Florida School Vouchers: Struck Down

In what has to be a serious blow to those who advocate school vouchers in violation of the principle of separation of Church and State, the Florida Supreme Court knocked down the state's school voucher program:

Chief Justice Barbara Pariente, writing for the majority of the court, said the Opportunity Scholarship Program "diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools," which are the sole means set out in the state constitution for educating Florida children...

...The 1st District Court of Appeal had ruled that the system violated the separation of church and state in the Florida Constitution, but the state Supreme Court did not address that issue. (emphasis added)

Shortly we will hear the whining from the Neocons about 'activist judges.' First let us remember this is Florida, not some raging Blue State like Massachusetts.  More importantly, this is not an example of judicial activism, this is an example of judicial conservatism. The court found that the legislature violated the State Constitution in their extremism. The Court conserved centuries old law and principle.

Comments

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

The Supreme Court of Florida wisely avoided ruling on "separation" grounds, since doing so would have invited review by Federal courts. State constitutions can be un-US-constitutional. Provisions which explicitly bar a State from purchasing services from religious organizations discriminate on the basis of religion, obviously, and so may violate the "equal protection" and "free exercise" clauses of the US constitution.

The Supreme Court of Florida reads a clause in the Florida constitution which --requires-- one mechanism of funding K-12 education and construes this clause to mean that the constitution --allows-- only that one method. Bizarre.

Abundant evidence supports policies which give to parents the power to determine for their own children the choice of curriculum and the pace and method of instruction. Students, parents, real classroom teachers, and taxpayers gain from policies which expand the range of parents' options. Politically connected construction contractors, the out-of-classroom parasites who infest large districts, and their pet politicians lose.

The SCOFLA favored the parasites. Again.