A school district’s groundbreaking private school voucher plan violates Colorado’s Constitution, a state judge has ruled.
District Court Judge Michael A. Martinez granted an injunction barring the Douglas County school district from implementing its Choice Scholarship Pilot Program, holding that groups challenging the program have established that it violates several state constitutional provisions. In his opinion, Judge Martinez wrote that the program would provide “impermissible aid to private school partners to further their missions of religious indoctrination to purportedly ‘public’ school students.”
Under the plan adopted by the school board in March, the district intends to pay about $4,575 per student, about 75 percent of state per-pupil funding, to private schools for up to 500 students to attend for at least a year. Board members, who plan to fight the ruling, have said the program would save money, promote competition in education, and provide choices to parents.
