Andy Spears' Tennessee Education Report just this minute posted that the General Assembly has passed a bill to create a voucher system for students with Individual Education Plans (IEPs).
What does the bill do?
If you ask the sponsors (and a number of members did), they really don’t know. Essentially, the legislation (HB138) creates individual education accounts of around $6600 to be provided to the parents or guardians who meet the qualifications in the amendment. They must have an IEP. Around 18,000 students (those with autism, blind or deaf, mental disabilities, and orthopedic disabilities) qualify.
Spears also reports that any parent/guardian who accepts the voucher MUST forfeit their rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)--and lists several of the most important safeguards contained in the Act.
Similar voucher programs across the country have expanded rapidly and Florida's program, in particular, has experienced rampant fraud.
My representative, the homeschooling Roger Kane, was House co-sponsor. So much for the message I left with him over the weekend...
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The companion bill, SB 0027, passed the Senate yesterday with support from Knox County senators Briggs, Massey, and Nicely.
I'm not yet aware of how Knox County's House delegation voted today.
Tamara,
Don't ASSume that he ignored your message. Rep. Kane represents thousands of citizens. Hundreds that have IEP's and likely out numbered your one call. Each citizen contact equals as one and you were likely outnumbered on this one.
Did your caps lock get stuck?
(in reply to BrianHornback)
Where did she say her message was ignored? Maybe the inference was that it did no good?
But you appear to have great insight as to what the parents of IEP's want.
Would you please explain how Representative Kane's bill makes the life of those parents better and how he intends to avoid the fraud Florida has experienced?
And I hope I'm not ASSuming you can ASSist when you really don't have any useful or helpful information.
Cause I'd hate to think you just occasionally stop by to simply be an ass.
*
(in reply to BrianHornback)
Brian, please direct me to the "thousands of citizens" whose children have "hundreds of IEPs" in my voting district, each of them desperate for disabled students to be freed of the onerous Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act.
ASS, indeed.
Well,
(in reply to Tamara Shepherd)
at one time I could give you that information, but I would not have Because, t violates their protected privacy of their educational program. So, don't ask questions that you surely know would one be a violation for you to receive and for me to provide.
Freedom!
Freedom!
To use a cliche, freedumb.
(in reply to Stick)
To use a cliche, freedumb.
*
I'm not spotting mainstream media coverage on this yet, but here are notes from an attendee at today's legislative session, including her record of the roll call vote.
I'm seeing Joe Armstrong as an "aye?!" What's up with that?!
EDIT: Okay, Joe's name appears under the "NOEs" heading. I read it wrong because there's no space between the block of "AYEs" names and the block of "NOEs" names.
*
Looking at how the Knox County delegation voted, it appears that Harry Brooks, Ryan Haynes, BIll Dunn, Eddie Smith, and Roger Kane ALL voted for it.
This dog passed the House by just two votes.
EDIT: I'm tired and have been reading too rapidly from too many sites. If you looked at the "I teach, I vote" blog I linked above, you saw that this bill passed 52-43. That's a difference of nine votes, then, not two. Sorry.
Imitation gruel with that special sauce on the nothing burger
This is the Republican plan to improve education. Representative Kane is for children with brain trauma, deaf-blindness, autism etc forfeiting their IDEA rights to get a voucher that may cover the cost of tuition at a e.g., religious, private school that won't be required by federal law to have modifications in place to help the child learn. Equitable service plans do not remotely equal those students receive at public schools with specially trained staff working within the IDEA. Unbelievable, not really. Predictable, for sure.
Rep. Kane (615) 741-4110
*
(in reply to Mike Knapp)
It's difficult to conceive of parents actually forfeiting their kids rights under IDEA to attend a private school. of course.
I'm sure legislators' game plan was simply to get somedamnedthing through, so that the "incremental change" can truly get underway next legislative session.
I promise you that parents of
I promise you that parents of children struggling with IEPs, therapies and insurance companies will try absolutely everything to help their child. Rationality and objectivity are a privilege.
*
(in reply to CathyMcCaughan)
Talk to me, Cathy. Do you anticipate that the state will see 18,000 takers for this program? Why or why not?
Tamara, Do you have a clue?
(in reply to Tamara Shepherd)
Tamara,
Do you have a clue? Or are you just tone deaf? Cathy wasn't talking about money. She's talking about parents of special need students having someone listen to them.
