Posted on 09/25/2001 9:36:37 AM PDT by Alissa
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Tuesday it will decide whether vouchers, a program endorsed by President Bush that uses tax dollars to pay student tuition at religious schools, are constitutional.
The justices, getting an early start on their new term that begins next Monday, agreed to review a U.S. appeals court ruling that struck down an experimental private school voucher program in Cleveland on the grounds it violated constitutional church-state separation.
The high court accepted the recommendation of the Bush administration to resolve once and for all whether such programs were a permissible way to expand educational choices for children enrolled in failing public schools.
``This is probably the most important church-state case in the last half-century,'' said Barry Lynn of the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State. ``It will be a historic showdown over government funding of religion.''
Voucher supporters agreed on the case's significance.
``This is the most important educational opportunity case since Brown v. Board of Education,'' Clint Bolick of the group Institute for Justice said, referring to the landmark 1954 ruling that ended school segregation.
The Cleveland program has allowed some 4,000 students from mostly low-income families to receive tuition vouchers of up to $2,500 apiece to attend other private or public schools if their parents decided local schools did not meet their needs.
The appeals court struck down the program because it used tax money to pay student tuition for schools with a religious affiliation, promoting religious education.
CASE MAY HAVE SWEEPING NATIONAL CONSEQUENCES
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the closely watched case early next year, with a decision due by the end of June. If the court upholds the Cleveland program, it would have sweeping national consequences for education policy.
The Supreme Court, with a 5-4 conservative majority, has handed down a string of recent rulings that lowered the wall of church-state separation by allowing some state involvement with religious schools. But it has never decided the voucher issue.
Supporters of vouchers maintained they promote competition in education and force public schools to improve while opponents argued they threaten the fiscal integrity of the nation's public school system.
School vouchers were a centerpiece of Bush's education platform during his presidential campaign.
The Ohio Pilot Project Scholarship program started in 1995 and covered kindergarten through eighth grade. The only other larger voucher program involving religious schools was in Milwaukee.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson, the Bush administration's top courtroom lawyer, said the Ohio program ``distributes educational aid on neutral terms ... without regard to religion.''
He said private choice helped ensure that the government was not seen as endorsing religion.
In one appeal to the Supreme Court, Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery said the case presented ``a fundamental constitutional issue of profound importance to education policy in the United States.'' Alabama, Delaware, Mississippi, Nebraska and South Carolina all supported the appeal.
Private schools in Cleveland and five Cleveland families participating in the program also filed appeals.
Opponents of the program, including the American Civil Liberties Union, argued the appeals should be rejected.
They said the appeals court in its ruling properly applied a 1973 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a private school tuition payment program.
How about abolishing federal education money (which by definition will come with strings attached, meaning the feds are paying the states with our money to do things we probably don't agree with), and reducing the income tax by the same amount?? If the states feel they need the funding, they can put it to a vote of the citizens of the state or municipality.
Or better yet, repeal compulsory attendance laws, and have all schools be private with local government assistance for those that truly cannot afford the cost. (And, of course, don't forget to reduce the local tax burden by the same amount!!)
With money comes power. Unfortunately it's our money giving them power.
I have paid a premium for my home, in part, due to the fact that the school system is considered the absolute best in the state. My concern is that I will lose property value if vouchers are implemented "for the children."
You paid that premium of your own free will. It is not the business of government to insure your investment.
. . . "They are socialist union thugs, bent on maintaining the wage-slave status of the industry, whilst filling their own deep pockets" . . .
> > > > Damn . . . I just hate it when you're RIGHT! < < < <
They (NEA) are also one of the largest, if not the largest, contributor of campaign funds to the democRATic party. Expect a "jihad" by the lIberal lefties and their allies in a "fight to the death" to influence SCOTUS against vouchers.
FReegards . . .
Avoids all these nasty Constitutional questions, drains $$$ from overbearing government, and allows parents to choose the education they want for their children.
What would your comment to him be?
That is my point. It is the Dept. of Education which distributes Federal Money to local school districts, and thereby controls their policies and curricula. Eliminate them and their money, take back the taxes, and use your own money to establish your own schools.
Not to sound too melodramatic, but to provide a good education to the next generation benefits us all. This is an investment we need to take seriously, whether we personally are parents or not.
Why is it parents can have "choice" in ending their child's life but not have a "choice' in the educational system that educates their living child?
Why do they government school educators worry about disturbing the "fiscal integrity of the nation's public school system"? Aren't they really admitting that the outflow from their controlled environment would be embarrassing?
And the judges will vote - - 5 Yea and 3 Nay - my good guess.
It doesn't follow that the education should happen in a public school. That education is of benefit to those who don't have children is an additional argument for vouchers.
Excellent post!
I recall that a American Government textbook I once had refered to Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist as "extreme conservatives", to O'Conner and Kennedy as "conservatives", and Breyer, Scouter, Stevens, and Ginsburg as "moderates."
We're on the same side here. I want good schools with accountability. And there should not be a monopoly on education.
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