i'm in favor of voucher programs. unfortunately the fla supreme court just struck down that state's.
In its ruling, the Florida Supreme Court cited an article in the state's constitution that says, "Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high-quality system of free public schools."
The Opportunity Scholarships Program "violates this language," the Florida court said.
"It diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools that are the sole means set out in the constitution for the state to provide for the education of Florida's children," the ruling said. "This diversion not only reduces money available to the free schools, but also funds private schools that are not 'uniform' when compared with each other or the public system."
um, this reasoning is specious. the plain interpretation is this: the state government is obligated by its constitution to provide a system of public education. surely, outside this system it already funds all kinds of other programs that might be construed as educational, such as training its employees, or head start, or education in the context of detention, or internships etc etc. get me? the clause obviously does not prohibit the state from funding other programs. and that funding is being diverted from the public schools is again, obviously, no violation of that provision of the constitution. why would it be? as to "uniformity": what are you, kidding? no state does that or could do it, thank god. but since students are allowed to remove themselves only from "failing" schools, the voucher program of course increases uniformity. "uniformity" here means...uniformly public, i guess. it surely don't mean anything else, like uniformly good, uniformly safe etc. anyway, if it did mean anything else it would be wrong as well as impossible.
