School vouchers seem like a good idea at first. Why not get our kids out of badly performing public schools? Why not use the money on schools that can actually teach them? It provides accountability (in the form of lower budgets) to the schools, and it helps the children to get the education they so desperately need. I dislike, fear, the idea though. The Florida Supreme Court is now looking at a Florida bill that represents the first statewide school voucher program.[1] Opponents charge that this bill causes public money to be spent on religious education. And in many senses, they are absolutely right. Because even if you cause the school to track where each dollar goes, spending this money on science and math frees up other funds for religion, and so the argument can be made that it is in essence funding religion. This may or may not win, it really does not matter.

What concerns me is that the use of public funds, in any way or form, opens the door to regulation. Just as many charities are now regulated, needing to conform to costly health laws that a restaurants would need to for example, so too our schools will be increasingly exposed to education laws. And this is not good, because it will expose them to the type of science standards that have put evolution debates in the court systems time and time again. It will expose them to history standards that can be used to push a secular interpretation of history. It will expose them to requirements for sex ed, and a host of other regulations. Because as long as you take government dollars, you are subject to their rules on how you spend them.

[1] http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/632/06-08-2005/f637001aa85826c9.html