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NV Supreme Court Says ESAs Are Unconstitutional In Current Form

Nevada's education savings account program has been put on hold, thanks to a ruling from the state Supreme Court.

In a ruling Thursday, the court sent the case back to lower courts while also putting an injunction on the program overall.

The court said funding for public primary and secondary education can't be spent on other things, as per the state constitution, and using that funding for education savings accounts was thereby unconstitutional.

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As part of the ruling, a permanent injunction has been placed on funding educational savings accounts with that K-12 funding.

However, another part of the ruling said money taken from state public education funding and given to parents to put into education savings accounts is their money, not "public funds."

In short, while the court said the current funding model for ESAs was unconstitutional, the program itself was not.

This means the state legislature could take the program up again in the future and fund it in a different way.

Casey Morell is the coordinating producer of Nevada Public Radio's flagship broadcast State of Nevada and one of the station's midday newscast announcers. (He's also been interviewed by Jimmy Fallon, whatever that's worth.)