George Will on School Vouchers & Florida Supremes (Veiled Subscription Pitch)

Nick Gillespie | March 23, 2006

The Wash Post columnist decries the recent Florida Supreme Court decision, which struck down the Sunshine State's Opportunity Scholarship Program, a plan that gave 733 kids at persistently failing schools some state money to attend private schools. Writes Will:

The court held that the OSP violates the stipulation, which voters put into the constitution in 1998, that the state shall provide a "uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education."

The court wielded the first adjective as a scythe to cut down the OSP. It argued that the word "uniform" means that the state must utilize only public schools in providing "high quality education."...

The court's ruling was a crashing non sequitur: that the public duty to provide something (quality education) entails a prohibition against providing it in a particular way (utilizing successful private educational institutions). The court's ruling was neither constitutional law nor out of character, and it illustrates why the composition of courts has become such a contentious political issue.

Whole thing here.

In Reason's April issue--on newsstands now but not yet available online--our cover story plumbs "The Agony of American Education" and looks at how San Francisco is radically altering public schools through "per-student funding." Go here for a preview and go here to subscribe to the print edition of Reason. Just $20 gets you 11 issues of the magazine of "Free Minds and Free Markets" delivered right to your door.

Comments

|3.23.06 @ 9:37AM|#

So the court 'protected' the students' right to a "uniform" education. Now students only need to wait for the court to ensure the part about an "efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education."

MP|3.23.06 @ 9:48AM|#

Now students only need to wait for the court to ensure the part about an "efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education."

You mean like New York? The New York decision is the type of legislating from the bench which really riles me up.

|3.23.06 @ 9:48AM|#

Potential online subscribers beware: I don't read my online Reason anymore because I switch computers too often and the software makes it too difficult to get an old subscription set up on a new machine.

Advice to Reason sales department: make it so that I can get my online Reason with just a password from whatever computer I happen to be on. Anything more difficult is just too cumbersome for this consumer. Things that involve me clearing software off previous machines is especially problemmatic.

|3.23.06 @ 9:49AM|#

Just to pimp for the print edition a bit: The education article really was very good.

|3.23.06 @ 10:01AM|#

What, you think people will subscribe based on an excellent article if they weren't inspired by the RPG?

|3.23.06 @ 10:19AM|#

Just to pimp for the print edition a bit: The education article really was very good.

I also thought the article was excellent. Though it's not really the article that the title implies it will be.

I also thought Nick's little anectdotal intro was effective. Why indeed, should we expect education to be such a miserable experience.

|3.23.06 @ 2:03PM|#

Gee, if "uniform" is critical, I guess all the extra stuff the schools do for "special needs" students is unconstitutional as well, right?

|3.23.06 @ 6:42PM|#

high quality system of free public schools

Free? FREE!? Since when does spending my money = FREE??