Washington Post: Louisiana Supreme Court rules school voucher funding unconstitutional

It has happened as I feared.  The Louisiana state Supreme Court has ruled that the use of school vouchers to send kids to religious schools is unconstitutional.  Valerie Strauss writes:

The voucher program was part of a 2012 school reform program that allows the state to offer vouchers to more than half of Louisiana students, expand the number of privately managed charter schools and give letter grades to preschoolers. Opponents have called it nothing less than an assault on public education.

Some 5,000 students are using vouchers this year, even though 450,000 students were eligible, and about 8,000 were recently approved to get voucher money for next year. Many of the voucher students attend private Christian schools which use curriculum that promotes Young Earth Creationism, which holds the belief that the universe is no older than 10,000 years old despite definitive scientific evidence that it is billions of years old. Many of the schools teach things as fact that are actually fantasy, such as that humans co-existed with dinosaurs.

One can only wonder how much of a role that creationism had in this ruling but it is clear that it had some because of the work of Zack Kopplin, who tirelessly pointed out the use of the public money being used to teach creationism. So, a program that could have helped kids escape failed public schools and have a better chance at succeeding in life is ruined by the stinkweed of creationism.  What a tragedy.