This year, Colorado became the first state to pass a statewide voucher program after last year's landmark Zelman ruling. A legal challenge to the program was inevitable, but we were truly astonished to hear that a district judge has barred the Colorado school voucher program on the grounds that it violates "local control" of schools. (Article IX, Section 15 of the Colorado constitution provides that the local boards of education "shall have control of instruction in the public schools of their respective districts.") In his ruling, Judge Joseph E. Meyer determined that the voucher law, which allows parents to use tax dollars to attend private schools that are outside of the jurisdiction of the local school board, violates this "local control."
Of course, control of instruction in the public schools is a very different thing from controlling the funding of schools generally - a power that is clearly vested in the Colorado General Assembly and in locally elected officials who have the power to tax and spend. And as Chip Mellor, President of the Institute for Justice - the group representing the state in the case - pointed out, "the state's role in setting the agenda for education has expanded so much in recent years that there's been all kinds of intrusion on the old idea of local control. . . . Local districts don't exercise anywhere near the autonomy they did. It's been the practice for the state to set education policy and for local districts to implement that policy."
A good point, and we would add another - that school districts and school boards are administrative conveniences; they have no rights or prerogatives per se, but exercise only those powers given to them by the Colorado constitution, enacted by people of the state. Judge Meyer's ruling would seem to suggest that local school districts have "rights" that are in tension with the rights of the people to control the modes and methods of public education. This is simply nonsense. Finally, we cannot shake ourselves of the suspicion that this ruling has more to do with politics - with throwing up new hurdles to educational choice as soon as (or just before) the old, longstanding ones are cleared.
"Judge strikes down Colorado's school voucher law," by Tamar Lewin, New York Times, December 3, 2003
"Save the school choice program," editorial, Denver Post, December 4, 2003
"Judge stops Colorado's new school vouchers," by Steven K. Paulson,
Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 4, 2003
"School vouchers overturned by court," Associated Press, December 3, 2003