672
O'Connor, J., concurring
ure of principals at private nonreligious and Catholic schools is 8.2 and 4.7 years, respectively).
Additionally, Justice Souter's theory that the Cleveland voucher program's cap on the tuition encourages low-income students to attend religious schools ignores that these students receive nearly double the amount of tuition assistance under the community schools program than under the voucher program and that none of the community schools is religious. See ante, at 647.
In my view the more significant finding in these cases is that Cleveland parents who use vouchers to send their children to religious private schools do so as a result of true private choice. The Court rejects, correctly, the notion that the high percentage of voucher recipients who enroll in religious private schools necessarily demonstrates that parents do not actually have the option to send their children to non-religious schools. Ante, at 656-660. Likewise, the mere fact that some parents enrolled their children in religious schools associated with a different faith than their own, see post, at 704 (Souter, J., dissenting), says little about whether these parents had reasonable nonreligious options. Indeed, no voucher student has been known to be turned away from a nonreligious private school participating in the voucher program. Supra this page. This is impressive given evidence in the record that the present litigation has discouraged the entry of some nonreligious private schools into the voucher program. Declaration of David P. Zanotti
¶¶ 5, 10, App. 225a, 227a. Finally, as demonstrated above, the Cleveland program does not establish financial incentives to undertake a religious education.
I find the Court's answer to the question whether parents of students eligible for vouchers have a genuine choice between religious and nonreligious schools persuasive. In looking at the voucher program, all the choices available to potential beneficiaries of the government program should be considered. In these cases, parents who were eligible to
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