Good News Regarding Vouchers and School Choice Arg Essay Example For Students

Good News Regarding Vouchers and School Choice Arg Essay umentative Persuasive EssaysGood News Regarding School Choice Good News v. Milford is very good news indeed for advocates of school vouchers and faith-based organizations (FBOs). The Supreme Courts 6-3 decision upholding the right of a Christian youth group to meet in public schools after class hours is a significant signal of the Courts willingness to treat religious organizations and viewpoints on an evenhanded basis. In 1992, Milford Central School in New York State enacted a community use policy outlining purposes for which its building could be used after school. Under the policy, district residents could use the school for instruction in any branch of education, learning, or the arts. The school was also to be made available for social, civic, and recreational meetings and entertainment events, and other uses pertaining to the welfare of the community, provided that such uses shall be nonexclusive and shall be opened to the general public. Several district residents who sponsored the local Good News Club-a private, voluntary Christian organization for children ages six to twelve-submitted a request to the interim superintendent of the district, seeking to hold the Clubs weekly after-school meetings in the school cafeteria. They were excluded, however, because their proposed use-to have a fun time of singing songs, hearing a Bible lesson, and memorizing Scripture-was the equivalent of religious worship. The school authorities claimed that such a meeting was prohibited by the rules that forbid the school from being used by any individual or organization for religious purposes.(1) The Court, per Justice Clarence Thomas, found Milford to have created a limited public forum-in essence, a standing invitation to use public property for the designated purposes. When the state establishes a limited public forum, the state is not required to and does not allow persons to engage in every type of speech. However, said the Court, the states power to restrict speech is not without limits. Such restriction must not discriminate against speech on the basis of viewpoint, and the restriction must be reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum.(2) Relying upon two earlier but more narrowly written opinions, the Court found the school district to have discriminated against the proposed religious speech in Good News. In Lambs Chapel v. Center Moriches (1993), the Justices held that a school district violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment when it excluded a private group from presenting films at the school based solely on the films discussions of family values from a religious perspective. Likewise, in Rosenberger v. Rector (1995), the Court held that a universitys refusal to fund a student publication because the publication addressed issues from a religious viewpoint violated the Free Speech Clause. The majority concluded that Milfords exclusion of the Good News Club based on its religious nature was indistinguishable from the exclusions in these cases, and held that it constituted viewpoint discrimination. The result in Good News is significant for what the Court refused to do: namely, indulge the notion that some protected religious speech is too religious. The Court expressly disagreed with the idea that something that is quintessentially religious or decidedly religious in nature cannot also be characterized properly as the teaching of morals and character development from a particular viewpoint. Said the Court: What matters for purposes of the Free Speech Clause is that we can see no logical difference in kind between the invocation of Christianity by the Club and the invocation of teamwork, loyalty, or patriotism by other associations to provide a foundation for their lessons. (3) Federal judges are expected to play many roles, but attempting to differentiate between religiously informed moral instruction and unambiguously religious practice or instruction is not comfortably one of them. Indeed, even contemplating such distinctions is theologically perilous, for while some religions treat ethics and religion as distinct subjects, the adherents of many mainstream religions of the West (including Judaism and Christianity) hold ethics and religion to be inseparable. The lower court had presupposed that morality is independent from divine will, but that is not so for many believers. Indeed, had the Supreme Court not disavowed that specious notion, it would have rightly been seen as improperly taking sides over religious doctrine. Hackers EssayS. Treasury. As noted above, the Court has moved away from using the Establishment Clause to invalidate monies disbursed evenhandedly to a broad range of competing groups, religious and nonreligious alike, but why invite trouble by having disbursement come from R. Barry Bureaucrat, rather than John Q. Public? It is likely this direct delivery of funds that explains the Houses unfortunate censorship of FBOs, which itself is constitutionally dubious. And whether or not it is, it certainly invites all kinds of burdensome federal auditing and entanglement, along with subtle pressures on churches to modify their teachings as an implied grant condition. The way out of this morass is not to abandon the creative social service potential of FBOs, but rather to fund them indirectly. Simply allowing taxpayers an enhanced tax credit for donations to the FBO of their choice would eliminate any residual church-state questions. The House measure appropriately expanded deductibility for charitable giving in general. The Senate should complete this work by providing a credit specifically for FBO donations. The case for school vouchers is also strengthened by Good News. The Court is presently being petitioned to review the constitutionality of a school voucher or scholarship program that makes taxpayer education funds available to low-income families seeking to avoid the troubled Cleveland schools. Contrary to favorable voucher rulings in Wisconsin, Arizona, and Illinois, the lower federal courts struck down the Cleveland program because the public schools refused to actively participate in the voucher program, even though the law authorized them to do so. The absence of public participants troubled the lower courts, since it effectively meant that only private religious schools received vouchers in Cleveland. An important side note in the Good News decision suggests that this should make no difference. The Court observed that when a public benefit is offered for actual use by groups presenting any viewpoint, the Court would not find an Establishment Clause violation simply because only groups presenting a religious viewpoint have opted to take advantage of the benefit at a particular time. In other words, the fact that only private religious schools have cared enough about the educational fortunes of the least advantaged children cannot be used against them. After all, the law should not be structured so that there is a preferential option against the poor. WORKS CITED: (1) Supreme Court Decisions http://supct.law. cornell.edu/supct/html/99-2036.ZO.html (2)Ibid. (3) Ibid.