Eventually, the Supreme Court will settle the issue. If its recent rulings are any guide, it will find that there is no constitutional objection to vouchers so long as their purpose is neither to promote nor to inhibit religion, and so long as the choice of school is made by parents, not the state. But the real case for vouchers does not rest on legal niceties. It rests on the simple fact that school choice works. Wherever vouchers are tried, student test scores improve.
Parents express far greater satisfaction with their children's education.
And the benefits are not limited to the families that get the vouchers. A city that once rebuffed requests for public Mo ntessori schools now has them. The Constitution does not stand for the proposition that poor children are condemned to lousy government schools. The Supreme Court needs to say so, the sooner the better. Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist.