After ruling, vouchers still face long road

Lawmakers in eight states are poised to push school voucher legislation, now that the Supreme Court has ruled that these programs do not violate the Constitution's requirement of separation of church and state.

But parents should not expect their local parochial school to begin offering taxpayer-subsidized slots in the first grade this fall. States first would have to devise such programs and the political process to put them in place inevitably will be slow.

California, Texas, Colorado, Minnesota, Arizona, Indiana, Virginia and Utah are ready to move. And on Capitol Hill, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, plans to introduce a voucher program for students in the District of Columbia.

Even supporters of vouchers -- or school-choice programs, as they call them -- say it could take months or even a year or two for state legislatures to develop similar programs.

Further complicating matters is the question of whether religious and private schools that take government money must comply with laws on disability and civil rights.

In the 1999-2000 school year, there were 46.9 million public school students; approximately 5 million students were in private school, according to Education Department figures.

Last year, 50 new Catholic schools opened, but 90 older ones -- mainly in urban areas of the Northeast -- closed.

"The number of schools that we lose each year is likely to diminish, but none of that will happen quickly," said Michael J. Guerra, president of the National Catholic Educational Association.

Thursday's decision, he said, could help inner-city Catholic schools, many of which face declining enrollment.

Robert A. Destro, co-director of the Law and Religion program at Catholic University, said restrictive laws in many states on church-state separation could be "problematic."

Attorney David Brennan, who helped design the Cleveland program, said the ruling "will remove a tremendous chilling effect" on legislators who worried that their voucher proposals would be challenged in court.

"The dialogue will now change," he said.