Dickson, C.J.
Asserting violation of three provisions of the Indiana Constitution, the plaintiffs challenge Indiana’s statutory program for providing vouchers to eligible parents for their use in sending their children to private schools. Finding that the challengers have not satisfied the high burden required to invalidate a statute on constitutional grounds, we affirm the trial court’s judgment upholding the constitutionality of the statutory voucher program.
As a preliminary matter, we emphasize that the issues before this Court do not include the public policy merits of the school voucher program. Whether the Indiana program is wise educational or public policy is not a consideration germane to the narrow issues of Indiana constitutional law that are before us. Our individual policy preferences are not relevant. In the absence of a constitutional violation, the desirability and efficacy of school choice are matters to be resolved through the political process.
This is an appeal from a summary judgment denying relief in an action brought by several Indiana taxpayers (collectively “plaintiffs”) against the Governor, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the Director of the Department of Education of the State of Indiana who were joined by defendant-intervenors, two parents intending to use the program at issue to send their children to private elementary and high schools (collectively “defendants”). The plaintiffs’ law-suit challenges the Choice Scholarship Program, a program enacted by the Indiana General Assembly, Ind. Code §§ 20-51-4-1 to -11, through which “the State provides vouchers called ‘choice scholarships’ to eligible students to attend private schools instead of the public schools they otherwise would attend.” Appellants’ Br. at 3. The plaintiffs contend that the school voucher program violates Article 8, Section 1, and Article 1, Sections 4 and 6, of the Indiana Constitution “both because it uses taxpayer funds to pay for the teaching of religion to Indiana school-children and because it purports to provide those children’s publicly funded education by paying tuition for them to attend private schools rather than the ‘general and uniform system of Common Schools’ the Constitution mandates.” Id. at 12. [Footnotes omitted.] At the trial court, the plaintiffs and defendant-intervenors each moved for summary judgment, and the trial court denied the plaintiffs’ motion and granted the defendant-intervenors’ motion. The plaintiffs appealed and the defendants filed a verified joint motion to transfer jurisdiction to this Court under Appellate Rule 56(A). [Footnote omitted.] After consideration, we granted the motion and assumed jurisdiction over the case. For reasons ex-pressed below, we now find that the school voucher program does not violate Article 8, Section 1; Article 1, Section 4; or Article 1, Section 6. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
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Conclusion
We hold that the Indiana school voucher program, the Choice Scholarship Program, is within the legislature’s power under Article 8, Section 1, and that the enacted program does not violate either Section 4 or Section 6 of Article 1 of the Indiana Constitution. We affirm the grant of summary judgment to the defendants.
Rucker, David, Massa, Rush, JJ., concur.