One the problems that you have always had, Tamara, is that you put on your blinders regarding a subject and then you never hear the nuances. This is a prime example.
I, for one, am not going to spend time trying to beat the nuances into your brain while you do nothing but beat your point of view into my brain. I'm outta here.
Wow.
(in reply to Pam Strickland)
That was a pretty bitchy response for a question that wasn't directed to you.
If your LEA
is not providing your child what they need, if the IEP team disagrees with the parent and the parent can not get the services needed, the IDEA isn't anything other than words on pages. A majority of SPED parents can not devote the hours needed to sit in conference after conference and do not have the ability to research the rights afforded their child to fight for what their kid needs. Then imagine your in a rural county school district and can't get out. I view this legislation as 1) giving parents a viable option and 2) an ability to give the parents some ammunition to get what they need by seeking other options.
IEP meetings can be
IEP meetings can be exhausting and demoralizing. More often than not, they feel like a struggle. It is not a, "Look at all my legal rights" kind of meeting. It is a, "That was helping. Why are you taking it away?" kind of meeting.
There are families putting their children in hyperbaric chambers, getting blood transfusions and having teeth with the wrong kind of filling extracted. Children are being subjected to exorcisms and rebirthing therapies. I don't even want to talk about bleach.
Families will put their children in any school that claims it can help. They will do so knowing full well that it could fail. They've experienced failure enough to no longer fear it.
Yes. Families will try charter schools for their children.
*
But Cathy (and Brian), we know that the root problem here is that the IDEA has never, in the entire 40 years since its passage, been fully funded. Per my link above, even today the feds are covering just 16% of the 40% promised.
And we also know that voucher legislation like this only seeks to circumvent that problem--and only for families who can afford to pick up the tab between the voucher amount offered and the full cost of the private education/treatment offered--while offering no greater assurance of adequate education/treatment.
And of course we also know that the net effect of this entire circus is to resegregate studnet populations we worked very hard for decades to see integrated.
Where's the win?
More to the point, why not fix what's broken, namely the broken promise of adequate funding for IDEA?
I repeat: "Rationality and
(in reply to Tamara Shepherd)
I repeat: "Rationality and objectivity are a privilege."
If they funded IDEA at 150%, it would not change what Special Ed parents experience.
*
(in reply to CathyMcCaughan)
I guess I'm not grasping what you're suggesting the "fix" is.
Is your observation that "mainstreaming" doesn't work and/or that some level of segregation is needed?
If so, are you suggesting that vouchers are acceptable for this limited purpose (although personally, I very much doubt any voucher program would remain limited for very long)?
I said none of the above. I
(in reply to Tamara Shepherd)
I said none of the above. I suggested no fix for anything. You are looking at this with your calculator brain when it is a heart issue. I told you that Special Ed families will see this as an option they must try.
*
Thanks for playing, but the task at hand is to arrive at the "fix" and sell it--to families of SPED kids and the legislature, both.
I mistakenly thought you had something to offer.
Awfully bitchy for someone
(in reply to Tamara Shepherd)
Awfully bitchy for someone who has zero idea what special ed parents experience. Let me know how far that gets you. STEP and other powers are already acting on this from a point of understanding and compassion.
*
(in reply to CathyMcCaughan)
Awfully psychic to suggest that 150% of IDEA funding promised 40 years ago wouldn't be of any help to America's public schools, when they haven't yet received 50% of what was promised.
You do understand that you live in a state ranking 49th nationally for per pupil education funding, too?
You don't have a clue what full IDEA funding and state funding at just an average level could accomplish. You've never seen it and you're talking out your ass.
That's fine Tamara. I'm in
(in reply to Tamara Shepherd)
That's fine Tamara. I'm in the transcript of the IDEA reauthorization hearings held in Nashville and I'm on the videotape interviews they made across the country, but you like to do research, so you know everything.
Families of children with the diagnosis that our legislature used for this will try absolutely anything that might help their child. They will even sign away their rights. You are very lucky not to know what that feels like.
Schools are not going to suddenly create classrooms for one child's needs if they have more money. They will continue to put that child in a broom closet converted to a classroom.
More money won't mean more teachers. It will mean more teams of experts from California and wherever brought in to ignore teachers and parents.
More money in the system's budget won't change families frustrations and desire for more choices.
