Posted on 06/27/2002 3:35:16 PM PDT by Jean S
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The Supreme Court ruling upholding the use of taxpayer money to send children to religious and other private schools will encourage the establishment of school voucher programs nationwide, experts predicted Thursday.
"It took one of the biggest arguments off the table," said Paul E. Peterson, a voucher researcher and director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University.
"The ruling now focuses the attention on the other important argument - do vouchers help kids, are they the best for kids," Peterson said. "That argument will come out on to the table across the country."
Currently, voucher programs operate only in Cleveland, Milwaukee and Florida. Experts said they expected state legislatures elsewhere to take up the issue.
The court's 5-4 decision, which addressed the 6-year pilot program in Cleveland, said public money can be used for tuition at religious schools as long as parents can choose among a range of religious and secular schools.
The Milwaukee program, which was the nation's first when it began in 1990, started with 300 students in seven private schools. It now has more than 10,800 students in 103 private schools, and critics feared the court decision will help it grow even larger.
"The crux of it is, you are using taxpayers' money to indoctrinate children in a religious belief," said Anne Gaylor, president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation in Madison, Wis.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott McCallum said the Milwaukee program is likely to face continued political and ideological assaults.
"This will be a constant battle. We will need to constantly prove ourselves, which is good," he said.
Florida's 1999 voucher law was the first to cover an entire state. It limits eligibility to students at public schools that fail a state grading system two years out of four - about 9,000 students at last count.
The Florida law has been challenged in court and critics said they would press the case despite the Supreme Court decision.
Despite the endorsement from the nation's high court, Ohio Gov. Bob Taft and state school Superintendent Susan Tave Zelman said the Cleveland program won't yet be changed and that the state will continue to evaluate whether it helps low-performing students.
"The Supreme Court is back on the first test - the voucher program is constitutional," Zelman said. "But the jury's still out on the second test - how well this program raises the academic performance of our students."
Zelman said research so far is inconclusive on whether the Cleveland program improves student achievement. A study to answer that question is under way.
Ohio lawmakers implemented the Cleveland program in 1996 when the city's public school system was in shambles. Vouchers were designed to give poor children choices, though critics said they would take money away from struggling public school systems.
The program allows parents to use taxpayer money, between $1,875 and $2,250 per student, to send their children to religious and other private schools in Cleveland or to public schools in adjacent districts for grades kindergarten through eight. The program began with about 2,000 children, and now has about 4,400 children.
Attorney General Betty Montgomery said she expects more parents will enroll their children now.
"We fully anticipate this program will blossom," she said.
Clive Belfield, an education and economics professor at Columbia University, said school-choice advocates will probably use the Supreme Court ruling to push for vouchers to be used in more inner-city school districts, regardless of whether such programs improve education significantly.
"Voucher proponents say freedom of choice is the main issue," he said.
Republican Sen. George Voinovich, who as governor initiated vouchers in Ohio, said states once interested in creating such programs were waiting until the court case was settled.
"Now that that issue is over, I think many of them will give it serious consideration again, particularly in states and districts where they have failing schools," he said.
AP-ES-06-27-02 1815EDT
I'm stunned. This decision promises to fundamentally alter the nature of education for our children in a very positive way. It's probably the most important Supreme Court decision since Roe v. Wade, and there is very little discussion of it here at FR.
All you anti-Bush morons had better smell the coffee on these type of decisions and not act like little temper tots because everything you want can not be had today!
Also focuses on cost control - like why private schools with low-paid teachers and low per-student spending have consistently better outcomes.
Teachers' unions and school boards and bureaucrats - a case of "company unions" if ever one existed - always tell us we can only improve outcomes by spending more per kid and raising teacher pay. Vouchers moving more kids into low-cost schools with better outcomes will challenge that as never before.
So? we're using taxpayer money now to indoctrinate them in a lack of religious belief. Such sanctimony!
Government schools are hardly neutral on the issue of religion. I know of many classrooms that contain teachers who are hostile to certain religions. At least they could make the dispensing of money into a neutral thing as far as government is concerned by letting the parents make the choices.
Let's stop all the BS about “religion neutral" at schools. Schools that tout Atheism or Humanism ARE PUSHING RELIGIONS!
Tell me again what "taxpayer's money" exactly is.
We homeschool our two. I'd be fine if they just didn't take MY money to begin with. They are using MY money to indoctrinate children in a socialist, Godless, homosexual belief. Let me decide what to do with MY money.
Is it illegal to buy kosher foods with food vouchers stamps?
Is it illegal to to use cash vouchers welfare checks to buy a Bible, or to even sign the back and send it to the Church Of Scientology?
No, Anne, that is not the crux of it. The taxpayers' money is given directly to the parents in the form of a voucher, and the parents decide what type of school they want to send thier child to, either religious, secular, or even another public school. If the parents voluntarily choose to indoctrinate their child in a religious belief, that is their decision alone.
Just curious, what does this have to do with Bush? The SC is a seperate branch of government and he appointed none of the SC judges involved in the decision.
Exactly. On one of the talk shows today I heard the father that one the "get God out of the pledge of allegiance suit" refer to atheism as his religion. It would be great to see someone creative with a lot of time and resources sue the government and the schools for promoting religion in schools - secular humanism. The believers of this stuff really do see it as a religion. Imagine, if they couldn't promote secular humanism in the schools the teachers would have to spend the day teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. Heaven forbid the children would learn something useful.
It has everything to do with Bush, because if re-elected, there is a very good chance that he will nominate the next several SC judges. And since the balance of the court is this close in so many decisions, it matters greatly. This should be so obvious...
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