To the Editor:
It is astonishing that lawmakers in Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey would even think of diverting public funds to nonpublic schools through voucher plans, in view of the financial crises in those states and the fact that vouchers or tax-credit vouchers would violate the spirit and the letter of their respective state constitutions (“Vouchers Draw Bipartisan Look,” March 3, 2010).
These legislators need to be reminded that millions of American voters in over 25 statewide referendums from coast to coast have rejected vouchers or their variants by an average margin of 2-to-1, that vouchers would compel taxpayers to support sectarian institutions that commonly practice forms of discrimination and indoctrination unthinkable in public schools, and that vouchers would inevitably drain money away from our needy public schools.
Religious, civil rights, civil liberties, educational, and other grassroots organizations are nearly uniformly opposed to vouchers.
Edd Doerr
President
Americans for Religious Liberty
Silver Spring, Md.
