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Vouchers Have Overcome
Opinion Journal ^ | 06/28/2002 | editorial board

Posted on 06/27/2002 9:11:01 PM PDT by Pokey78

Edited on 04/23/2004 12:04:37 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

Free at last, private school choice is free at last.

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday struck the greatest blow for equal public education since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. In the process it also stripped away the last Constitutional and moral figleaf from those who want to keep minority kids trapped in failing public schools.


(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
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1 posted on 06/27/2002 9:11:01 PM PDT by Pokey78
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To: Pokey78
Can anyone please tell me where I can find the opinions written on this case. I am most interested in the Thomas and O'Conner papers... Thanks
2 posted on 06/27/2002 9:14:26 PM PDT by nralife
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To: Pokey78
Brilliant - BTTT.
3 posted on 06/27/2002 9:14:47 PM PDT by Senator Pardek
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To: Pokey78
This should sweep away for good the objection that school choice violates the separation of church and state.

Let's hope so. Although the God haters may still have more tricks up their sleaves. Just the thought that someone somewhere may be praying to Jesus makes them go mouth-foaming, head-spinning, spaz-attack psycho-rabid like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

4 posted on 06/27/2002 9:29:17 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: Pokey78
"First, we take back our schools." Quote by Denzagrad in 1999 in response to the question. "How do we retake our country from the communists and socilists?"


5 posted on 06/27/2002 9:49:33 PM PDT by Abogado
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To: nralife
Hope this helps.

Click here for the decision. Opinions from OConnor & Thomas are about a third of the way down.

Use the CTRL-F trick and type in the name you want to search. It will lead you right to their opinions.

6 posted on 06/27/2002 10:04:03 PM PDT by Pokey78
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To: nralife
The beginning of Thomas' concurring:

Frederick Douglass once said that [e]ducation means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.1 Today many of our inner-city public schools deny emancipation to urban minority students. Despite this Courts observation nearly 50 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education, that it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education, 347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954), urban children have been forced into a system that continually fails them. These cases present an example of such failures. Besieged by escalating financial problems and declining academic achievement, the Cleveland City School District was in the midst of an academic emergency when Ohio enacted its scholarship program.

     The dissents and respondents wish to invoke the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as incorporated through the Fourteenth, to constrain a States neutral efforts to provide greater educational opportunity for underprivileged minority students. Todays decision properly upholds the program as constitutional, and I join it in full.


7 posted on 06/27/2002 10:08:00 PM PDT by Pokey78
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To: Pokey78
The was a major victory, but the battle is far from over. There are a lot of entrenched special interests with a lot of money and political power that will fight tooth and nail to stop choices in education. This just means it's time to take the next hill.......
8 posted on 06/27/2002 10:09:33 PM PDT by Brett66
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To: Pokey78
As long as the individual decides where the money goes, the government is not promoting one religion over another.

It is refreshing to see that someone understands that the purpose of the Establishment clause was to "make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof"...NOT "removing all traces of religion from public life."

9 posted on 06/27/2002 10:14:13 PM PDT by copycat
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To: Pokey78
Thanks mucho! I appreciate it!
10 posted on 06/27/2002 10:51:14 PM PDT by nralife
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To: Pokey78
Vouchers...another bad idea coming to a theatre near you. Like regular public education it's just another welfare scam...my dollars paying for your kid's education except now you get to choose the school.

Is somebody ever going to ask why it is that the state should have any say in how or where we educate our children? Since there is no constitutional basis for public education I can only conclude that those who send their kids to government schools are just like the proverbial welfare bum, hopelessly attached to the government teat.

11 posted on 06/27/2002 10:54:51 PM PDT by Sangamon Kid
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To: Brett66
The battle continues. It is the ultimate Culture War, the prize: the minds of Americas kids. Democrats and Teachers Unions will screech, but Justice Thomas' words will ring loud for years to come.

The NEA types and liberals seem to always ask: why is the biggest alternative school system in America Roman Catholic? This fuels their fear of religion in the voucher debate. The answer is in history, when the state began educating American kids, there was a strong Protestant bias, forcing Catholics to create their own seperate school system. This goes back 200 years (!).

