Nation's Second Statewide Voucher Program Debuts in Indiana
The new school year has begun in Indiana with more than 3,200 low- and middle-income families taking advantage of a new state-funded voucher program that allows them to remove their children from failing public schools and enroll them in better-performing private or church-related schools.
The exodus from Indiana public schools was given a recent boost by a Superior Court judge in Indiana’s Marion County who refused a request by the Indiana State Teachers Association that he issue a temporary injunction blocking the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program from taking effect.
Judge Michael Keele ruled that the law creating the nation’s second statewide voucher program, passed in April by the Indiana state legislature and signed into law by Gov. Mitch Daniels, “is religion-neutral and was enacted for the benefit of students, not religious institutions or activities.”
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The judge’s ruling, said Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, “is a victory for Hoosier students and parents currently utilizing the Choice Scholarship Program.”
In its lawsuit against Indiana’s voucher program, the ISTU complained that the state is using tax dollars to fund education at church affiliated schools, which the union argues, is a violation of the constitutionally required separation of church and state.
The teachers union was disappointed, but undaunted by its recent defeat in Superior Court. “That was only the beginning of litigation” in the case, teachers union Vice President Teresa Meredith promised, in a blog post on the union's website.
“It’s important to Indiana and its public schools,” she went on, “that we continue to pursue this challenge, and we will pursue it before the trial court and higher levels of the court system.”
Ultimately, the case may wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which, in 2002, ruled that a publicly-funded voucher program does not run afoul of the Constitution as long as it is “neutral with respect to religion” and parents decide the school in which to enroll their children by their “own genuine and private choice.”
Attorney General Zoeller believes that the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program meets the legal standard the nation’s highest court set forth nine years ago. He agrees with Judge Keele that the program is meant to benefit Indiana students rather than the state’s church-affiliated schools.
Meanwhile, voucher supporters say the state-funded program is the very best option to assist families whose children are trapped in the Hoosier state’s “persistently lowest achieving schools.” Most of those families are lower income and wouldn’t have the means to enroll their children in non-public schools without state financial assistance.
The demand for Indiana's Choice Scholarships is evident by the 3,259 students that have enrolled in the state program so far. That number surpasses the first-year enrollment for Ohio’s voucher program, the country’s only other statewide program.
Meanwhile, Indiana public school officials fret that the state’s voucher program – which is capped at 7,500 vouchers this year and 15,000 next year – will have a deleterious impact on public school finances. But so far the impact has been fairly negligible – roughly 1 percent of the $290 million that will go this year to Indiana's K-to-12 public schools.
