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Carpe Diem: Fix the Nevada ESA Funding Issue
In 2015, Nevada lawmakers passed the most ambitious educational choice law in the nation: a nearly universal education savings account (ESA) program. The program was scheduled to launch this year, but it immediately drew two separate lawsuits from opponents of educational choice. As I reported last week, the Supreme Court of Nevada upheld the constitutionality of the ESAs, but ruled that the program was improperly funded. Choice opponents were quick to declare that the ESA program is dead, but as Tim Keller of the Institute for Justice noted, the program is only mostly dead, which means it is slightly alive.
Whether the program is fully revived depends entirely on the lawmakers who won plaudits for enacting it in the first place. On Monday, the legislature will meet in a special session to consider whether to subsidize the construction of a football stadium for the Raiders. Fixing the ESA funding would be a much more productive and beneficial use of their time. Sadly, Governor Brian Sandoval announced this week that ESAs would not be on the agenda:
If you want an example of the federal government’s myriad failures, the Navajo Nation is a good place to start. Despite billions of dollars of Washington spending, and clumsy micromanagement by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Education, and the HHS, more than 40 percent of the region’s residents live below the poverty line and the median household income is just $20,005.
