State Continues to Mislead Families On Voucher Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 1, 2017

 

Contacts:

Annette Magnus, Battle Born Progress, annette@battlebornprogress.org

Sylvia Lazos, Educate Nevada Now, sylvialazos@gmail.com

Chris Daly, Nevada State Education Association, chris.daly@nsea-nv.org

Holly Welborn, ACLU of Nevada, welborn@aclunv.org

 

State Continues to Mislead Families On Voucher Program

Treasurer’s office defies Nevada Supreme Court order

Las Vegas, NV –  “The State Treasurer’s office must stop misleading parents into applying for private school vouchers and should respect the legislative process.” This is the position of the #PublicMoneyPublicSchools coalition after the office of State Treasurer Dan Schwartz sent out a press release encouraging families to keep applying for Education Savings Accounts, the illegal private school voucher program.

In September 2016, the Nevada Supreme Court found the voucher program created by Senate Bill 302 unconstitutional and required the state to cease implementation and permanently enjoin the voucher program.

This is not the first time the Treasurer’s office has defied the order of the Supreme Court. Late last year the ACLU of Nevada (coalition partner in #PublicMoneyPublicSchools) released a statement condemning the State Treasurer’s Office and Treasurer Dan Schwartz for misleading parents by encouraging them to continue their application.  Educate Nevada Now submitted testimony on February 7 to the Senate Finance Committee documenting Treasurer Schwartz’s activities that misled parents as to the legal status and availability of Education Savings Accounts.  Education Law Center’s David Sciarra called out Treasurer Schwartz for “brazenly” misleading Nevada families, last February,  in a Las Vegas Sun op-ed.  What Sciarra said two months ago still holds true, “Schwartz is doing a great disservice to the families he’s pitched to sign up for ESAs and to every Nevada resident and taxpayer.”

Furthermore, the current voucher proposal SB 506, would place administration of a prospective program in the hands of the Nevada Department of Education not the Treasurer’s Office.

Encouraging parents to continue applying misleads Nevada families, it ignores the order of the Nevada Supreme court, and defies the legislative process.  The coalition argues that vouchers hurt students, families, and taxpayers by sending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to private schools that are not held accountable for student achievement.

 

About: The #PublicMoneyPublicSchools coalition includes Educate Nevada Now, the Nevada State Education Association, the ACLU of Nevada, and Battle Born Progress to demand that legislators invest in our public school students — not in vouchers.

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