A father in Colorado pays out of pocket for preschool while his taxes fund other childrens preschool educations. One of his children has spina bifida, and the family stays in Colorado because Medicaid covers her needs better than anywhere else. An extra $6,000 would go a long way toward helping care for her.
A mother who works at a lumber company, married to a house painter whose work slows every winter, has six children and a seventh on the way. She once assumed Catholic school was only “for rich people.”
Another mother started a florist business to help pay tuition. Three of her children attend a Catholic school in Denver, but she could not afford preschool there for her youngest, who now attends a Lutheran preschool in the state program.
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“Im choosing just a faith,” she says, “and here Im being punished for that.”
A fourth parent took a lower-paying job at her childrens parish school for a tuition discount, and she has watched families leave because of the cost of pre-K.
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I filed an amicus brief with the on behalf of these Catholic families in St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, which the court will hear on Nov. 3. Dan and Lisa Sheley, parents who joined the Archdiocese of Denver and two parishes in challenging the state in court, tell a similar story. The Sheleys have seven children, five already at St. Marys, and have spent thousands of dollars out of pocket on a faith-based preschool education the state will not help fund.
s “universal” preschool program was supposed to help families like them. It doesnt, and the reason is a single clause. To participate, a school must promise “equal opportunity,” a provision that covers sexual orientation and gender identity, and Catholic schools cannot agree to it without abandoning church teaching on the nature of marriage, human sexuality and identity. Colorado never has to say “Catholic.” It only has to write a rule that Catholic schools cannot meet.
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America has seen that move before, under the Blaine amendments, and they are back.
In 1875, at a time of great anti-Catholic bigotry, Speaker of the House James G. Blaine proposed a constitutional amendment barring public money from The real target was Catholic immigrants. The public schools of the day were Protestant, with daily instruction, prayers and hymns built around the King James Bible.
Catholic families that sought instruction for their children in their faith tradition built schools of their own. Blaines amendment passed the House overwhelmingly and fell just short in the Senate. The states took up the cause, and roughly three dozen wrote versions into their constitutions. None said “Catholic.” None needed to. As Justice Clarence Thomas observed in Mitchell v. Helms (2000), it was an open secret that “sectarian” was code for “Catholic.”
Colorado has built the modern version. Its program gives eligible 4-year-olds a benefit worth around $6,000 a year at the school their parents choose. The price of participation is the “equal opportunity” clause, which Catholic schools cannot pay. So they are out.
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