Again, groups that care are rapidly putting out information about what it means to relinquish your current rights. They are offering to help families get all the information they need to make choices for themselves.
Civility
(in reply to Tamara Shepherd)
Tamara, you did jump on Cathy undeservedly with your comment, "I mistakenly thought you had something to offer."
It was condescending and bitchy. All Cathy is saying is that parents are desperate to find a way to help their special needs children and will do whatever it takes, including putting them in a charter school or trying unconventional treatments. I don't think she is arguing that more money wouldn't help the situation if it were directed properly, rather that more money is unlikely to used to benefit special needs children. And that money can't "fix" children.
I'm not a voucher supporter by any means but I do understand why special needs parents might grasp onto this as a possible way to help their children. And until you have a special needs child, I would suggest that you not judge those that do.
Tamara
You want to think that money is the cure all, fix all, it is not. You apparently want to look at playing blame on someone. What SPED parents want is there child treated as a student with the abilities of every other child. When you look at everything as a conservative failure, money problem when you haven't a clue what SPED parents go through, then you really ought to just stay out and let the parents do what they know to do, that is not fix the widget in the factory, but love, care and seek educational opportunities for their kids. If I had the time, money and ability I would walk through the bureaucracy to help all the SPED parents I could. I can not. The one thing I spent a lot of time on in my four years on the board was learning about SPED and the issues faced by families.
Now you and your liberal friends here can begin bashing me, see ya.
*
Oh, had another psychic revelation, did you? Cathy, you don't know how much money we're talking about and you don't know how it might be spent, either--although you could choose to advocate for it, and also for how it should be spent.
Full funding of the IDEA would have meant another $281,236,546 for Tennessee's SPED students in 2014.
State funding at just the average level among US states would have meant another $901,056,004 for ALL Tennessee's students in 2014 (and the TN Constitution says the state is to provide public ed, in spite of the fact that TN now pays just 48% of its cost on average and just 37% of its cost in Knox County).
Together, just those two promises fulfilled would have added nearly $1.2 billion to TN's public ed budget last year.
Nobody, whether or not they're in any "videotaped interview," can tell me that another $1.2 billion in TN's public ed budget last year wouldn't have made a difference and couldn't have afforded families of any sort more public school choice.
But if you think the answer to any of our public school problems is to direct public monies to private enterprises, we're at a conversational impasse.
(Double-check my math if you care to--since I didn't. I used this link for IDEA's funding formula and this link for data at the State Report Card. Note that IDEA pays for a maximum of 12% of total student population designated SPED, although in TN 14.2% of total students are designated SPED. We don't get federal funding for that many.)
Money only helps to a point........
(in reply to Tamara Shepherd)
This state is run by data driven results. Often, special needs children (and children in general) are best reached by someone who may or may not have the documentation and certification the state requires to approve a specific job for a specific place.
The point is this. The individual needs of a child requiring extra attention are often best met by means other than those recognized by the state. This has been the offshoot of the "Let's run government like a business" movement. Not everything has a group solution. Some things must be done on a case by case method.
The frustration of dealing with a system ill-equipped to serve its constituents will drive people to decisions based on hope, not rational based outcomes based on proven past practice. We are destroying our educational system in this state under the guise of building it. The special needs kids are always the first to be thrown under the bus.
*
The State of Tennessee pays for 1 school nurse for every 3,000 students, BTW.
And that's a recent improvement.
It is not a money problem
If it's $1.2 billion in TN, how much is it combined with the other 49 states? When you get that answer, the follow up question is, where would the federal government get the additional dollars?
I hate to feed the trolls,
(in reply to BrianHornback)
but you don't seem very bright. :/
You are welcome to your
You are welcome to your opinion. However, the former School Superintendent always told his staff that when Brian Hornback asks a question, he has already researched and knows the answer so don't lie to him.
But that's probably why he is the former Superintendent. With the multiplier being his out of control spending
*
People:
Here again is the previously-linked roll call of how House members voted on this measure under discussion, namely a voucher program for SPED students.
Here is the list of House members, complete with their political party identifiers.
As you will discern, NOT A SINGLE DEMOCRAT WAS IN FAVOR OF THIS VOUCHER PROGRAM. Well, one was but that was John DeBerry, who is counting on Michelle Rhee to afford him a comfortable retirement.
