‘Like a kick in the stomach’: State court strips families of educational freedom

South Carolina dad David Warner is afraid to tell his sixth-grade son that he will have to leave his school, teachers, and friends because the state Supreme Court struck down the Palmetto State’s school voucher program.

“Today definitely felt like a kick in the stomach,” Warner said.

The Warner family was using an education savings account to send their son to a private, Christian school this year. But after the South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday decided on the school choice law that enabled low-income parents to use education savings accounts to send their children to private schools, the Warner family will have to send their son back to a public school in the middle of the first semester of the school year.

“I dread that conversation with my son, where I have to tell him, ‘We have to go back, and you’re going to leave all these new friends that you’ve met,’” Warner told The Daily Signal.

“I’m going to have to sit down and say, ‘Hey, this isn’t going to work out, and not because of anything else, but that Dad doesn’t have the money to pay for it,’” Warner added.

The court ruled the school voucher program violates the state’s “constitutional prohibition against the use of public funds for the direct benefit of private educational institutions.”

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed the Education Savings Trust Fund Act into law in March 2023, allowing 5,000 eligible students to apply for educational scholarships worth $6,000 each.

The 3-2 court ruling orders that the program cease immediately, so students reliant on vouchers for private school tuition may have to change schools in the middle of the first semester of the school year.

Six public school parents, along with the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and the South Carolina Education Association, a branch of the far-left National Education Association teachers union, filed the lawsuit against the state Department of Education over the school choice program in October 2023.

“Our public schools already lack sufficient resources, so it makes no sense to use school vouchers to divide our limited state funds between public schools and unaccountable private schools,” plaintiff Candace Eidson said in a statement. Eidson is a Greenville County Public Schools mom.

The school voucher program would have primarily benefited low-income families, as eligible families had to have a household income of less than 200% of the 2024-25 federal poverty guideline. For a family of four, the poverty threshold is $31,200.

“This really insinuates that people who are low income don’t have the ability to make the best decision for their own families,” Warner said. “The court today basically said if you don’t make enough money, or if you’re lower income, sometimes for reasons that are not your own, then you are essentially not able to make good decisions for your own family.”

Warner said his son was much happier in private school, where days started with Bible classes. He also appreciated that at private school, he didn’t have to worry about the explicit library books he found in his son’s public school library.

“He’s going to be devastated,” Warner said of his sixth-grader. “He absolutely loves his new school and his new teachers, and he was excited about this whole thing.”

“We had seen something we had never seen before,” the father continued, “and now it feels like that light’s about to go back out again.”

At public school, Warner said he had to constantly worry about inappropriate content being taught to his son.

“We have to be focused on not just whether they’re getting their education, but also whether there’s material that’s inappropriate being placed in front of our children,” he said.

South Carolina Freedom Caucus Chairman state Rep. Jordan Pace said he would introduce a refundable tax-credit bill as an alternative to the Education Savings Trust Fund Act.

“The refundable tax-credit model is, you go to whatever school you want to go to, and then on your tax form you check a box or indicate on that on your income-tax form that you sent your child to a private school or homeschool, and not government school, and you get $7,000 back on your taxes,” Pace told The Daily Signal.

Students from South Carolina’s low-income households need educational choice, said state Rep. April Cromer, who serves on the state House Education Committee.

“We are at the bottom of the scale for education,” Cromer told The Daily Signal. “Our kids are failing basic reading and math, and I think [school choice] gives children more opportunities to level the playing field and make sure their needs are being met, and it gives the parents more options, another tool in their tool belt, which I think is important if we are ever going to try and move the ball down the field.”

In 2023, WalletHub ranked South Carolina 42nd out of 51 school systems in the country, including that of the District of Columbia.

“We have to get creative with how we’re educating our kids, because what we’re doing now is not working,” Cromer said.

McMaster said in a statement that the court’s “decision may have devastating consequences for thousands of low-income families who relied on these scholarships for their child’s enrollment in school last month.”

“It may also jeopardize the future enrollment of tens of thousands of students in state-funded, four-year-old kindergarten programs and state-funded scholarships utilized by students at private colleges and [historically black colleges and universities],” he added.

The court ruled that Education Savings Trust Fund Act funds are public funds, so they are subject to constitutional restrictions.

“We sever and find unconstitutional § 59-8-110 (13)(e), which allows payments from ESTF scholarships for ‘tuition and fees for an approved, nonpublic online education service provider or course,’” the ruling states. “We also enjoin the Department from disbursing ESTF scholarships for the tuition and fees of nonpublic educational service providers under S.C. Code Ann. § 59-8-110 (13)(a) and (l).”

The South Carolina Supreme Court’s majority opinion, written by Justice Gary Hill, said the only path forward for school choice advocates is to amend the Constitution.

“If the spending of public funds for the direct benefit of private schools is an idea the people wish to embody in our Constitution (and Respondents proclaim there is public clamor for it), the Constitution provides a ready method to amend its terms,” Hill wrote.

Chief Justice John Kittredge wrote the dissenting opinion, accusing the court’s 3-2 majority of pulling the rug out from under the feet of the General Assembly, as well as those of “the students the law was designed to serve.”

“Our duty is to serve the Constitution, the supreme policy of our land,” Kittredge wrote. “As such, our obligation is not to allow a rug to cover up well-marked constitutional ground, no matter how inconvenient that ground may prove to be to otherwise arguably salutary policies. The entire concept behind the Constitution and the rule of law is that the end cannot justify the means.”

The court ruling does a disservice, especially to single parents, said Christi Dixon, South Carolina Moms for Liberty legislative chair.

“The [education savings accounts] empowered many families in South Carolina, families that are lower income and in underserved communities that don’t have a lot of education choices,” Dixon told The Daily Signal. “It provided them with choices to meet the needs of their specific child. I think that this is a disservice to the families, especially in those communities who are single parents.”

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

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