Council of Organizations and Others for Education About Parochiaid

HISTORY OF COUNCIL ABOUT PAROCHIAD - PAGE 2 The new constitutional language that remains in the current state constitution reads as follows: State Constitution:Article VIIIEducation (excerpt)§ 2 Free public elementary and secondary schools; discrimination. Sec. 2. The legislature shall maintain and support a system of free public elementary and secondary schools as defined by law. Every school district shall provide for the education of its pupils without discrimination as to religion, creed, race, color or national origin. No public monies or property shall be appropriated or paid or any public credit utilized, by the legislature or any other political subdivision or agency of the state directly or indirectly to aid or maintain any private, denominational or other nonpublic, pre-elementary, elementary, or secondary school. No payment, credit, tax benefit, exemption or deductions, tuition voucher, subsidy, grant or loan of public monies or property shall be provided, directly or indirectly, to support the attendance of any student or the employment of any person at any such nonpublicschool or at any location or institution where instruction is offered in whole or in part to such nonpublic school students. The legislature may provide for the transportation of students to and from any school. The campaign has not been easy. CAP's efforts had been opposed by the Michigan Catholic Conference, the Michigan Association for Non-Public Schools, the Christian Reformed Schools, and the Michigan Federation of the Council for Educational Freedom. The Michigan Catholic Conference issued a pre-election news release predicting that most of the state's over 500 Catholic schools would close if Proposal C were approved. Attorney General Frank Kelley claimed that the petitions were flawed but then was overruled by the Michigan Court of Appeals. Kelley also issued opinions for the State Board of Education holding that shared time and auxiliary services would be eliminated if the measure passed. Both Governor Milliken and State Superintendent of Public Instruction John Porter issued statements claiming that the proposed amendment would do such things as end drivers' education for non-public schools, jeopardize the property tax exemption for nonpublic schools and possibly even preclude private schools from getting police and fire protection.

The campaign even played into the gubernatorial campaign between Milliken and Democratic State Senator Sander Levin. When Levin, like Milliken, announced his opposition for the anti-parochiaid ban, some analysts believe it may have decreased the ardor of Levin's supporters, including the Michigan Education Association. Meanwhile, the State Supreme Court ruled that the use of $22 million for parochial schoolteachers' salaries was constitutional in a four to two decision; this decision was reversed in 1971, with the court then holding that the people had decided the issue when Proposal C was approved. At this point, less than half of the $22 million had been appropriated.

CAP's next big test came in 1978. At this time, support for parochiaid came from a slightly different angle, the perspective of parental choice, in contrast to support in the 1960's which had come in part from concerns that non-public schools would close en masse and that closing nonpublic schools would result in overcrowding of public schools. Voucher supporters claimed that their proposal did not violate the First Amendment since the tax benefits adhered to the parents of the non-public school children, not to the school itself. CAP's response to this argument was that the impact of the aid, as expressed by the U.S Supreme Court decision in Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist (413 U.S. 756, 1973) was "unmistakably to provide desired financial support for non-public, sectarian institutions."

CAP and its 21 member organizations at this time vigorously and successfully opposed this proposal, known as "Proposal H". Proposal H was resoundingly defeated at the polls by a vote of 2,075,583 to 718,440. The proposal did not prevail in a single Michigan county, despite the fact that the Catholic Conference strongly supported the proposal, and more than a few counties had populations of 70% or greater from the Roman Catholic community This particular election was a contentious one for supporters of public schools, given that several other controversial ballot proposals with an impact on property taxes, then the major source of public school funding, were also on the ballot at the time.