A Victory for Choice and Competition in North Carolina

Pro-Choice

Anti-Choice

Earlier this week the North Carolina Supreme Court struck a blow for choice and competition in K-12 Education. In Hart et al. v. State of North Carolina and Richardson et al. v. North Carolina,  the Court rejected challenges to the state's Opportunity Scholarship Program in a well-reasoned opinion by Chief Justice Martin.  Like a similar program in Washington D.C. previously discussed on this blog, the program provides financial assistance --- $4,200 per student --- to low income families who choose to enroll their children in certain private schools.  Sometimes called "vouchers," such scholarships implement  the vision of Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, who articulated the powerful case for educational choice in his now-famous essay "The Role of Government in Education," reproduced here at the website of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.

North Carolina imposes various regulatory requirements on its non-public schools.  (See here).  In addition, schools that enroll students who receive such assistance must employ nationally-recognized standardized tests annually in the third grade and afterwards to evaluate the progress of students in "grammar, reading, spelling and mathematics" and submit the results of such tests to the State's Educational Assistance Authority. ("Authority")  Such schools must also provide the parents or guardians of such students with annual progress reports, including the results of standardized tests and inform the Authority of the graduation rates of such students.  A school that enrolls 25 or more such students must report the aggregate standardized test scores of such students to the Authority, and such aggregate scores are available to the public.     Schools that enroll such students cannot discriminate based on race, color or national origin.  Moreover, the Authority must annually retain an independent research organization to assess the "learning gains or losses" of students who receive such grants as well as the "competitive effects" of the program upon the learning outcomes of students who remain in public schools.  (See N.C.G.S. Section 115C-562.1-7, found here).  

The Authority selected about 2,300 students from more than 5,500 applicants to participate in the program in its first year, at a total cost to the state of $10.8 million.

Plaintiffs, backed by the North Carolina ACLU, raised numerous objections to program.  Most notably, the plaintiffs claimed that the spending authorized by the program did not serve a "public purpose" because some of the schools in which beneficiaries enrolled are not accredited by one or more accrediting agencies and/or employed some teachers that are not certified.  See North Carolina Constitution Article V, Section 2(1) ("The power of taxation shall be exercised in a just and equitable manner, for public purposes only, and shall never be surrendered, suspended, or contracted away.") Plaintiffs also made a related claim that the program failed to "guard and maintain" the privilege of education guaranteed by Article I, Section 15 of the state constitution.  Indeed, a lower court had ruled that the "General Assembly fails the children of North Carolina when they are sent with taxpayer money to private schools that have no legal obligation to teach them anything." (Emphasis added).

The North Carolina Supreme Court properly rejected these and other claims.  As explained above, the Opportunity Scholarship Program contains numerous features, including annual testing, reports of the results to the state, and annual progress reports to parents and reports on graduation rates that enhance the accountability of private schools to families and the public.  The most important such mechanism, however, is market competition, the institution on which free societies ordinarily rely to ensure the production of high quality products and services.  Such competition, bolstered by background rules of contract and tort law, includes rivalry among various private schools as well as rivalry between private schools and their public counterparts, including the State's 147 Public Charter Schools.  Contrary to the implication of the district court's reasoning quoted above, no North Carolina children "are sent" by the state to a private school. Instead, parents or guardians voluntarily choose such schools over the free public school, and any public charter school, the child is entitled to attend.  Many middle class families already have sufficient financial resources to choose private schools for their children, and the U.S. Constitution guarantees them that right.  The Opportunity Scholarship Program increases the number of competitive options available to low income families, thereby facilitating their participation in the same educational markets, and attendance at the same schools, that middle class families have enjoyed for decades. Absent some substantial market failure, and none is apparent, there is no reason to believe that educational outcomes will suffer.  Organizations such as the ACLU, which purports to stand for "choice" and even invokes the Statue of Liberty on its logo, would do well to reconsider prior opposition to such programs, opposition that, when successful, entrenches anti-liberty state monopolies subsidized by the taxpayers, many of whom would prefer to send their children to private schools.

To be sure, accreditation and professional certification can sometimes improve the quality of products offered by some market actors.  Any such improvements come with countervailing costs, however. Such costs include the out-of-pocket cost of compliance, the cost of monitoring such compliance, the reduction in innovation resulting from regulatory mandates, and the exclusion of otherwise qualified individuals from the occupation in question.  See generally Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, Ch. 9 (1962).  At the same time, many markets for complex products function quite well without such governmental intrusion.   No certification agency decides what apps Apple will include on its latest I-Phone or whether and how Amazon will attempt to compete with Wal-Mart.  Indeed, Wake Forest University, founded in 1834, was first accredited in 1921. Davidson, founded in 1837, was first accredited in 1917.  So far as this blogger is aware, faculty who have taught at such institutions were never "certified" by any independent body.  It's hard to imagine that these institutions did not serve "public purposes" until 1921 and 1917, respectively.

Presumably the North Carolina Legislature understood the role that markets play in ensuring educational quality and took account of the costs and benefits of additional regulatory intrusion.   The legislature obviously decided that, on balance, the Opportunity Scholarship Program enhanced the public welfare by facilitating individual choice, bolstering educational competition and enhancing educational outcomes. Indeed, the State has long declined to impose stringent regulatory oversight on its private schools, trusting market competition to assure quality, and the Opportunity Scholarship Program imposes additional regulatory requirements on those schools that accept scholarship recipients.  As Chief Justice Martin eloquently explained for the Court, this determination was a quintessentially legislative judgment and, of course, subject to legislative revision as new facts about the operation of the program become available.  Hopefully the Court's decision will clear the way for an expansion of the program and thus additional reliance upon choice and competition in the provision of education in the Tar Heel State.