This is a progressive blog. Progressives don't support public monies being taken from public educational institutions to be spent by private enterprises, period. If you are a progressive weighing a proposal for public ed and you find yourself aligned with Sheila Butt, Glen Casada, Bill Dunn, Roger Kane, and Curry Todd on that proposal, either you are not really a progressive or you are trippin'.
Tennessee now has a private school voucher program, it's one known to have been rapidly expanded in other states, and it's one known to be rampant with fraud in some states.
Thanks for nothing, Tennessee Republicans.
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Make that "thanks for nothing, Tennessee Republicans, except for the 19 who joined 24 Democrats to try to defeat this bill."
Blog
Tamara, this is not your blog. It is Bubba and the Mrs's and it is up to them to determine who is able to speak. I myself am grateful for their cyber hospitality.
To see someone else come here and make that kind of pronouncement makes my blood boil. I don't want to live in a progressive "ghetto" and I certainly don't want to see people being told what to think in such a way. I prefer diversity of opinion over groupthink, whatever my opinion on the subject at hand.
It's not you, it's not me, it's that guy behind the tree
I understand the above statements about parents of special needs children and their willingness to do anything for their kids. Personally having sat in on many, many IEP meetings over the years I've seen the potential of fear, deep love and concern for children to override rationality in decision-making. As far as the concept of rationality in other dimensions of human existence is concerned it is indeed a privilege to think that rationality can be adequately/equally applied in all situations. Power relations often trump rational concepts supporting policy. Perhaps it is one of the most frustrating aspects of public policy and power. It cuts many ways. One's rational concern for the lives of future generations of people and critters on this planet cuts against the rational concerns of stockholders and corporate CEO's who operate in a system where profit maximization is the only goal. Unfortunately one rationalization is often more heavily weighted in the political calculus. I think we might all agree which ones are more heavily weighted.
In this specific case we rationally hold, with high confidence levels based on extensive analysis of their program, the voucher policy handle for what it is - a method to privatize publicly held assets. It is the same shovel with slightly different piles over and over, be it special ed/regular ed/Medicare etc.
The threshold question for Rep. Kane and supporters in his party - as well as corporate Democrats who also support the idea of making profits off of public schools - do you believe in public education? If they do then how does a voucher program - special/regular ed, help that public asset, that commonly held public resource? It doesn't, because it cannot. Will it help speced kids? Show us how it can. And then answer the question - if it works then why not do it in public schools.
I spoke with some speced colleagues at school about this legislation. Together they had a combined 40+ years of experience in public schools dealing with these fantastic kids. One has worked in speced for 27 years. They said nothing positive and went ballistic when the idea of waving IDEA rights was discussed. Is the IDEA a failure, are kids and parents lining up to repeal it?
This is a deeply cynical play in the end. Good public education costs money. Good military capability costs money. Retired people, their pensions and their sicknesses costs money. And kids with brain trauma and autism, their special needs in an educational setting cost money. When I speak with speced teachers - and students - some of what comes back is that generally IEP's are helpful, managing huge caseloads and being mainstreamed in classes with 35 kids are not. How are these specific, real problems corrected? By hiring more speced staff to reduce caseloads plus hiring more teachers and building out in the public system for more class space. It takes investing in resources at a macro scale. And if the hypothetical rural LEA doesn't have the means to help kids then ask why not. The answer probably has something to do with funds, e.g., absentee corporate landowners not paying their taxes on their pine plantations or the state not adequately funding BEP.
The money is there. The inequality of wealth is there too. For gits and shiggles we could play that game where we name the defunct military program that cost billions of dollars that went nowhere or that corporate tax break that led to off-shoring and massively huge compensation packages. Ultimately we live in a society which has a Gini coefficient that rivals Rwanda, Russia and India. We live in a state ranked at the top of inequality in the US.
The money is there. The inequality of wealth is there too. Ultimately the voucher math doesn't work. The math works with a reversal of the redistribution of wealth and income from working people to the enormously rich. It works when commonly held resources are adequately funded, when public assets are invested in. It doesn't work when public assets are cannibalized for profits.
Mike
(in reply to Mike Knapp)
Thank you for taking the time to reorient this thread back to the issues at hand. Thoughtful as always...
The evil magic of 'starve the beast' (as a political strategy) is that it creates a feedback loop in which poor services lead to a cynical logic that undermines our ability to adequately fund public institutions. Hence, 'throwing money at it will not fix the problem' becomes a regular fixture of political discourse.
