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.

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.

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 […]

Mark Roseman is a professor of Jewish studies and history at Indiana University in Bloomington, where his specialties include the history of the Holocaust.

Michael Gottsegen is a visiting assistant professor in the Judaic studies program at Brown University n Providence, R.I. He studies the relation between the Jewish religion and public and political life.

Suzanne Stone is a law professor and director of the Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization at Yeshiva University in New York City.