New York Times
The Supreme Court hears arguments today in Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris, one of the most important church-state cases in the last decade. At issue is Cleveland's school voucher program, which subsidizes students' tuition at religious schools. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rightly found that the program violated the First Amendment. If its defenders succeed in overturning that decision, it would mark a serious retreat from this nation's historic commitment to maintaining a wall between government and religion.
Supporters of Cleveland's voucher program have always tried to present it as non-religious in nature. It was adopted six years ago under the secular rallying cry of parental choice. And the statute enacted by the Ohio legislature was careful to allow vouchers to be used in any private school in the city, not just religious ones, and in any suburban school that would accept them. But opponents have charged from the beginning that the driving force behind the program was the city's powerful Roman Catholic archdiocese, which saw it as a way to fill empty desks in parochial schools that were losing students to the suburbs.
Whoever wanted the program initiated, more than 99 percent of the Cleveland vouchers have wound up being used for religious education. ...
The Supreme Court, increasingly divided on church-state issues, has shown greater willingness in recent years to uphold some forms of aid to parochial schools, including technical equipment. But in keeping with the founding fathers' vision of a nation that is neutral toward and among religions, the court has always insisted that tax money cannot be used to teach children religion, or lead them in religious practices. That principle is manifestly violated in Cleveland, where taxpayer money is used to fund Catholic masses, Protestant Bible study and instruction in the practice of Islam. ...
Even if the voucher program were not unconstitutional, however, we would object to it because it drains human and financial resources from public education without solving the real problems facing American education. The vouchers do not encourage better public schools, and they do not sow the seeds for a rich counter-system of private schools. Providing quality education for all America's children will take a steady, concerted effort, combined with experimentation and a great deal of money. Vouchers are not a solution. They are a distraction.
Boston Globe
The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in a landmark Ohio case involving school vouchers. We believe voucher programs that funnel public tax dollars to private and parochial schools are needlessly divisive and violate constitutional prohibitions against government support of religion. Still, signals from justices in recent years make voucher proponents optimistic. We hope the court will hew to earlier statements of constitutional principle and flatly reject the Ohio program.
In 1995 the Ohio Legislature passed a law granting parents in Cleveland a $2,250 voucher, redeemable at private, parochial or public suburban schools. Ostensibly designed to promote parental choice, the program in practice overwhelmingly benefits religious education. Fully 99 percent of the students receiving the vouchers use them for religious schools; the suburban systems refused to participate, and private school tuitions are too high for the vouchers to be of much use. ...
There are better ways to promote competition and choice -- the charter school movement is thriving -- without religious proselytizing. America wisely keeps government out of that business, and it should stay out.
Washington Times
Almost half a century ago in Topeka, Kan., Linda Brown had to take a bus 5 miles to a poorly equipped school, even though there was a perfectly good public school just four blocks from her house. The "problem" was that she was black. Today, 48 years after Thurgood Marshall argued against racially segregated schools in Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court will be asked in the case Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris to decide the constitutionality of a voucher program in Cleveland. The program allows more than 4,000 of Cleveland's poor students, most of whom are minorities, to escape the city's failing schools by going to the school of their choice. Those opposing the program, represented by National Education Association General Counsel Bob Chanin, will argue that because the vouchers sometimes go to schools that are religious, the state is fostering religion and that funding for public schools is at stake. Unfortunately, those public schools failed Cleveland's inner-city minority poor long before the voucher program came along, and continue to do so. But the NEA would keep them in those schools, ensuring that a good education will be limited to the few: rich, white suburban children or city residents who can afford to go to private schools. ...
Linda Brown did not bring the nation to understand the virtues of desegregation to watch the children of Mrs. (Christine) Suma and Mrs. (Eulanda) Johnson be denied the right to go to a school that will give them a chance to have a good education. The Supreme Court should not stand in their way.
Milwaukee Journal
More than a decade after Wisconsin authorized school choice, legal doubts still dog the Milwaukee voucher program. Yes, in ruling that publicly financed vouchers for tuition at religious schools pass constitutional muster, the state Supreme Court did reduce the level of uncertainty surrounding the program. Still, the Supreme Court in Madison is not the final word; the Supreme Court in Washington is.
That court has declined to hear the Milwaukee case. But today it will hear arguments in a voucher case from Cleveland. A ruling in favor of the Ohio program probably would make the Wisconsin program constitutionally invincible. A ruling the other way, if it's not too broad, could still leave the Milwaukee program intact.
We find the mixing of church and state troubling in Cleveland and Milwaukee. But we like the results of vouchers. Kids attend schools they and their parents are happy with. Lower-income parents have a choice of schools, a luxury enjoyed by their better-off counterparts. And competition from private schools encourages the public schools to improve. ...
The Cleveland program varies in key ways from the one here. For instance, the Milwaukee vouchers are much more generous. Significantly, the appeals court cited the low amount of money provided by Cleveland's vouchers to bolster its argument that the program was unconstitutional. So should the top court agree on that point, the Milwaukee program could still stand.
Milwaukee's voucher program, which now serves more than 10,000 children, has done enough good that it deserves to survive any quakes set off by the Cleveland case.
(Compiled by United Press International.)
