Court Opinion

ID: 9714334
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:35:19.191817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:25.293069
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring specially.
I concur in all the Chief Justice has written concerning the issues raised in these cases. Although our decision does not necessarily conclude that the applicable North Dakota statutes have utilized the “least restrictive” or “less drastic” means to accomplish the objectives of education, that issue was discussed at length in the briefs and at oral argument. I add these thoughts on that issue because it may be the significant issue in future decisions.
Counsel for the parents urged that other methods, such as standardized achievement testing, would be a less restrictive method of accomplishing the State’s interest in providing a good education for our youth. Whether or not the standardized achievement testing would provide the State with the information necessary is not, as the Chief Justice has noted, revealed in the record. More significantly, however, standardized achievement testing may not, in fact, be the less restrictive alternative to the present statutory requirements. The testing alternative would appear to give the State the authority to require not only that certain basic subjects must be taught but would vest in the State, or some agency other than the school, the authority, through testing, to dictate exactly what will be taught and, as a result, to regulate the thought processes of the students. If the students in the nonpublic schools do not think, and thus respond, on the tests as the State believes they should think and respond, the schools presumably would not meet State standards permitting the students of those schools to be exempt from attendance at the public schools.
It appears to me that a statute requiring nonpublic schools to teach certain basic subjects for a specified minimum number of days, using certified teachers, may be considerably less restrictive and cause less State interference than a requirement whereby the State is empowered to control through testing the precise content of what is to be taught in those schools.