Brian Anderson, editor of the estimable quarterly City Journal, argues here that tax credits for private school tuitions have a brighter political future than vouchers. He's also sensitive to new roadblocks placed in the way of vouchers by the Supreme Court's ruling in Locke v. Davey, wherein the Court allowed a college scholarship program to be denied to a divinity student attending an evangelical college (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=137#1689). Though the Court sought to limit its ruling to the case at hand, not to venture into the murkier depths of indirect state aid to students attending religious institutions, the extension of the argument to vouchers is obvious, and Anderson thinks tax credits may be the better way to advance choice, especially considering the number of states with "Blaine amendments." Worth a try, of course, but will tax credits ultimately prove the easier sell? They're more complicated to use and to explain. They may or may not benefit families with very low incomes. And those who oppose school choice (especially the private-school kind) aren't going to roll over just because the mechanism is the tax code rather than a more traditional "spending" program.
"If not vouchers?" by Brian C. Anderson, City Journal, Spring 2004