The new Supreme Court term began Monday. One of the cases on the court’s docket deals with the issue of school vouchers and religious education. School vouchers provide federally funded grants to low-income parents to help them afford private tuition for their children.

A voucher program in Cleveland, OH, was declared unconstitutional last year because the majority of parents who were allowed to pick which school their children could attend chose religious schools. The Supreme Court must decide whether the Constitution permits government to supply taxpayer-financed vouchers that parents could then choose to use toward parochial school tuition. Currently, 4,266 children use the vouchers to attend 56 private schools, with 96 percent of the children enrolled in religious schools (New York Times).

The Bush administration is supporting the appeal of Ohio’s school voucher ruling because parents are being offered a private choice. According to the Bush administration, if parents are choosing to use the vouchers for religious schooling, then the government is not directly funding parochial schools. On the other hand, those who are against the voucher program feel that it is simply channeling public money into the bank accounts of religious schools.

Is there a difference between public financing of religious education and making public money available to be used at the discretion of parents? If you were a member of the Supreme Court, would you vote for or against school vouchers being used for parochial school tuition?