Supreme Court playground ruling feeds school voucher debate

The church’s challenge was watched by both sides of the debate over whether states can let parents choose to send their children to religious schools through publicly funded programs.

Teachers unions, which oppose vouchers as diverting money from public schools, said the narrow ruling dealt a setback to voucher proponents by leaving intact the state’s constitutional provision that prohibits state funding of religious actions.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten pointed to a footnote by Chief Justice John Roberts that said the court did not address “religious uses of funding.”

“The Supreme Court’s Trinity decision cannot be read as opening the door for states to promote religion or expand vouchers,” Weingarten said.

But the pro-school choice Center for Education Reform said that even without reviewing the constitutionality of Missouri’s prohibition on the use of state funds at religious schools, the justices had bolstered the choice movement by condemning the denial of a public benefit to an otherwise eligible recipient solely on the basis of its religious identity.

The Orthodox Jewish group Agudath Israel of America said the ruling could provide support for the argument that it would be discriminatory to not allow publicly funded tuition vouchers to be used for schooling at a religious institution.

“That puts somewhat of an onus on the state to make sure that if we’re going to have a program and we’re saying that it’s open to everyone, it’s intended to serve all the kids in our state, then it should be a program … that includes kids that go to private and religious schools,” said the group’s Washington director, Rabbi Abba Cohen.

Richard Katskee, the legal director at the organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said that while the ruling does not strike down existing constitutional provisions against governments funding religion, “it probably will encourage more legal challenges over those provisions.”

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Thompson reported from Buffalo, New York. Associated Press writer Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

Carolyn Thompson, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Supreme Court playground ruling feeds school voucher debate

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