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is to put tax dollar expenditures and other monies used or spent by our federal, state and/or city governments before your eyes and in your hands.

Through our website, you can learn your rights as a taxpayer and parent as well as to which programs, monies and more you may be entitled...and why you may not be able to exercise these rights.

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Who We Are »
Betsy Combier

Help Us to Continue to Help Others »
Email: betsy.combier@gmail.com

 
The E-Accountability Foundation announces the

'A for Accountability' Award

to those who are willing to whistleblow unjust, misleading, or false actions and claims of the politico-educational complex in order to bring about educational reform in favor of children of all races, intellectual ability and economic status. They ask questions that need to be asked, such as "where is the money?" and "Why does it have to be this way?" and they never give up. These people have withstood adversity and have held those who seem not to believe in honesty, integrity and compassion accountable for their actions. The winners of our "A" work to expose wrong-doing not for themselves, but for others - total strangers - for the "Greater Good"of the community and, by their actions, exemplify courage and self-less passion. They are parent advocates. We salute you.

Winners of the "A":

Johnnie Mae Allen
David Possner
Dee Alpert
Aaron Carr
Harris Lirtzman
Hipolito Colon
Larry Fisher
The Giraffe Project and Giraffe Heroes' Program
Jimmy Kilpatrick and George Scott
Zach Kopplin
Matthew LaClair
Wangari Maathai
Erich Martel
Steve Orel, in memoriam, Interversity, and The World of Opportunity
Marla Ruzicka, in Memoriam
Nancy Swan
Bob Witanek
Peyton Wolcott
[ More Details » ]
 
Supreme Court Ruling Gives Religious Schools More Access to State Aid
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states must allow religious schools to participate in programs that provide scholarships to students attending private schools. The decision, a victory for conservatives, was the latest in a series of Supreme Court rulings that the free exercise of religion bars the government from treating religious groups differently from secular ones. It opens the door to more public funding of religious education.
          
   Kendra Espinoza, the lead plaintiff in the case, with her daughters, Naomi and Sarah, outside the Supreme Court in Washington in January. Credit. Jessica Gresko/Associated Press   
Supreme Court Ruling Gives Religious Schools More Access to State Aid
Adam Liptak, NY TIMES, June 30, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/supreme-court-religious-schools-aid.html

Religious schools are not exempt from access to scholarships and funds intended for private schools, the justices ruled, in a victory for conservatives.

ESPINOZA ET AL. v. MONTANA DEPARTMENT OF
REVENUE ET AL.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states must allow religious schools to participate in programs that provide scholarships to students attending private schools.

The decision, a victory for conservatives, was the latest in a series of Supreme Court rulings that the free exercise of religion bars the government from treating religious groups differently from secular ones. It opens the door to more public funding of religious education.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the majority opinion in the 5-to-4 ruling. The court’s four more liberal members dissented.

“A state need not subsidize private education,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “But once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

The case involved a Montana program enacted in 2015 “to provide parental and student choice in education.” The program was financed by private contributions eligible for tax credits, and it provided scholarships to students in private schools.

Soon after the program started, a state agency said students attending religious schools were not eligible in light of a provision of the state’s Constitution that bars the use of government money for “any sectarian purpose or to aid any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect or denomination.”

Three mothers with children at Stillwater Christian School, in Kalispell, Mont., sued, saying that provision of the state Constitution violated the protections of religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

The Montana Supreme Court ruled against them, shutting down the entire program for all schools, religious or not.



How the court ruled

In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the court ruled, 5 to 4, that states may not exclude religious schools from programs that provide scholarships to students attending private schools.


The decision built on earlier rulings on the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion. In 2017, for instance, in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, the Supreme Court ruled that Missouri had violated the First Amendment by barring religious institutions from a state program to make playgrounds safer, even though the state’s Constitution called for strict separation of church and state.

“The exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority.

At the same time, writing for four justices, Chief Justice Roberts emphasized the narrowness of the court’s decision. “This case involves express discrimination based on religious identity with respect to playground resurfacing,” he wrote. “We do not address religious uses of funding or other forms of discrimination.”

A 2004 Supreme Court decision, Locke v. Davey, allowed Washington State to offer college scholarships to all students except those pursuing degrees in devotional theology. That case involved direct support for religion, Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the Trinity Lutheran case. Playgrounds, he argued, were a different matter.

The program at issue in the Montana case, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, No. 18-1195, was somewhere in the middle. It involved elements of religious instruction, but it did not concern a targeted exclusion of state support for vocational religious instruction.

Adam Liptak covers the Supreme Court and writes Sidebar, a column on legal developments. A graduate of Yale Law School, he practiced law for 14 years before joining The Times in 2002. @adamliptak


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