By Alex Molnar
Private school vouchers represent such a danger to the separation of church and state because not all of the forces arrayed in support of vouchers are those that have religion or the attempt to include religious schools as their agenda. The people promoting private school vouchers represent a broad coalition, often times of somewhat conflicting agendas, that come together on this particular issue.
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http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/nov96/molnar.html"State legislature provides that school vouchers are to support the poor students in private sector schooling. They have the freedom to choose the program that reflects their education future. However, in reality, school vouchers account for sectarian education which dominates private schooling. Poverty stricken students comprise of only 20 percent of the private schools. After the decision of Brown vs. Board of Education, school vouchers merely became a means for white students to choose a different schooling system for themselves. Hence, school vouchers use to eradicate discrimination proved unsuccessful
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http://www.academon.com/lib/paper/28048.html
Alex Molnar (Bio)
http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/Bio/molnar-bio.htm
Florida Judge Rules Against School Vouchers
By Melanie Hunter
CNSNews.com Deputy Managing Editor
August 05, 2002
(CNSNews.com) - Nearly one month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of school vouchers and weeks before the start of the school year, a Florida judge ruled Monday the state's school voucher law is unconstitutional.
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"While this court recognizes and empathizes with the ... purpose of this legislation - to enhance the educational opportunity of children caught in the snare of substandard schools - such a purpose does not grant this court authority to abandon the clear mandate of the people as enunciated in the constitution," wrote Davey, who plans for the ruling to go into effect this school year.
"The Florida court's decision shows that the battle over vouchers is far from over," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a religious liberty watchdog group. "I expect to see similar decisions against vouchers in state courts around the country."
Voucher programs are already underway in Cleveland, Ohio and Milwaukee, Wisc.
"The Bush brothers' plan to funnel funds to religious schools just ran into a major roadblock," Lynn added.
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http://www.aclj.org/news/education/020806_vouchers.asp
The Case Against School Vouchers by Ken Goldstein
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The voucher system basically works like this: The dollars your state would have spent to educate your child in a public school become portable. If your state spends $2,500 per year per student, you will receive a $2,500 voucher for each school age child. You may choose to turn in your voucher and keep your child in a public school, or you may use it towards the cost of a private school, which may or may not choose to charge you any amount in addition to the voucher.
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http://www.the13thstory.com/krg/Politics/vouchers.html
The Case Against School Vouchers
Tom Peters
Introduction
In the last two decades religious conservatives have spent vast amounts of time and energy criticizing the public school system. Their litany of problems should be familiar to anyone that has read the conservative press: the schools don't do a good job of educating; they are "religion free zones;" they are indoctrinating children with the tenets of "secular humanism;" they are unsafe; they are hostile to family values; etc.
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Are school vouchers constitutional?
In a word, no, at least when they are used to pay for sectarian education. Vouchers, since they involve direct government funding of private school tuition, violate the Constitution whenever the private school involved uses this money to pay for religious instruction.
Since the passage of the 14th Amendment the Supreme court has gradually made most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. The states, in other words, must now obey the guarantees embodied in the Bill of Rights, including the Constitutional prohibition against establishment of religion. This article explains the history of Supreme Court decisions relevant to school vouchers since the passage of the 14th Amendment.
more...
http://www.bigissueground.com/atheistground/peters-againstvouchers.shtml
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