c. 1997 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Supporters of Wisconsin’s first-in-the-nation school voucher program vowed Thursday (Jan. 16) to appeal a judge’s ruling preventing the state from expanding the plan to include private religious schools.

Pete Hutchison, an attorney with the Landmark Legal Defense Foundation, a public interest law firm based in Kansas City, Mo., argued that not extending the program to religious schools was discriminatory.”While the state is not required to fund private schools, if it does _ as is the case in Wisconsin _ you can’t discriminate against private religious schools because of their beliefs,”he said.

With legislators in as many as a dozen states considering voucher systems _ which use tax dollars to pay educational costs of students who choose private over public school _ Wisconsin is being closely watched by advocates on both sides of the school-choice issue, who view it as a potentially precedent-setting case.

On Wednesday (Jan. 15), Dane County Circuit Court Judge Paul Higginbotham ruled that expanding the 6-year-old program _ which is limited to low-income families in Milwaukee _ to include religious schools would violate the state constitution’s church-state separation guidelines.”School choice,”the judge wrote,”may in fact be sound public policy, especially considering the sad plight of the Milwaukee Public Schools system, but it compels Wisconsin citizens of varying religious faiths to support schools with their tax dollars that proselytize students and attempt to inculcate them with beliefs contrary to their own.”We do not object to the existence of parochial schools or that they attempt to spread their beliefs through the schools. They just cannot do it with state tax dollars,”Higginbotham said.

Opponents of school vouchers hailed the judge’s decision as a big win for taxpayers.”This is a tremendous victory for individual freedom,”said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State in Washington, D.C.”Americans should never be taxed to support churches or church schools.” Lynn said the decision should also”send a strong message”to lawmakers in other states considering setting up their own voucher systems. An Americans United survey found 12 states where bills establishing voucher systems are expected to be”seriously pushed”this year, he said.

They include Arizona, Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida, Washington, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Utah, Vermont, Colorado and Maryland.

In Ohio, the nation’s only other voucher system currently in operation began last fall in Cleveland, where the state helps 2,200 low-income children attend private secular or religious schools at public expense. That program has also been challenged in court.

Hutchison said he would ask the Wisconsin Court of Appeals _ which he expects will also rule against the plan _ to accelerate its handling of the Milwaukee case.”This will end up in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. We want that court to be able to decide this case prior to the start of the next school year,”said Hutchison, who represents Democratic State Rep. Annette”Polly”Williams. Williams authored the program in conjunction with Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson.

Wisconsin’s top court has already considered the state’s voucher plan once, deadlocking on the issue some 18 months ago. It then sent the case back to the lower courts.

In his ruling, Higginbotham also rejected expansion of Wisconsin’s voucher program to include additional non-religious private schools while upholding the constitutionality of the original program that allows 1,650 children to attend secular private schools using taxpayer dollars. The state pays participating schools about $3,600 per student, money that otherwise would be spent on funding the student’s public school education.

MJP END RIFKIN