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Court
upholds school vouchers
Taxes
can be used to send students to parochial schools
BREAKING NEWS
ASSOCIATED PRESS The Supreme
Court on Thursday upheld the use of taxpayer-paid school vouchers to send
children to private schools, finding that a
Cleveland
program does not violate the Constitution’s church-state doctrine even though
the majority of students use the vouchers to attend parochial schools.
THE 5-4 RULING led by the court’s conservative majority
lowers the figurative wall separating church and state and clears a
constitutional cloud from school vouchers, a divisive education idea dear to
political conservatives and championed by President Bush.
Opponents call vouchers a fraud meant to siphon tax money from struggling
public schools.
The court endorsed a 6-year-old pilot program in inner-city Cleveland
that provides parents a tax-supported education stipend.
Parents may use the money to opt out of one of the worst-rated public
schools in the nation.
The court majority said the program does not put the government in the
unconstitutional position of sponsoring religious indoctrination, even though
more than 95 percent of the vouchers are used to subsidize Catholic or other
religious schooling.
CHOICE KEY TO DECISION
Key to the court’s reasoning was that the 4,500 children in the Cleveland
program have a theoretical choice of attending religious schools, secular
private academies, suburban public schools, or charter schools run by parents or
others outside the education establishment.
The fact that only a handful of secular schools and
no suburban public schools have signed up to accept voucher students is not the
fault of the program itself, Ohio officials argued.
The court majority agreed.
“We believe that the program challenged here is a program of true private
choice,” Chief Justice William H. R wrote for himself and Justices Sandra Day
O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
Dissenters argued that the Cleveland program goes too far toward
state-sponsored religion and does not offer parents a true choice among schools.
“There is, in any case, no way to interpret the 96.6 percent of current
voucher money going to religious schools as reflecting a free and genuine choice
by the families that apply for vouchers,” Justice David Souter wrote. He was
joined in dissent by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen
Breyer.
The Bush administration sided with Ohio, arguing that the program is
constitutional because parents — not the church-run schools — control where the
money goes.
VOUCHERS IN BUSH BUDGET
Congress last year shelved bills authorizing school vouchers. But Bush
resurrected the idea, proposing in his 2003 budget to give families up to $2,500
per child in tax credits if they choose a private school rather than a failing
neighborhood public school.
Following the court’s hearing on arguments
in February, Education Secretary Rod Paige said he would continue advocating on
behalf of both improved public schools and school choice.
In another schools case Thursday, the court approved random drug tests
for many public high school students, saying anti-drug concerns outweigh an
individual’s right to privacy. That vote also was 5-4.
Thursday’s ruling on vouchers continued a trend of
the court in recent years to ease the path toward state support of religion.
In a case two years ago, the court ruled that providing educational
equipment to religious schools with taxpayer money does not violate the
Constitution. Three years earlier, it held that it was constitutional for public
school teachers to provide supplemental, remedial instruction to disadvantaged
students in religious schools.
In 1983, it ruled that taxpayers could deduct tuition, textbooks, and
transportation expenses from state income taxes — expenses incurred by children
attending private and religious schools.
Bush renews school-voucher push
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