School choice is about providing children with the best education available, not supporting one religion over another. The current government school system compels religious citizens to support schools that often do not reflect their values and beliefs. School choice will allow parents to exercise their right and responsibility to direct the educational development of their children according to their own values, whether religious or secular.
The Facts:
The "separation of church and state" has changing interpretations.
Supreme Court decisions haved consistently supported parents' right to direct the education of their children.
the fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.131
Other Supreme Court decisions affirming parental rights include Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972),132 Wolman v. Walter (1977),133 and Mueller v. Allen (1983).134
Most recently, in June 1998, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in Jackson v. Benson that parental school choice via taxpayer-funded vouchers was constitutional.135 The U.S. Supreme Court later let stand the Wisconsin court's decision by voting 8-1 not to review the case. The contested voucher program now provides up to 15,000 poor Milwaukee students with a $4,000 state voucher to attend private religious schools. This ruling is most notable because of Wisconsin's strict laws on church-state separation.
Other well established government-funded voucher programs are constitutional.