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This is a special Forum Section featuring responses to the U. S. Supreme Court Decision upholding the constitutionality of the Cleveland Ohio School Choice Scholarship Program.
STATEMENT ON THE US SUPREME COURT DECISION IN THE CLEVELAND SCHOOL CHOICE By John McClaughry, President, Ethan Allen Institute
The Supreme Court’s Cleveland decision at last clearly affirms that the U.S. Constitution does not forbid taxpayer-funded parental choice at faith-based schools.
The vital principle is parental choice. The government may not establish or fund religious institutions or religious education. But government may properly leave it to parents to choose the kind of education that they believe will best help their children grow up into educated, morally strong, and productive citizens of our country, and provide the funds to make those choices effective.
This principle has long been accepted for taxpayer-funded aid to college level students, who may attend Notre Dame, Yeshiva, or Bob Jones. It is also used for food stamp recipients, who may choose to shop at Price Chopper, the village store, the Organic Grocery, Bud’s Quick Stop, or a church-run budget food shelf.
The Supreme Court’s ruling opens a new era of hope for millions of children trapped in pathetic inner city schools, but it does not open the door to expanded parental choice for Vermont children. That is because the Vermont Supreme Court has already conceded the First Amendment issues settled in the Cleveland case, but has erected another barrier derived from the Vermont Constitution’s “compelled support” clause. For Vermont children to have the same opportunity to depart unsatisfactory public schools to attend faith-based schools, there will have to be either a carefully drawn statute, or a major change in the Vermont Constitution, the Vermont Supreme Court, or both.
Because of the continuing implosion of Act 60, Vermonters need to recognize that the only way to avoid having the coming “one big state school system” swallow up Vermont’s children is to embrace universal parental choice. The road map for doing that is Schoolchildren First, proposed last year by the Ethan Allen Institute.”
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John McClaughry is President of the free-market Ethan Allen Institute and leading advocate of School Children First – expanded parental choice in Vermont. He was also vice chair of the Senate Education Committee.
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