Earlier today, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against New Hampshire’s School Choice Scholarship Act of 2012, which offers tax credits worth 85% of corporate donations to registered, non-profit scholarship organizations that fund low- and middle-income students attending non-public or home schools. The ACLU argues that since parents can use the scholarships at religious schools, the law violates two provisions of New Hampshire’s constitution: the historically anti-Catholic “Blaine Amendment” and the “compelled support” clause. Fortunately, similar scholarship tax credit (STC) laws have withstood every legal challenge thus far, including in states with very similar constitutional provisions.

The Blaine Amendment reads: “no money raised by taxation shall ever be granted or applied for the use of the schools or institutions of any religious sect or denomination.” What complicates matters for opponents of the program is that, unlike voucher programs, STC programs do not rely on “public money” or “money raised by taxation”. In a decision upholding the constitutionality of Arizona’s STC program, the Arizona state supreme court forcefully rejected the “public money” argument:

According to Black’s Law Dictionary, “public money” is “[r]evenue received from federal, state, and local governments from taxes, fees, fines, etc.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1005 (6th ed.1990). As respondents note, however, no money ever enters the state’s control as a result of this tax credit. Nothing is deposited in the state treasury or other accounts under the management or possession of governmental agencies or public officials. Thus, under any common understanding of the words, we are not here dealing with “public money.”

(N.B. – While the ruling of one state supreme court is not binding on another, state courts often consider how their peers have ruled concerning constitutional provisions with similar language.)

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So the country avoided the fiscal cliff, at least one level of it. We supposedly have the tax situation settled (unless the administration demands more increases) while spending remains essentially untouched. The latter will be dealt with in the next couple of months, we’re told.

I don’t believe that any real cutting will be done. So much spending sounds so worthy it’s nearly impossible to get a majority of politicians to ever call for meaningful reductions. Who doesn’t want to help the young, the old, the middle class, the lower class, businesses, farmers, etc.? That so much of the largesse enriches bureaucrats and Beltway bandits, and that the side effects are often worse than the “cure,” simply don’t matter.

But maybe this time all those people in Washington we supposedly elect to act on policy reality will be serious and responsible. Maybe that we spend far too much on programs that are way too ineffective – and are largely unconstitutional – will at last be acknowledged and acted upon by Congress and the White House.

Good luck. But if you want to know if the astronomically improbable is somehow happening, look no further than education. It is perfect ground for feel-good spending – it’s about helping people help themselves! – but has an absolutely dreadful record of producing net good.

Head Start – the flagship federal pre-school program – has repeatedly been shown to produce almost no lasting benefits. At the K-12 level, decades of humongous spending increases haven’t goosed achievement for 17-year-olds, our schools’ “final products.” And higher education spending? Its main accomplishment has been to fuel breathtaking price inflation, the kind of moonshot in which no federal employee should ever take pride.

Unfortunately, if the fiscal cliff tax deal is any indication – and it almost certainly is – expect no spending seriousness. Included in the deal was an extension of the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which, of course, gives every American great opportunities. Actually, its politically spun moniker notwithstanding, the thing is such a stinker it garners boos from across the ideological spectrum. Left-leaners dislike it because it skews support toward the wealthy – families making up to $160,000 a year – while libertarians and conservatives oppose it as yet another government inducement to overspend on over-priced, opulent ivory towers. Oh, and it is unconstitutional. But because it sounds so nice, it sails on.

As we careen toward Fiscal Cliff II, keep your eyes on education. If real cuts don’t head that way, you can be pretty sure nothing serious will be done – that politicians still aren’t putting policy reality above peachy-sounding politics.

Cross-posted from SeeThruEdu.com

“In public school, they were just happy you turned in your work.”

That’s the view of high-school basketball star Josh Hart, who transferred from a Maryland public high school to Sidwell Friends in Washington, D.C., where he hoped to get more attention from college basketball coaches. Here’s more of what he said to the Washington Post:

“With the academics, it was like a whole new world where they were speaking a different language,” recalled Hart, who had transferred from Wheaton. “In public school, they were just happy you turned in your work. Here, on the second day, the teacher was talking about explicating poems and I remember thinking it was going to be a long year.”

The good news is that thanks to the help of some involved parents, Hart improved his study habits and grades and is now an all-around success at Sidwell Friends. But how well are other students being served by schools where “they were just happy you turned in your work”?