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ACLU of Florida Comments on Supreme Court Hearing on Constitutionality
of School Vouchers
February 19, 2002
The U.S. Supreme Court will be asked tomorrow to decide the constitutionality of private/parochial school voucher program that has been framed by the Cleveland, Ohio School public system.
A decision in that case may impact the constitutionality of Florida's school voucher program, proposed in 1999 by then newly-elected Governor Jeb Bush and authorized in the first year of his term to operate statewide. The program is in use only in Pensacola, in Escambia County, pending the outcome of the legal and constitutional challenge to the Florida voucher program.
Vouchers are currently in use in Cleveland, Milwaukee and Florida. Several years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the Milwaukee voucher program, leaving that program in place.
In Florida, the State Legislature is currently considering pouring millions of tax dollars into private, mostly religious, schools by dramatically expanding the Florida voucher scheme into a statewide program that gives school districts across the state greater flexibility in offering vouchers to students. Initially, the Florida program was designed to provide assistance to students "trapped" in failing public schools.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was involved in the Milwaukee cases, and is part of the legal team (along with the teacher's unions and about a half dozen civil rights and civil liberties groups) in both the Cleveland and Florida court challenges.
The challenge to the Florida voucher program is based on Florida State Constitutional grounds, in addition to the federal constitutional claims raised in the Cleveland case.
For additional comment from the ACLU on how the Supreme Court's ruling in the Cleveland case may affect the constitutionality of the Florida school voucher case, please contact ACLU of Florida Communications Director Alessandra Soler, 305 ? 576 ? 2337, extension 16.
