This morning, a Florida circuit court judge dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit by the members of the education establishment against the 13-year old Florida Tax-Credit Scholarship law, which grants tax credits to corporations that make donations to nonprofit scholarship organizations. About 70,000 low-income students in Florida currently receive tax-credit scholarships to attend the schools of their choice. Travis Pillow of RedefinEd (a blog connected to the scholarship organization Step Up for Students) has the story:

The statewide teachers union, the Florida PTA, the Florida School Boards Association and other groups filed the lawsuit in August, arguing the tax credit scholarship program unconstitutionally created a “parallel” system of publicly supported schools and violated a state constitutional provision barring state aid for religious institutions.

Judge George Reynolds, however, dismissed the case this morning. The plaintiffs, he ruled, could not show the scholarships harmed public schools, and could not challenge the program as taxpayers because it was not funded through the state budget.

Claims the lawsuit would harm public schools were purely “speculative,” Reynolds wrote, siding with arguments made by the state and parents who had intervened in the case. The plaintiffs could not show the program would hurt school districts’ per-pupil funding, or result in “any adverse impact on the quality of education” in public schools.

In dismissing the lawsuit on these grounds, the judge is following the precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court and the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

In ACSTO v. Winn (2011), the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the standing of plaintiffs against Arizona’s tax-credit scholarship law because the scholarships constitute private funds, not government expenditures. Private funds, the Court ruled, do not become government property until they have “come into the tax collector’s hands.” Moreover, any impact on other taxes or spending is purely speculative, so the plaintiffs could not demonstrate any harm:

The costs of education may be a significant portion of Arizona’s annual budget, but the tax credit, by facilitating the operation of both religious and secular private schools, could relieve the burden on public schools and provide cost savings to the State. Even if the tax credit had an adverse effect on Arizona’s budget, problems would remain. To find a particular injury in fact would require speculation that Arizona lawmakers react to revenue shortfalls by increasing respondents’ tax liability.

Last year, in Duncan v. New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Supreme Court unanimously dismissed a lawsuit against the Granite State’s tax-credit scholarship law for the same reasons:

The personal injuries alleged by the petitioners in this case […] are insufficient to establish standing. The petitioners’ claim that the program will result in “net fiscal losses” to local governments does not articulate a personal injury. […] Moreover, the purported injury asserted here — the loss of money to local school districts — is necessarily speculative. […] Even if the tax credits result in a decrease in the number of students attending local public schools, it is unclear whether, as the petitioners allege, local governments will experience “net fiscal losses.” The prospect that this will occur requires speculation about whether a decrease in students will reduce public school costs and about how the legislature will respond to the decrease in students attending public schools, assuming that occurs.

This morning, the Florida judge reached the same, logical conclusion. The plaintiffs are not challenging “a program funded by legislative appropriations” so they lack standing to sue. Moreover, citing both of the above opinions, the judge concluded that any “injury” they allege is purely speculative:

Plaintiff’s Complaint also does not allege special injury sufficient to confer standing on Plaintiffs to challenge the constitutionality of the Tax Credit Program. […] [W]hether any diminution of public school resources resulting from the Tax Credit Program will actually take place is speculative, as is any claim that any such diminution would result in reduced per-pupil spending or in any adverse impact on the quality of education.

The plaintiffs are likely to appeal. And they are likely to lose that appeal. Last September, another circuit court judge dismissed a separate teachers union lawsuit alleging that the legislation expanding the tax-credit scholarship law was passed improperly. That judge also held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue because they could not demonstrate any harm.

Perhaps the education establishment should spend less time trying to prevent students from leaving their schools and more time trying to improve their schools so families will choose them.