Neutral and indirect aid: Designing a constitutional school voucher program under the Supreme...

INTRODUCTION

In the wake of substantial efforts to reform America's educational structure, school vouchers are once again in the spotlight. Several states1 have vouchers in operation,2 have legislation pending to enact such programs,3 or have defeated such legislation.4 In January 1998, Congress entered the debate with the proposed District of Columbia Student Opportunity Scholarship Act of 1998,5 which would have provided the District of Columbia with a voucher program. The Act was passed

Those who seek to challenge the validity of school vouchers typically do so by two prongs of attack: policy and the Constitution. The policy arguments attacking school vouchers allege that any time tax revenue is taken from the school district in which it was generated and reallocated to subsidize the education of children outside the school district-either in private or other public schools-the local school district suffers.8 In other words, the concern about the degradation of the public school system is only heightened, not alleviated, by the issuance of school vouchers.