That Senator Chamberlain is pushing so hard for taxpayer funded private school vouchers is no surprise – he has several wealthy private schools within twenty miles of his Senate District – Mounds Park Academy, Totino-Grace, Cretin-Durham Hall, St. Paul Academy & Summit School, Benilde-St. Margaret, Academy of Holy Angels, Blake, Breck, Convent of the Visitation, and even De LaSalle. And those are just ones which offer grade levels K-12. There are many more that only offer elementary or K-8 grade levels.
Senator Chamberlain and others who support taxpayer funded private school vouchers claim that these vouchers enhance “school choice” options for parents – particularly for low-income students who otherwise could not afford private schools. Let us examine that premise, using an expensive option like the Blake School as an example – it charges $32,000 for high school tuition. Even a high average voucher of $13,000 (depending on how it is calculated it could also be as little as $7000) would not be enough to allow low-income students to afford Blake’s high tuition. But a private school taxpayer voucher would bring down the cost for wealthy Blake students already there because they would get that $13,000 voucher to put towards their tuition too – at the expense of the public schools they left behind. Funny how that works.
Given the actual math, it is just as likely that Senator Chamberlain and his Republican colleagues are looking to enact taxpayer subsidies for their wealthy private school constituents and donors more than to assist low-income students. And without requiring private schools to adhere to the same open admission and testing standards as public schools, these taxpayer subsidies would benefit wealthy private school students even while schools like Blake could continue to admit only students they deem “qualified” to attend.
In addition, it is not a given that simply switching to a private school will result in long-term academic gains for a public-school student. Although nationwide studies have shown that public-school students who use vouchers to attend private schools do make gains initially in reading and math, those gains level off and begin to decline after three years – especially in math.
This strongly suggests that the dirty little secret of private schools is that they are often successful not so much because they produce good students but instead because they are good at selecting good students to admit to their schools to begin with. But because our Minnesota State constitution states that “it is the duty of the legislature to establish a general and uniform system of public schools,” if the Minnesota Republican Party wants public school funds to go to private school vouchers in the name of “school choice,” they must also require private schools to follow all of the same rules, regulations, and testing standards to which public schools must adhere. They must take any student who walks through their doors, including special education students with stringent IEPs and 504s, and be subject to the same non-discrimination rules as public schools in regard to race/ethnicity, religion, lack of English fluency, sexual orientation, and gender identity. But most private schools would not be willing to do that, particularly those with religious affiliations – which are prohibited from receiving state funds by Article XIII, Section 2 anyway.
Finally, Senator Chamberlain is also pushing so hard for unconstitutional taxpayer funded private school vouchers this year because census-driven redistricting in 2021 could very well cost the Minnesota Republican Party their current Senate majority in 2022. According to preliminary data, to ensure required uniform population distribution across all Senate districts the more blue and purple Twin Cities metro area must gain three to four Senate districts (which also means six to eight House districts). Since the actual number of total districts must remain the same, those metro area gains would come at the expense of red outstate areas where populations have fallen. Demographic shifts do not favor the Republican Party, and the Minnesota courts limit partisan gerrymandering. If Chamberlain cannot get vouchers done this year or next, it probably will not happen this entire decade, and maybe never at all – and he knows it. Apparently, constitutionality matters little in the face of desperation.
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/constitution/
https://www.privateschoolreview.com/the-blake-school-profile/55391#:~:text=1%2C360%20students%20attend%20Blake%2C%20coming,percent%20of%20the%20student%20body.
https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/ieps/understanding-individualized-education-programs
https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/504-plan/504-plans-and-your-child-a-guide-for-families?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=evrgrn-may20-fm
