A month after the program's adoption, a coalition asked the Delaware County Circuit Court of Common Pleas to stop it. In late July, a legal maneuver asked the court to throw out the voucher plan without even a hearing. Finally, on October 14, the Common Pleas Court ruled that the school board lacked authority under the Pennsylvania school code to pass such plan, thus halting the program purely on statutory grounds. The opponents of choice seem totally unaware that other democratic developed nations provide public support for educational choice. A survey of teacher unions in other nations found a majority of them do not oppose this practice, and several actively support it.
Some opposition is difficult to understand.
The American Civil Liberties Union claims to support civil liberties, especially when they are threatened by government. The U.S. Supreme Court, in 1925, unanimously ruled that parents have a constitutional right, a civil liberty, to determine the education of their children. Yet, wherever attempts have been made to use public funds to provide student grants at the K-12 level to make this civil liberty a reality for those who cannot afford it, the ACLU has objected. Other opponents are the League of Women Voters and the Parent Teacher Association. Charlene Haar, president of the Education Policy Institute in Washington, DC, says she can find no instance where the PTA has disagreed with the teacher unions on any fundamental question.