Should The United States Replace Seal Teams With Grand Juries?

Not a Grand Jury

Could Have Indicted Confederate Soldiers in 1861; Chose A Different Course

Over at the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf decries the lack of outrage over the Obama Administration's "secret" decision to assasinate American citizens abroad, including Anwar al-Awlaki, who have allied themselves with Al Qaeda and are thus levying war against the United States. Invoking the U.S. Constitution and an unsupported ACLU memo on International law, Friedersdorf seems to argue that the sole remedy against Americans who join foreign armies seeking to kill Americans is indictment by a Grand Jury and trial in civilian courts for Treason. Friedersdorf also asserts that, regardless whether an individual is an American Citizen, it violates International Law to launch an armed attack against a foreign enemy unless that enemy is in an "armed conflict zone." For the reasons outlined below, Friedersdorf and the ACLU that he is channeling are way off base.

1. The Constitution defines treason to include "levying war against [the United States]." Moreover, the Constitution plainly contemplates the use of military force against American citizens suspected of such treason, as it authorizes Congress to "[t]o provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions." Congress so provides by authorizing the President to call forth the militia when needed to meet these emergencies, something it has done by statute from the earliest days of the Republic. Moreover, nothing in the Constitution prevents the President from employing non-militia armed forces to put down a rebellion.

Indeed, if Friedersdorf is correct, Abraham Lincoln erred when he resisted the South's effort to secede in 1861. That is, under Friedersdorf's logic, Lincoln should have abjured military force against the Southern rebellion and instead sought indictments against the 10s of thousands of Confederate soldiers --- all American citizens according to Lincoln --- who had taken arms against the union and, I suppose, asked them to turn themselves in. Fortunately Lincoln took a different approach.

2. Friedersdorf draws a distinction between "battlefields," on the one hand, and more pacific regions, on the other. The latter are, in his view, immune from the use of military force, even when such force is employed against individuals who have declared war on the United States. He quotes a late April, 2011 ACLU Letter to President Obama for the proposition that International Law prevents the use of force against enemy combatants, whether or not they are U.S. Citizens, unless those combatants are in "armed comflict zones." That letter, it should be noted, does not limit itself to attacks on U.S. citizens, but instead decries such attacks on U.S. citizens "and others." The letter also relies on ipse dixit, that is, cites no legal authority of any sort, international or otherwise, for the proposition that it baldly asserts. (Apparently the ACLU expects the President and/or his staff to conduct the ACLU's research for it, locating legal authorities, if there are any, to support the ACLU's assertions.) Nor does the letter attempt to define the term "armed conflict zone," or explain why International Law would adopt a rule that would encourage combatants to leave "armed conflict zones" and set up shop in peaceful regions.

3. The Congress of the United States apparently has a different view of International Law. On September 18, 2011 it passed the Authorization for use of Military Force, empowering the President to employ military force against Al Qaeda and those who support it. The AUMF contains no limitation on where the President may employ such force. Nor does it purport to prevent the President from using such force outside "armed conflict zones." Congress passed the AUMF after observing the consequences of taking an ACLU-like "law enforcement" approach to Al Qaeda, even after that organization had committed several acts of War against the United States, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and expressly declared war against the United States in 1998. (See The Report of the 9-11 Commission, beginning on page 47; id. at 59-62 ("War on the United States 1992-1996")). The 1998 Grand Jury indictment of Bin Laden can be found here. The indictment was apparently ineffective.

4. Even if a treaty or other rule of international law purported to implement the approach sought by the ACLU, Congress could, if it wished, abrogate that rule as a matter of domestic Constitutional Law. That is, the Supreme Court has repeated recognized the so-called "last in time rule," under which a statute trumps a previously-passed treaty. As between the AUMF and any purported rule of international law, then, the AUMF, which expressly authorizes the unrestricted use of military force against Al Qaeda, would prevail.

5. The rule proposed by Friedersdorf and ACLU would produce odd results, to say the least. Imagine, for instance, if Al Qaeda were to take over Iran and move thousands of fighters there. The country would not be a "zone of armed conflict." Thus, under the Friedersdorf/ACLU approach, America and her allies would have to stand idly by and do nothing as this enemy gained strength. (The only exception, according to the ACLU, would be for an imminent threat; one suspects that the victims of such a "threat" would only become aware of it after it was too late.) Of course, the United States could issue a warrant for the arrest of various members of Al Qaeda, but one doubts that those indicted would surrender themselves to U.S. authorities or that the FBI could serve such warrants without great risk.

6. Indeed, the Friedersdorf/ACLU logic calls into question the recent raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, to say the least. The sleepy suburb of Abbottabad, Pakistan is no more a "zone of armed conflict" than is Yemen --- the suspected whereabouts of Anwar al-Awaki. Nor did Bin Laden on May 1 pose any qreater threat to the United States than Anwar al-Awaki. According to the ACLU, however, the United States cannot use military force against citizens or non-citizens outside a zone of armed conflict. We should all look forward to the ACLU's effort to explain its views on the legality of the recent raid in Abbottabad and how, absent such a raid, we could have eliminated Mr. Bin Laden.

7. Finally, it should be noted that Friedersdorf relies on two make weight arguments designed to make his position apparently stronger than it really is. First, he frames his argument around the President's effort to attack American citizens. However, the arguments he derives from international law apply with equal force to attacks on citizens and non-citizens alike. Second, Friedersdorf decries the "secrecy" of President Obama's order. At the same time, one doubts that Friedersdorf and others opposed to President Obama's order would feel better if the order were published in the New York Times. "At bottom" Friedersdorf is apparently arguing that, American citizen or not, an enemy's presence outside a zone of armed conflict should immunize him or her from military action, until of course that enemy chooses, at his leisure, to attack us.