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By Daryl Lindsey

March 27, 2000 | WASHINGTON -- School voucher programs have managed to unite conservative politicians with fed-up inner city parents to form a movement to give public education money to families so they can choose whether to patronize private or parochial schools. But even as vouchers have picked up some political steam, they've lately been set back by the courts.

A state judge in Florida ruled earlier this month that Gov. Jeb Bush's voucher plan violated a portion of the state's constitution mandating state-funded public education. Bush's initiative provided vouchers of up to $3,400 for students in failing schools.

But the most important school voucher ruling so far has been in Cleveland, where 3,761 students are participating in a program that provides as much as $2,500 in funding. Federal Court Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. ruled in December that the state voucher program in the city violated the Constitution because it mixed church and state.

A program in Milwaukee, the oldest in the nation, was upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1997. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of that case a year later. But the issue will no doubt be headed back to the high court, and many believe this time it will have to be heard. Dozens of states are considering voucher programs, including California, where the issue may be headed for the November ballot.

First conceived in the 1950s by economist Milton Friedman, school vouchers are the most contentious of the three favorite options of free-market-minded education reformers; the other two are charter schools and privatized public schools such as the Edison Project.

Vouchers, proponents say, hold public schools more strictly accountable for how students perform on standardized tests, which are seen as the educational equivalent of the corporate bottom line. In Florida, where the governor has made school vouchers a centerpiece of his education policy, Tallahassee will pick up the tab for private school if a child's public school fails to meet the minimum acceptable score on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test twice in a four-year period.

So far, Florida has only given two schools, both in Pensacola, a failing grade. To date only 53 students have transferred to private schools as a result. But academics expect thousands more to become eligible when next year's school report card is released. University of Florida economics professor David Figlio recently predicted in the Wall Street Journal that 65,000 additional students in 80 schools will be added to the eligibility list this year, when their schools fail to meet the state's standards for the second time. But the Florida ruling seemed to deal a deadly blow to Bush's ambitious voucher policy.

Voucher critics are divided into two camps: those who think vouchers will accelerate the decline of the public school system, and church and state absolutists, who believe voucher programs violate the First Amendment of the Constitution.

In a Salon News debate, Steven Green, general counsel and policy director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and Clint Bolick, litigation director for the Institute for Justice, argue the constitutionality of school voucher programs. Today, Green and Bolick present their opening arguments. Check back tomorrow for the cross-examination.

Next page | Pro: Why the courts will side with education reformists