This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, May 10th, 2013. I'm Caleb Brown. A new court ruling in Louisiana has thrown out a method of funding school vouchers.

Fans of school choice shouldn't worry,

says Jason Bedrick, a policy analyst

with Cato's Center for Educational Freedom.

He argues the ruling was narrow,

and school choice broadly carries on in Louisiana.

You had some words for people who were concerned that this ruling in Louisiana would mean

some sort of end to school choice. What is the big

takeaway from what has been ruled in Louisiana? Well first the ruling in

Louisiana was quite narrow. The law itself isn't, the law itself hasn't been struck down. What the Louisiana

Supreme Court decided earlier this week was that the states of voucher law was

unconstitutionally funded. So it's actually quite a narrow ruling. The court

ruled that once funds are dedicated to the state's minimum foundation

program for public education that the Constitution

prohibits those funds from being expended on really anything else

including tuition cost of non-public schools and non-public entities. So the program itself technically still exists

and could possibly be funded by some other source.

But with or without that decision and with or without

funding for other sources school choice advocates should not despair

because Louisiana still has a scholarship tax credit program.

Now it's my understanding that a lot of these school choice programs in Louisiana specifically

arose after Hurricane Sandy and Rita, is that right? Some of them were in existence beforehand.

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