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Key Facts

1. Opponents of school choice often cite Washington’s Blaine Amendment to block legislation designed to give deserving families public funds to send their children to private school.  
2. The 1889 Blaine Amendment is an outdated relic of Washington’s bigoted past, and after 140 years, it has no relevancy to us today, except as a barrier to education reform.
3. Based on a better understanding of the Blaine Amendment, the courts have moved away from a strict separationist perspective on church and state towards a greater accommodation of religion.
4. The courts have established that public funds can be used to pay tuition at a religious school because it is the private individual, not the state, who decides to use public funds for this purpose. 
5. In Higher Education, students can use federal aid to pay tuition at private universities.
6. No one says that a public school teacher or other public official is misusing tax money when she sends her child to a private religious school.
7. The Blaine Amendment should not be used to block low-income, minority families from receiving the same opportunity to send their children to a private school that public school teachers and employees enjoy.  

Introduction

The 1889 Blaine Amendment is often cited by education reform opponents to block families from benefitting from public services.  Although many learning alternatives are not religiously affiliated, the Blaine Amendment is rooted in 19th century anti-religious bigotry that sought to exclude people of faith from participating in certain aspects of public life.  Like all bigotry, this view is based on ignorance and has no place in policy discussions in today’s legislature.

An open-minded and inclusive approach to improving schools is based on the understanding that all children, regardless of a family’s background, ethnicity or religious affiliation, deserve equal access to a good education.  Other states, rightly, have not allowed the Blaine Amendment’s harsh dictates to stop innovative programs that benefit all families.  

The following is testimony provided to the Senate Law and Justice Committee on October 24th, 2017, in the Spokane Valley City Hall. The testimony describes the Blaine Amendment’s dark history, and how reform critics try to use it, even today, to block positive and constructive legislation. 

Download the full Legislative Memo