State: Vouchers allowed for religious schools

In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a school voucher program in Cleveland, declaring that public money can be used to pay tuition at religious schools.

The long-awaited decision opens the door for similar voucher programs around the country, and gives a boost to school choice advocates after a string of losses at the ballot box and statehouses.

The ruling will not have an immediate effect in Florida, home to the nation's only statewide school voucher program.

The Florida program has been challenged in state court over a provision in the state Constitution prohibiting the use of public dollars in religious schools.

"As broad as the decision was, the U.S. Supreme Court certainly didn't say anything about the Florida Constitution," said Richard S. Myers, professor of law at Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Mich., who has studied the case. "That issue is still on the table."

Voucher advocates disagreed.

"This is a devastating blow to the Florida case," said Clark Neily, attorney with the pro-voucher Institute for Justice, which is involved in both the Cleveland and Florida cases. "The court said religious schools are allowed to participate. I don't think Florida's constitution allows it to discriminate against religious schools."

A hearing in the Florida case is scheduled next month.

As befits the contentious school voucher issue, the U.S. Supreme Court was split 5-4, with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor considered the swing vote.

The justices ruled the 6-year-old Cleveland program did not violate the separation of church and state because parents had a variety of choices among secular and religious schools. Though most children use the vouchers to attend religious schools -- the same is true in Florida -- it is less of an issue than that they had choices, the majority ruled.

"We believe that the program challenged here is a program of true private choice," wrote Chief Justice William Rehnquist. "The Ohio program is neutral in all respects toward religion. It is part of a general and multifaceted undertaking ... to provide educational opportunities to the children of a failed school district."

Joining Rehnquist and O'Connor were justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. In the minority were Justices David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Cleveland parents in the program cheered the ruling.

"I'm just relieved. We've been up and down for a long time with this," said Johnnie Mae Boone. The Cleveland mother has a daughter, Alicia, 9, and a son, Demetrius, 10, attending St. Stanislaus Catholic School, with 90 percent of the tuition paid by a voucher. "I went to look at the public schools and they had no control over the kids. I didn't want that for my kids."

The program uses tax dollars to help parents send their children to private schools in Cleveland or public schools in nearby districts. The program is open to students in kindergarten through eighth grade, with preference given to poor families.

It began in 1996 with about 2,000 children, and has grown to include about 4,400 children. The vouchers range between $1,875 to $2,250 per student.

A similar program in Milwaukee is even larger, with more than 10,000 students participating last school year. Florida's three voucher programs involved about 5,000 children last school year.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush applauded the decision. "The court's ruling affirms the constitutionality of programs that allow parents a real choice, including the option of receiving an education at a religious school," Bush said. "I continue to be confident that Florida's program is constitutional."

The challenge to Florida's voucher law hinges on one sentence written into the Florida Constitution in 1885. Scholars have debated whether it stemmed from anti-Catholic bigotry of the time.

The provision was revised slightly in 1968 by legislators who wanted a clear prohibition against spending public money on religious schools. It now reads: "No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution."

Even with Thursday's clear victory for school choice advocates, few expect large-scale voucher programs to spring up overnight. In recent years, voucher proposals have had little success in voting booths and in state legislatures.

"Even though this removes that constitutional issue, there are still difficult challenges because of the opposition that's out there; that hasn't changed," said Fritz Steiger, of the influential school choice group Children First America. "The initiatives have been ill fated. We'll see more voucher programs, but by and large it's going to happen state by state, legislature by legislature."

Voucher advocates mention Colorado and Texas as the most promising for new voucher programs.

In 2000, voters in California and in Michigan overwhelmingly rejected voucher ballot initiatives. And legislative efforts have stalled in several states.

Voucher opponents say those failures are proof that the public disapproves of vouchers.

"When voters have had an opportunity to choose, they have defeated vouchers by 2-to-1," said Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association teachers union. "At least 26 state legislatures have rejected voucher proposals, some of them several times."

Florida, with a Republican-controlled Legislature and a big voucher advocate in Bush, stands as one of the school choice movement's biggest success stories. Florida's original Opportunity Scholarship Program, which began in 1999, is similar to the Cleveland program in that it was created to give parents an alternative to failing schools.

The state has since started two other voucher programs -- one for disabled children and one providing tax breaks to corporations that contribute to a voucher fund for low-income children.

The strategy of tax breaks to corporations who fund vouchers might be the strategy states will be quickest to adopt. Thus far only three states have such programs, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Florida.

"That might be the most likely route," said Steiger of the Children First America. "Eventually those tax-credit states will become the grass-roots movement, once they give parents a taste for it."

-- Researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report. Times wires also were used.

Back to State news

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

Special Links

Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk