School vouchers test separation of church, state

? For Roberta Kitchen, the national debate over school vouchers is more about the education of her 11-year-old daughter than entrenched arguments over separation of church and state.

The girl attends a Lutheran elementary school almost entirely on the public dime. Her tuition is paid by a pilot program available to parents whose children attend Cleveland schools.

Christine Suma gets a kiss from her daughter Angelica, 4, during a press conference by parents who have children in the voucher program at Second New Hope Christian Academy in Cleveland. The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on a trio of cases arising from the 6-year-old Cleveland voucher experiment.

Hers is the test case in the legal battle over voucher plans that give parents alternatives to public education.

Civil liberties groups and many educators want the Supreme Court to declare the Cleveland program unconstitutional. The Bush administration is urging the court to uphold the program.

The court will hear arguments Wednesday in three cases arising from the 6-year-old Cleveland experiment.

Violation of separation?

The case presents a straightforward constitutional question: Is it a violation of the principle of separation of church and state for public tax money to pay for religious education?

A court ruling endorsing the program probably would encourage other states and cities to try similar things and could strengthen Bush’s hand as he tries to win congressional support for a national voucher plan.

A ruling that strikes down the Cleveland program as unconstitutional also could stop the flow of public dollars for religious tuition in Milwaukee and Florida, and could all but end the drive for a national, public-funded voucher program.

Supporters of vouchers usually call the idea school choice. In the Cleveland case, parents theoretically have the choice to pull their children from one of the worst-rated public school systems in the country and enroll them in another public school, a secular private academy, or a parochial school.

‘No choice’

Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way and a voucher opponent, said the Cleveland program places a facade of parental choice over a giveaway of public money to religious schools.

“There’s virtually no choice,” he said.

Suburban public schools have not signed up to take the inner city students, and there are only five eligible private academies in the city from which parents may choose.

In the current school year, the program is underwriting tuition for 4,456 students, almost all of whom are attending some kind of religious school. About three-quarters of the students go to Catholic schools.

The program pays up to $2,250 per year to qualified students, most of whose families are poor. About half the students are black.

Teachers’ unions and other education organizations say vouchers rob the neediest schools of money that might make them better, while skimming off the brightest or most motivated students.