After a number of students applied for the scholarships and made arrangements to go to their new schools, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld an injunction filed by the ACLU and other like-minded organizations which suspended the program until the Court could review it's constitutionality. Governor Thompson fully intends to fight this battle to the U.S. Supreme Court, where his state will be represented by Kenneth Starr, former Solicitor General of the United States. The Wisconsin case is typical of a number of school choice and school reform movements across the country. Powerful opponents of these programs argue against their fairness, constitutionality, and effectiveness. American Catholics have been largely supportive of these reform measures, and this support has been one of the important factors in their growing strength.
School choice is an issue of basic social justice.
Overwhelmingly, our urban educational systems are grossly ineffective and oftentimes ridden with drugs, violence, and crime. Educational achievement for the students these schools enroll is at, or near, the bottom of the national statistics. School choice programs give less fortunate students, those who are most desperately in need of a quality education, an opportunity to escape a system which has no incentive either to perform well or improve itself. Another reason Catholics have been so supportive of school choice programs goes back to the sovereignty of the family unit and the opposition to interference by the state in family and religious matters. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is explicit in its endorsement of educational policies which give power to families to educate their children with the religious and social values they prefer.