The evil magic of neoliberalism (as a social imaginary) is that it buries solidarity and the necessary preconditions for collective action beneath a mountain of tropes and slogans from the world of marketing and public relations, 'choice' being the most common.
I dunno
(in reply to Stick)
Throwing money at the problem seems to work with the military. Why wouldn't it work for schools? And why doesn't anyone ever use that argument to counter the idiots who pretend money doesn't matter?
Perhaps I wasn't clear. I was
(in reply to Min)
Perhaps I wasn't clear. I was speaking to the origins of the trope 'throwing money at it will not fix it,' but it is certainly not an endorsement. We need to fully fund our public institutions, including public education.
*
I have not really understood the disconnect between some of us in this thread. If anyone here has a friend or family member who is a student with disabilities and has taken offense to my any comments, I apologize for that. It certainly hasn’t been my intention here to “judge parents,” only to judge this new law as to its usefulness and propriety as public policy.
Although my link to Tennessee Education Report referenced the House bill number (HB 138) and my link to I Teach, I Vote referenced the Senate bill number (SB 027, which was the single bill ultimately adopted), my impression is that several posters may not have read the bill before posting? If this is the case, here is a recap of my concerns with both the promotion of the bill and its content, which I expect you'll share:
1. The legislature’s website did not categorize this bill as a “voucher” bill, so it was not possible for the public to search for it using that keyword.
2. When asked in floor debate if this was a “voucher” bill, House sponsor Moody told legislators that it was not, so it is not clear if legislators fully understood the bill’s thrust.
3. Although it was HB 138 that moved through committee approvals, on reaching the floor the bill’s sponsors substituted SB 027 as amended for the House bill-- on the last day of the session and within hours of adjournment-- so it is not clear whether all House members even knew the substitute bill’s particulars.
4. Paramount among those particulars is that the bill offered no provision that participating schools and providers must accept the voucher as full payment, so only more financially able families can use the voucher, while families with greater financial constraints are afforded no “choice.” Furthermore, the bill also allowed the Individual Education Account (IEA) balance to be spent on “therapies or services” and, by amendment, on computer equipment or other technological equipment if approved by the DOE or by a physician. Finally, the bill stipulated that IEA balances are to be remitted to parents, not to their students’ schools or other providers.
5. Equally important is that the bill did not preclude religious schools from accepting the voucher and, WRT its provision that any residual amount left in a student’s I EA may be applied to the cost of the student’s any post-secondary education, the bill did not preclude religious colleges from accepting the voucher, either.
6. Equally important (and possibly in violation of federal law?) is that the bill required families of students accepting the voucher to forfeit their rights under the long-standing IDEA.
7. The bill required participating schools and providers to educate the student only in the areas of “reading, grammar, mathematics, social studies, and science” and did not indicate at what level of total units the student is to receive this limited instruction. It did not require music for the blind student or art for the deaf student. It did not require physical education. It did not require education in social sciences, government, economics, finance, foreign language, or technology, as is specifically required in public schools. Neither will any vocational-technical training necessarily be available to voucher students.
8. The bill required much less frequent standardized testing of students, only TCAP testing in grades 3–8 or equivalent testing, and that only in the subject areas of math and English language arts. It did not require any testing beyond grade 8, including the ACT Plan and the standard 11th grade ACT, and it did not require public disclosure of even TCAP results just in grades 3-8 and just in those two subject areas . Furthermore, as the law presently stands, the Senate bill authorized the Education Commissioner to establish what constitutes testing equivalent to the TCAP while the House bill authorized the State Board of Education to make that determination, which may bode ominously for continued bickering between and even within each of the two chambers as to which party, the Commissioner or the Board, will dictate a testing equivalent. Also, the bill exempted altogether from standardized testing any student for whom testing is deemed to be inappropriate as indicated on his IEP.
9. Per fiscal notes to the Senate bill adopted as amended, both state and local governments are expected to recognize a net savings when the law is implemented. Meanwhile, while the bill provided a voucher of $6628 annually, fiscal notes indicate that LEAs have to date been spending a combined total of state and local funds totaling $2433 annually more than that, so the voucher represents a 27% cut in funding to participating students. The fiscal note also indicates that public schools will experience a cut of $1742 annually in federal IDEA funding associated with the volume of students expected to participate in the voucher program, which amount is not likely to be offset by any parallel drop in public schools’ combined fixed and variable costs for serving their remaining students.
