Read a July 2, 2002, story from Beliefnet.com that examine the potential impact of vouchers on Muslim schools.

Listen to a Jan. 16, 2006, story from National Public Radio’s Morning Edition about the Florida Supreme Court ruling that the voucher program violates the state constitution and the difficulties the voucher movement faces.

Voucher critics said the U.S. government report “Comparing Private Schools and Public Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling,” released on July 14, 2006, shows that private schools are not significantly outperforming public schools, while U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings discounted the study. The study examines math and reading scores of private and public school students.

On July 18, 2006, Republicans proposed a $100 million national school voucher program that would let low-income children in underperforming schools move to a different public school or a private school, including religious ones.

On May 7, 2013, The Supreme Court of Louisiana ruled that the state’s voucher system was unconstitutional. The court said that the money going towards the program and the private schools the vouchers are used towards should be used towards the public school system instead.

The Rev. Jennifer Jones-Bridgett is executive director the Louisiana chapter of People Improving Communities through Organizing, also known as PICO Louisiana or PICO LIFT (Louisiana Interfaith Together). This network of more than 100 faith communities has developed a “Covenant to Rebuild Louisiana,” which calls for clergy to work together with government leaders.

Mira Amiras is a professor of humanities at San José State University in California. She teaches courses in Judaism, Zionism and the state and Jewish mysticism, among others.

Douglas Brinkley is a professor of history and director of the Roosevelt Center at Tulane University in New Orleans. He is the author of The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (William Morrow, 2006), which tells the story of the great storm through the eyes of its survivors and examines the failures […]

Alan Steinweis is a professor of history and Holocaust studies at the University of Vermont. He directs the school’s Center for Holocaust Studies and is an expert on the history of Nazi Germany.