Court should save textbook lending program
Effort crucial for low-income children at nonpublic schools
For six years I’ve asked myself how two disgruntled people can overturn a law that, for over 80 years, has supported a program that lends textbooks to thousands of low-income children in New Mexico, providing them with equal educational opportunities.
This is the question that the New Mexico Supreme Court will consider today as it hears oral argument in Moses v. Ruszkowski, the case involving the New Mexico Association of Nonpublic Schools (NMANS). As the state director for NMANS, I know how crucial New Mexico’s instructional materials lending program has been for many children, especially those from low-income parts of our state.
Each year I drive nearly 8,000 miles around the state visiting 70 to 80 non-public schools, many in rural areas where educational options for children are minimal. People often associate private schooling with our larger cities, but the average size of a nonpublic school is less than 125 kids, and many private schools are in small towns and rural areas like Carlsbad, Gallup and Zuni.
Often these children come from homes with a single parent working two jobs to send their children to schools that meet their individual needs. Some families, of course, are fortunate and can afford a wide range of educational options for their children, but that is not the case for most kids in New Mexico’s private schools. Nearly half of over 24,000 kids attending non-public schools in New Mexico are minorities.
Many families have relied on the textbook lending program to make their children’s education affordable. To New Mexicans, it just makes sense that their tax dollars help purchase quality science, math and history textbooks that can be used by all children, no matter where they go to school.
But because private, faithbased schools can participate in the textbook lending program, two individuals have made it their mission to dismantle the program regardless of the toll it will have on thousands of children’s educations. And they have come close to succeeding. These activists have filed a lawsuit saying that this decades-old program is against the law. On two separate occasions, lower state courts ruled to protect the program, yet the state Supreme Court ruled to end it in 2015, citing an 18th century anti-immigrant law known as a Blaine Amendment.
The New Mexico Blaine Amendment’s original purpose was to discriminate against Catholics. Now in 2018, the people most likely to be harmed by this amendment are children from low-income families.
Recent studies report that New Mexico is the lowest of all 50 states in standardized test scores and first in high school dropouts. Our nonpublic schools play an important role to combat this. One nonpublic school in Las Cruces maintains an average graduation rate of over 97 percent. Others report similar statistics annually. In 2017, nonpublic schools produced over 50 percent of our state’s National Merit Scholarship qualifiers while only representing less than 10 percent of all students in New Mexico.
Programs such as the textbook lending program make educational options more affordable for a wider range of parents who want their children to have the same opportunities as others.
Last summer the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to protect Trinity Lutheran, a Christian preschool in Missouri that was denied playground safety funding under Missouri’s Blaine Amendment because of the school’s religious affiliation. The Supreme Court emphasized that laws targeting religious organizations are unconstitutional. Following that decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered our state Supreme Court to reconsider its decision concerning the textbook lending program. Now nonpublic school families, with the help of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, will once again have the chance to be heard on this important education issue.
It is my sincere hope that the court will protect our children’s future by ruling against an effort to use an unfair and outdated law to exclude families from a program that helps to provide equal educational access for all children, rich or poor.