Hopefully this detailed commentary more fully explains why I believe this new law does not serve well the disabled students who will accept a voucher or the ones remaining in their public school, either one. And hopefully you will also agree that the savings it generates for state and local government are realized only at an unconscionable cost to both groups.
I do want to share with you that in my fifteen years as Legislative Chair for three school-level PTAs and the Knox County Council PTA, I have been a strong advocate for full funding of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). I have worked to educate my fellow board members on the topic in our board meetings and parents school wide in our evening programs. I have had letters published on the topic in both the News-Sentinel and our community newspapers. One year, when serving on the board of the County PTA, I administered a large-scale postcard campaign urging Congress to address the full funding for IDEA promised in its legislation fully 40 years ago. I’ll certainly continue to urge it and I hope you will, too.
Perspective
(in reply to Tamara Shepherd)
Also from the fiscal note:
Based on research performed by the Comptroller’s Office on participation rates in other
states for similar programs, it is estimated a minimum of one percent of eligible students
(or 1,182) will participate annually.
*
(in reply to Jamie Satterfield)
No, I don't expect any high participation rate, myself.
If you read my link to the Chalkbeat Tennessee article, Sen. Doug Overby said he spoke with all four school superintendents in his district (none of whom approved of this bill) and Superintendent Mike Winstead was quoted as saying he didn't expect droves of families to be interested, either.
My bigger concern is simply that this precedent of offering a voucher for any reason has now been set. As Randy observed probably three or four years ago, the reform movement is intent on what he characterized as "incremental change," as in a chipping away at our long-established goals and processes in public ed.
The reformers' message framing has been pretty successful, indeed, if some people have become convinced that that it's the processes of SPED within public ed that are failing, not the dearth of funding to support those processes.
Tamara
why you rant, rave pissing even your "progressives" off and then apologize. You are always gonna be last in every group you force yourself into.
"progressive"
(in reply to DenisShepherd)
Denis, do you also consider everyone who posts on this blog a "progressive"? I call myself a Liberalitarian.
I'm not sure I agree with everything Tamara, Mike and Betty post but I value their insight and find their posts very informative.
Main thing I react to is someone pronouncing what I should think. Make your case, be informative, that's all I ask.
*
(in reply to Up Goose Creek)
You may not agree with this either, Goose, but I have long thought you should call yourself a "Liberaltarian." That "i" after the "Liberal" makes for a seventh syllable and it just doesn't roll off the tongue as easily...
(I think you know me well enough to realize the term generally describes me, as well. Pretty sure I'm generally as tight-fisted as you are!)
*
It's now been three days since TN adopted this voucher program and I have yet to find a single news report about it in any of our major daily papers. I've used multiple keywords to search the Knoxville News-Sentinel, The Tennessean, the Commercial Appeal, and the Times-Free Press, to no avail. I'm starting to wonder if this dearth of information is purposeful???
Meanwhile, I am seeing it discussed on various blogs. Chalkbeat Tennessee posted a story the day of the vote. I wasn't surprised to learn that only three states nationally have adopted a measure like this, namely two of the nation's eight non-income tax states (Tennessee and Florida) and that public policy bellwether, Mississippi.
Ironically, on the same day of the TN vote the NEA posted a story on its Education Votes blog to announce a campaign to "invoice" the feds for their underfunding of the IDEA, which they report constituted a $17 billion shortfall for states in just the current school year.
*
Okay, I just learned something. I had commented above concerning Tennessee's new voucher program directing monies to parents rather than to the private schools and providers delivering services, my implication being that this seems a procedure ripe for parental fraud? It appears that the questionable procedure is purposeful.
The 2002 U.S. Supreme Court case Zelman v. Simmons-Harris decided that in order for a school voucher program to be deemed constitutional, state aid *must* go to parents, not directly to schools.
See Wiki entry for details, here.
Tamara
(in reply to Tamara Shepherd)
Your Wiki link is faulty. While hovering over it, a portion of your text appears in my status line. You may be looking for this one instead.
*
(in reply to redmondkr)
Thanks, Kenny.
Since I can't edit that post any longer, please find the Wiki link to the SCOTUS decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris here.
(And this time I "previewed" my post before submitting it. Should work.)