Are tax credit scholarship programs constitutional when the state tuition organization overseeing the donations funnels them to private schools of a particular religion?
That's the latest school choice question to come across the US Supreme Court bench, specifically as it relates to the constitutionality of Arizona's 13-year old tax credit program. Ohio (and many other states with tax credits or even voucher programs) should pay attention as the case will likely have ?broad ramifications for state policies that end up helping religious education, a fractious area of the law that has regularly found the justices split along ideological lines.?
USA Today refers to the landmark 2002 case, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, which upheld the constitutionality of Ohio's Cleveland?Scholarship and Tutoring Program ? the state's first voucher program which allowed parents to send kids to private (including religious) schools.
The difference between the Arizona case and Zelman appears to center on genuine parental choice. With Cleveland's program, the court ruled that parents had a true choice between using the voucher for religious or secular schools, but under Arizona's tax credit program the state tuition organization can ?limit the scholarship they offer to schools of a given religion, and many do.?
The ruling could have an impact on multiple states with such programs, though tax credit programs vary widely state by state and not all of them have an Arizona-like feature wherein tuition organizations can restrict funds to religious schools.
This may seem like an obscure issue to Ohioans, but a mid-2009 survey conducted by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice found that 54 percent of K-12 parents favor ?tax credits for individuals and business funding private school scholarships? ? about the same number who favored each of Ohio's three voucher programs.
And given this week's Republican takeover of the governorship and the Ohio House, and a GOP boost in the Ohio Senate ? it's likely that tax credit scholarships could be on the policy table soon now that more school choice advocates are in the Statehouse.
- Jamie Davies? O'Leary