Teachers and students need our help. House Bill 23-1208 helps answer the call, but only for a chosen group. The House Finance Committee will hear the bill Monday, when legislators should decide all teachers and students matter.

Teachers rank among the more important professionals in society. Without good teachers we have no doctors, scientists, engineers, first responders or most of the workers and professionals we depend on. Without good teachers, we have no future generation to fund social security, Medicaid and private pensions of future retirees. As education goes, so goes our future.

The National Education Association says more than 90% of teachers spend personal money to buy classroom supplies. We know of teachers who spend $1,000 or more each year on school supplies, making it harder to make ends meet at home.

Legislative Democrats want to help these professionals and have a half-good plan for doing so. Unfortunately, a bill designed to correct an unfair problem was written unfairly.

House Bill 1208 would give any licensed "public school" teacher a $1,000 tax refund to defray personal expenses for classroom supplies. This is a great way to let teachers decide what works best in their classrooms without going broke. The many teachers who would take bullets for their students will probably use refunds to buy more of what their students need.

The text and title limit the proposed tax break to "public school" teachers, so sponsors should rewrite and reintroduce it. If they come back with a bill that helps all teachers and students, we look forward to supporting it. If the state cannot afford $1,000 tax breaks for all teachers, lower the deduction and share the wealth.

Colorado's Blaine Amendment, which prohibited state funds from helping sectarian schools, does not withstand judicial scrutiny. After four recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings against such state laws, Blaine Amendments are dead.

More than 500 private elementary, middle and high schools throughout Colorado - in suburban, rural and urban neighborhoods - educate thousands of children of all backgrounds who might otherwise fall through the cracks. Nearly 25% of Colorado's private school students are minorities. To meet the diverse needs of children, we need all assortments of schools.

Like their public-school colleagues, private-school teachers care about the children they teach. They make the same personal sacrifices to get them what they need. These teachers typically earn less than their public-sector peers.

Whether one prefers the public or private school systems, we are fortunate to have them. Children are of equal value no matter what schools their parents or guardians send them to.

Since 2002, beginning with its ruling in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the U.S. Supreme Court has made four rulings that forbid states from discriminating between secular and sectarian private schools with tax money. The court wants states to treat children the same, with or without a cross on the classroom wall.

The ruling in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer (2017) prevented Missouri from giving grants for playground safety upgrades to secular private schools and not their sectarian counterparts. The ruling in Espinosa v. Montana (2020) determined state-based scholarship programs cannot discriminate against sectarian schools. To make perfectly clear that states cannot violate the First Amendment's guarantee of content neutrality and the free exercise of religion, the court ruled for private sectarian schools again in Carson v. Makin (2022).

Most of the state's 500-plus accredited private schools are overtly sectarian, with names like "Denver Jewish Day School," Denver's "Escuela de Guadalupe," Boulder's "Sacred Heart of Jesus," "Springs Baptist Academy" in Colorado Springs and "St. Peter Catholic School" in Monument. Many more, with names such as "Summit Classical Academy," are religious with secular-sounding names.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and other organized religions provide an enormous chunk of institutional education, which began with religion. Each private school takes a load off the public system by operating mostly on private tuition and donations from people who also fund the public schools.

This bill as written would help public school teachers and children over their contemporaries in private schools, most of them sectarian. The fact the state would also discriminate against private secular schools should not make this okay.

Children are children with diverse educational needs. They pay taxes when they buy a pack of gum. Children and teachers in public schools are not more worthy than children and teachers in other schools that contribute to our future.

Do the right thing. Help teachers buy the best supplies they see fit for the needs of all children. Rewrite and reintroduce this needlessly discriminatory bill. Make it fair for all teachers and children.

REPRINTED FROM THE COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE

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