A Michigan judge has blocked a state program that would have given private schools money to help them comply with state mandates. Because the state Constitution broadly bars funding private schools, the temporary order should be made permanent — until that Constitution is changed.

In 1970, Michigan’s voters amended their Constitution to prohibit spending public money to “aid” any private school, religious or secular. Recent Legislatures decided to help private schools anyway. The budgets for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 school years (the latter of which is awaiting the governor’s signature) say as much as $2.5 million per year could go to reimbursing the schools for such things as background checks and fire drills.

In an oral, preliminary ruling, Judge Cynthia Stephens forbade the state to disburse the money for now. That doesn’t mean she’ll overturn the program when the time comes for a final decision.

The state argues that a 1971 Michigan Supreme Court ruling gave the constitutional amendment a narrow enough reading to permit the reimbursements. And it says calling reimbursing state-imposed costs “aid” would be “a bit like a boy who brags about heroically ‘aiding’ his little brother’s extrication from a muddy ditch — after shoving him in.”

That last argument is appealing, and in light of the 1971 case, the state may have an argument. Nevertheless, constitutional amendments ratified in referenda should not be interpreted so narrowly as to thwart the will of the people. The people of Michigan prohibited their Legislature from funding private schools. Indeed, the amendment they ratified, which forbids “directly or indirectly” funding any student to attend or any employee to work at a private school, seems designed to prevent the state from finding loopholes. And that’s what the state is trying to do here: find loopholes.

The courts should not let the state get away with it.

Instead of trying to subvert the will of the people, the Michigan Legislature should propose a constitutional amendment and ask the voters to untie its hands with respect to private schools. At a minimum, Michigan should be allowed to reimburse private schools for the cost of meeting noninstructional requirements it imposes on them. Ideally, the Legislature should be authorized to consider a voucher program.

But that’s the people of Michigan’s call to make.

First Published July 12, 2017, 4:00 a.m.