Comments on: Work for IJ http://www.theagitator.com/2009/03/24/work-for-ij/ It rankles me when somebody tries to tell somebody what to do. Sat, 15 Jun 2013 01:10:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Bob Ewing http://www.theagitator.com/2009/03/24/work-for-ij/comment-page-1/#comment-254697 Bob Ewing Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:13:08 +0000 http://www.theagitator.com/?p=12563#comment-254697 Thanks so much for the thoughtful question.

The Institute for Justice vigorously defends school choice programs, both in court and in the court of public opinion, including school choice programs for children with special needs. Four states currently have such programs on the book, Florida, Ohio, Utah and Arizona.

IJ is currently defending Arizona’s two school choice programs for children with special needs. Neither program offers scholarships in amounts that exceed basic state aid. In other words, the children participating in these programs receive less money to attend a private school than they would receive to attend a public school.

Unfortunately, the Arizona Supreme Court today released a decision declaring Arizona’s special needs scholarships unconstitutional. While IJ certainly supports the efforts underway in many states to create new school choice programs, IJ is not lobbying for any particular bill, nor has IJ taken a position on how much any particular program should fund the students who participate.

Here is our release on today’s decision: http://ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2650&Itemid=165

And here a brief video on Andrea Weck, the lead client in the case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gGMfGnvrD4&feature=channel_page

]]> By: anonymous http://www.theagitator.com/2009/03/24/work-for-ij/comment-page-1/#comment-254442 anonymous Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:45:26 +0000 http://www.theagitator.com/?p=12563#comment-254442 Here’s my question that I wish IJ would address- a large percentage of their cases consist of representing special needs kids who would like to have vouchers or funding to attend private schools. However, they are not generally asking for the amount spent per child at public school, but for amounts closer to $50,000 per year. I’m not saying this isn’t justified (I actually do favor kids with special needs receiving more benefits). However, this response is not so libertarian either. In other words, those kids already have the choice of going to private school, but IJ advocates for them to have hugely disproportionate amounts of money to do so. I’m not really against the side of the parents, per se, but I don’t really see how this makes things any more “libertarian.” If any IJ people are reading this, could you please respond! Thanks.

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