For the second time in recent months, a school voucher program has been ruled unconstitutional. A Florida judge on Wednesday ordered that the state's voucher program be blocked, ruling the system violated the state's constitution, the New York Times reports.

The Florida ruling follows another from a federal judge in Cleveland, stating that the voucher system violates the First Amendment's position on the separation of church and state, since many private schools are church-run.

The voucher program is an education experiment that uses market forces to improve failing public schools, according to The New York Times. The program grades the state's public schools and, if a school receives a failing grade twice in four years, offers to foot the bill for students that wish to attend private schools.

This maneuver is an attempt to force public school systems to renovate and improve their methods. Opponents of the program, however, argue that to do so interferes with the right to free public schooling, found in Article IX, Section I of the Constitution.

Not coincidentally, the school vouchers issue coincides with the Presidential primaries. Republican nominee George W. Bush is pushing a national education reform plan that features a voucher system.

Bush's brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush, and John F. Kirtley, a Tampa venture capitalist who is on the board of Floridians for School Choice, have vowed to raise private donations to allow students using the vouchers to stay in the private schools, where their parents say they are thriving, the Times reports.

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http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/031500vouchers
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