The definition of public education is changing rapidly and radically in our current political landscape. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the debate over publicly funded school voucher systems, which direct taxpayer funds to parents to offset the cost of tuition at the private schools of their choice. Tina Cheuk and Rand Quinn address how…

Tim Keller's article insightfully explores the flawed legal reasoning behind and potentially pernicious consequences of the Arizona Supreme Court's 2009 "Cain vs. Horne" ruling. He carefully examines the two fundamental flaws in the court's interpretative methodology: a failure to engage in a straightforward textual analysis of Arizona's…

Judicial decisions focusing on equal educational opportunity involve significant issues of educational governance and often involve explicit questions about the extent to which authority to make educational decisions should be centralized or decentralized across various institutions and entities. This review aims at clarifying scholars'…

Although school choice proponents have generally been on the offensive in legislative arenas over the past 2 decades, they have played almost constant defense in the judiciary, seeking to prevent courts from undoing school choice programs. Opponents typically wield state constitutional provisions against school choice programs. Properly construed,…

This article focuses on Ontario, Canada, which has had two separate, publicly supported school districts since the early 1980s. After summarizing history and constitutional issues, this article develops nine propositions leading to harsh conclusions: providing choice in public education is not easy and may result in diversity without choice.…

In the past 2 years, the United States Supreme Court has decided two important cases that will bear directly on legislation and litigation involving school choice programs that provide financial aid to parents of children attending religious schools. Those cases are "Zelman v. Simmons-Harris" (2002) and "Locke v. Davey" (2004).…

In April 2003 the Colorado legislature created a school voucher program that has the potential to become one of the largest in the nation. Initially limiting the number of children eligible for vouchers to only 1% of the student population in each of the 11 low-performing school districts targeted by the legislation, or about 3,400 students…

In "Zelman v. Simmons-Harris," the Supreme Court of the US made it clear that governments do not unconstitutionally "establish" religion merely by permitting eligible students to use publicly funded scholarships to attend qualifying religious schools, so long as the students' parents are able to make a "true private…