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During the 1997-98 school year, visitors to Milwaukee's Holy Redeemer Institutional Church of God in Christ might not have known that the students playing together actually attended two separate schools. The students wore the same uniforms, took classes in the same building, and even attended morning devotions together. Yet some of those students attended D. J. Young Academy, not Holy Redeemer. The difference? Holy Redeemer was officially a religious school, Young Academy was not.

D. J. Young Academy began in 1996 when a court injunction excluded "sectarian" schools from an expansion of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), the nation's first city-operated school-voucher system. The Pentecostal church decided to create a school similar to its Christian academy—then filled to capacity—but without the religious-themed textbooks. With parents' permission, the students still received an hour of religious instruction each day, but classroom curriculum remained the same as that of Milwaukee public schools.

On June 10, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that religious schools could participate in the program, expanding the nation's most extensive school-choice program even further (CT, Aug. 10, 1998, p. 28). An appeal is likely.

Jerry Fair, president of both Holy Redeemer schools, says the implications for D. J. Young Academy will not be overwhelming, but the distinction between it and Holy Redeemer Christian Academy will be even more blurred.

Both schools will now use A Beka Book textbooks published by Pensacola Christian College. D. J. Young Academy will no longer need to obtain specific permission from parents for morning devotions and other religious instruction. Parents will still have the opportunity to remove their children from overtly religious activities such as morning devotions. But because every parent has chosen to enroll children in such activities, Fair does not anticipate any opting out.

Beginning with the term that starts this month, the only real difference between the two schools will be in their names.

"LANDMARK DECISION": In recent years, voucher supporters have experienced small successes and setbacks across the nation, but the Wisconsin ruling—the first time a state's highest court has ruled on the issue—is the most monumental victory to date for voucher proponents.

"This is a landmark decision," says Christian Coalition executive director Randy Tate. His organization's members have ranked the importance of school choice as second only to pro-life issues. "For years people have pointed to Milwaukee as an example of a solution that has worked, and this decision reinforces that."

The 4-to-2 ruling draws upon federal and state court rulings dating to 1878, but relies chiefly upon the U.S. Supreme Court's 1971 ruling in Lemon v. Kurtzman. Known as the "Lemon" test, the Court ruled that a law does not violate the Constitution's First Amendment if it meets three requirements: it serves a secular purpose; its chief effect neither enhances nor inhibits religion; and it does not create an "excessive entanglement" between government and religion.

Wisconsin Justice Donald Steinmetz wrote for the court majority: "We hold that the amended MPCP, which provides a neutral benefit directly to the children of economically disadvantaged families on a religious-neutral basis, does not run afoul of any of the three primary criteria the Court has traditionally used to evaluate whether a state educational assistance program has the purpose or effect of advancing religion."

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September 7 1998, Vol. 42, No. 10