Recently, "private" as opposed to "porochial" schools have mushroomed, but the price is high. Parents in the "bad part of town" who love their children agonize over the costs of private and/or porochial school... most just can't make the tuition payments. NOW THEY CAN. The voucher takes what the government would've spent anyway and gives the decision to the parent. Watch American education improve FAST. The free market tends to punish slackers and reward the enterprising. Ask any porochial school teacher, who, by the way, makes LESS than his public school counterpart why they stay.... most admit that they like the discipline, class order and parent participation of porochial schools. It's not as much about Jesus as you might think! It's about discipline, personal safety and solid education.

12 posted on 06/27/2002 11:45:17 PM PDT by moodyskeptic
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To: Sangamon Kid
Section 8. The Congress shall have power to...To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
Now, it could mean that only patents and copyrights are allowed. But one could also argue that the Constitution is in favor of anything that promotes science and the useful arts and funding education is certainly one way of doing this.
13 posted on 06/28/2002 1:44:42 AM PDT by arielb
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To: Pokey78
It's good to get this case through before the libs pack the courts. Note this was a case of freedom vs. the State telling us what to do. Same as the "Pledge"

The "Pledge" ruling begs for private schools as well.

14 posted on 06/28/2002 2:58:31 AM PDT by The Raven
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To: The Raven; All
The government doesn't give anyone money without strings attached as to how that money is spent. Once private schools start taking government funds, the government is going to tell them how they have to spend those funds. They are also going to put all kinds of conditions and standards on the private schools to keep getting those funds. There may not be a lot of control at first, but after a few years the private schools will be as hooked on government money as kids are hooked on cigarettes. Once you get hooked on that government money there's no turning back. When private schools give up their freedom and independence, they become the same as the public schools. A school voucher system would lead to the elimination of private and religious education.

I had at one time subjected my children to schools which are mandated by government monies.

Subsequently, I removed them from the public education sector and placed them in private schools.
15 posted on 06/28/2002 4:12:59 AM PDT by Sweet_Sunflower29
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To: moodyskeptic
Parents in the "bad part of town" who love their children agonize over the costs of private and/or porochial school... most just can't make the tuition payments. NOW THEY CAN.

From what I can tell, the most a parent would get in the form of a voucher is around $3,000. The price of the best private school in Dallas, TX is around $13,000.

Vouchers are great in theory, but I am afraid that once the NEA get their hands on the details, private schools will be no longer be free to teach the way they see best. Government standards will become the name of the game. And what private school is going to want to take on the same standards which created failed government school system?

16 posted on 06/28/2002 4:33:00 AM PDT by Slyfox
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To: Slyfox
As least with the voucher they would get back much of what they paid in school taxes on their property, should they choose a private school. Another idea: why not implement property tax credits for homeschoolers?
17 posted on 06/28/2002 4:50:00 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
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To: HiTech RedNeck
I think tax credits for homeschoolers would be great but if that means I have to have a government agent check on what curriculum I am using to get that money then I don't think I'd apply for it.

Right now, I am paying around $12,000 to educate three children. That includes everything, homeschool curriculum, music lessons, extra private and group tutoring. I am also paying around $4,000 to educate somebody elses kids through my taxes, that I know about. It would be really nice to recieve a tax credit of some sort for the $16,000+ I am paying right now for education.

Because I am doing my own thing, I enjoy the maximum amount of freedom in education. I would be unwilling to exchange that for any interference through government regulation.

As for poorer parents, if they live in an apartment they would not be eligible for a tax credit because they don't pay property taxes directly.

18 posted on 06/28/2002 5:37:52 AM PDT by Slyfox
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To: Slyfox
You are fortunate if there are no state hoops you have to jump through to homeschool. Usually there is some minimal state standard of what has to be included in the lessons.
19 posted on 06/28/2002 5:46:18 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
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To: arielb
But one could also argue...

Please, please tell me you're NOT a legislator. That kind of argument stretching is dangerous and is the cause for government excess of every imaginable kind.

20 posted on 06/28/2002 6:46:41 AM PDT by Sangamon Kid
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