Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that school voucher programs are constitutional provided they give parents a choice of religious and secular schools, local administrators in public and private schools say the ruling will have very little affect in Selma.

Simply put, most school administrators have not supported school vouchers in the past and won’t start now.

“I don’t support the concept of vouchers. It takes money out of the public school. People always say we need more resources and to improve the quality of education. I can’t see how taking funds out of public schools will improve the quality of education,” said Selma City Schools superintendent Dr. James Carter.

Carter said the key to improving education is producing quality teachers and increasing the involvement between parents and teachers in the classroom.

“If we do that, we won’t have to worry about school vouchers,” he said.

Supreme Court justices voted 5 to 4 Thursday to allow school vouchers to be used to pay for private and parochial school tuition, allowing parents a greater choice of where they send their children to school. Vouchers have been embraced by President George Bush, who calls the idea “a ticket out of dismal and dangerous public schools.”

Bush said the decision clears the way for innovative school choice programs.

At least one private school administrator in Selma expressed serious reservations about the program.

“School vouchers wouldn’t have any affect on us because we wouldn’t accept them,” said Meadowview Christian School Principal Dr. Steve Morgan.

Morgan explained that according to information he learned in an educational law classes in college, “the U.S. government would not finance anything they would not control – therefore we would not honor school vouchers.”

“It’s a tempting thing. I think the voucher program has some good merit and the intent is fantastic, but at some point it will go back to court. There are more negatives than positives,” Morgan said.

Dallas County Superintendent Wayne May voiced his opinion on the impact of school vouchers to public schools loud and clear.

“I have not researched the program enough to say whether it would improve the quality of education for students,” he said. “I think school vouchers would hurt us in a time where we already have financial worries. The state is not funding schools adequately now. School vouchers would be detrimental to the public school system.”

Morgan also noted that school vouchers would cause havoc for the Alabama Teachers’ Retirement Fund.

“Public school teachers would be greatly affected by this because money would be taken away. It seems like the government is trying to fix a tire that’s not flat. But you can’t tell what the federal court could do if the issue is raised again,” Morgan said.