By Linda Hardman
Legislative Chair, DWGC
On September 11, The South Carolina Supreme Court issued a ruling that ended vouchers to private schools in South Carolina. In a 3-2 decision, the ruling says that the voucher portion of the Education Scholarship Trust Fund (ESTF) that was signed into law in May of 2023 is unconstitutional. Opponents of vouchers said the ruling is a big win for public schools, while voucher supporters maintain that it will hurt low and moderate-income families who want more educational choices for their children.
The trust fund law had allowed families to apply for up to $6000 from a fund managed by the South Carolina Department of Education. Families would be issued money through an Education Savings Account from which they could pay private school tuition, among other educational costs. The General Assembly made $30 million available in this year’s budget to cover the $6000 scholarships available to up to five thousand families. Just under three thousand families applied. In two years, that program was to triple in size—$90 million available to fifteen thousand families.
The effort has been in litigation since October 2023 when the South Carolina Education Association and a group of parents sued the state Education Department as well as Governor Henry McMaster, the state treasurer’s office and leaders of the General Assembly on the grounds that it violated the state’s constitution. This is not the first time the state’s Supreme Court has stricken down a program that directs public funds to private schools. In 2020, McMaster tried to use COVID-19 funds to aid private schools, but in a unanimous verdict, the court blocked it.
Sherry East, president of the South Carolina Education Association, applauded the court’s latest decision while acknowledging the state’s voucher supporters would likely keep fighting. “The pro-voucher people will try to find a workaround, since they’ve been at for at least twenty years. The Palmetto Promise Institute (ultra-conservative State Department of Education Superintendent Ellen Weaver’s previous brainchild), which has long supported a voucher program, said the decision affects 2,880 low and moderate-income families that were wet to receive ESTF scholarships through a state portal.
The ruling found that the vouchers portion of the legislation violated Article IX, Section 4 of South Carolina’s 1895 state Constitution and a 1972 update, which contains language barring public money from directly funding private schools. The South Carolina School Boards Association commended the court’s message that “public education is a public good…that should not be undermined by diverting funds to private interests.
The ruling does not strike down the entire ESTF, said Patrick Kelly, director of government affairs for the Palmetto State Teachers Association. Remaining in place are provisions for public funds that families could use for therapy, tutoring, national exam fees, and other education-related services. “The law allows those funds to be used on over ten different uses,” Kelly said. “What the court ruled narrowly is that allowing those funds to flow to private schools is in violation of the state constitution and therefore cannot stand, but the allowance of families using those funds for the other activities is allowed by the constitution, and that can remain in place.” Those public funds, if directed to a private school, are directly benefitting the private school, and the constitution says you cannot do that. The General Assembly cannot do that. The constitution is silent on whether public funds can be used for other educational services, which is why those were not affected by the ruling, according to Kelly.
Governor McMaster said the court’s decision may have “devastating consequences” for families whose children used scholarships to enroll in school this fall. He said his office would ask the court to reconsider its decision “expeditiously.” State Education Superintendent Ellen Weaver said she would work with the governor’s office and General Assembly to support a path to “educational freedom” for all South Carolina families. “These students deserve better, and I will not rest until they get it,” she said.
Brian Hicks, of the Post and Courier, wrote, “The odds of South Carolina’s legislature fixing your particular problem next year just got a little longer because the school voucher vultures are going to suck up all the time and air in the Statehouse to find some way to remedy their own little “crisis.” Everything else will likely become a secondary concern. You know, like fixing roads and schools.”