Indiana Supreme Court grills attorneys on both sides of school voucher lawsuit

Much of the hour of oral arguments focused on whether the vouchers, which pay at least $4,500 worth of tuition bills per student, go to benefit religious institutions directly, as opponents argue, or primarily benefit the children and their families, as supporters say.

A ruling from the five-member panel is expected within a few months.

John West, the attorney representing several of the law's challengers, said the framers of Indiana's 1851 constitution were seeking to stop the state's education dollars from being divvied up "at the expense of the public school system."

Thomas Fisher, the Indiana solicitor general who defended the state's 2011 voucher law, said it belongs in the same category as charter schools, home schooling, allowing students to transfer to another school in their district and more.

"It is part of a larger array of choices," he said. "It is merely an application of an old idea, and that idea is that we're going to fund different educational choices."

West fended off questions about why vouchers in K-12 education should not be allowed, but state-funded scholarships to private universities for college students should be permissible. He said the difference is that vouchers are "a benefit that is incidental to a permissible secular purpose."

"Here, the state is directly paying for the teaching of religion, and that's what the tipping point is," he said.

The voucher law targets low- and middle-income families, offering tiered tuition payments based on income and based on the amount the state pays to the public schools the students would otherwise attend.

Robert William Gall, another pro-voucher attorney, said school choice exists whether the state's voucher program stands or not, but that the question lawmakers sought to answer in approving it in 2011 was, "Do we want to make it available to everyone or only the wealthy?"

After the hearing, one of the voucher program's strongest advocates — Republican state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, who was defeated on Nov. 6 by Democrat Glenda Ritz — said he never intended it to benefit religious institutions.

He called the measure "one of the most socially just pieces of legislation that our legislature's ever passed."

"Choice is not just for the wealthy, and the fact is, every child in this state — regardless of their race, regardless of how much money their parents have in their checking accounts — should have an opportunity to pursue an education that meets their child's needs, and I think that is clearly what is at stake," Bennett said.

Teresa Meredith, the Indiana State Teachers Association vice president who was one of those who sued to block the vouchers, said the program is siphoning money from public schools that need it. "There needs to be a strong public school system, and at the end of the day, I just want to look back and be able to say we did everything we could to make sure that every kid in the state of Indiana had the opportunity for the best public education possible in their own backyard," she said.

Another appellant, Keith Gambill, the president of the Evansville Teachers Association, said the impact of the vouchers "is something that is being noticed," although it has not delivered the kind of blow that Fort Wayne schools are feeling.

Reports from Fort Wayne on Wednesday indicated that a school that earned an A in the state's A-through-F ranking has lost the most students of any in the city, while three private schools with F ratings are receiving almost $1 million through the state's voucher program.

"If they're choosing to leave a high-quality public education school system for a system that is underperforming simply because of its religious teaching," Gambill said, "then that is the bedrock of our argument."