About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

31 Conn. L. Rev. 847 (1998-1999)
Governments, Families, and Power: A Defense of Educational Choice

handle is hein.journals/conlr31 and id is 857 raw text is: Governments, Families, and Power: A Defense of Educational Choice MICHAEL W. MCCONNELL One of the most promising reforms in educational organization today is educational choice: allowing families to use their fair share of school funds' to obtain an education for their children at the accredited school of their choice, whether public or private, secular or religious. Long sup- ported by members of the Catholic minority who objected to the Protestant character of public schools, the idea of educational choice has recently been embraced with particular enthusiasm by inner city parents, as a re- sponse to the failure of the public education establishment to meet their children's needs Experimental choice programs have been enacted in Milwaukee and Cleveland, and variants are being tested in other states. Defenders of the status quo-most particularly, teachers' unions- have responded with lawsuits contending that educational choice programs that include religious schools violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In the principal decision to date, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected that contention. That court held that programs of educa- tional assistance are consistent with the First Amendment if they provide public aid to both sectarian and nonsectarian institutions (1) on the basis of neutral, secular criteria that neither favor nor disfavor religion; and (2) only as a result of numerous private choices of the individual parents of school-age children.3 That decision accords with the Supreme Court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence of the past fifteen years, which has * Presidential Professor, University of Utah College of Law and counsel for Miller Re.pondents and Representative Annette Polly Williams in Jackson v. Benson, 578 AJ.l2d 602 (IWl). cert. denied, 119 S. Cf 466 (1998). 1. In practice, this generally means far less than the per pupil subsidy of public cducation. In the Milwaukee voucher experiment, for example, nonpublic school students received only the state portion of educational funds, which according to the state supreme court is less than 40% of the average per pupil expenditure. See Davis v. Grover, 480 N.W.2d 460,476-77 (Vis. 1992). 2. See The 30th Annual Phi Delta KappalGallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Towrd the Public Schools, (visited Feb. 26, 1999) <http.//www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kp9809-1ahtm> (showing that over two-thirds of minority parents favor educational choice). 3. Jackson v. Benson, 578 N.W.2d 602,617 (Vis.), cert. denied, 119 S. Ct. 466 (1998).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most