WASHINGTON -- The Constitution allows public money to underwrite tuition at religious schools as long as parents have a choice among a range of religious and secular schools, the Supreme Court ruled today.

The 5-4 ruling led by the court's conservative majority further erodes the figurative wall separating church and state and clears a constitutional cloud from school vouchers, an education idea dear to political conservatives and championed by President Bush.

Opponents call vouchers a fraud that will only siphon tax money from struggling public schools.

The court endorsed a 6-year-old pilot program in inner-city Cleveland that provides parents a tax-supported education stipend. Parents may use the money to opt out of one of the worst-rated public schools in the nation.

The court majority said the program does not put the government in the unconstitutional position of sponsoring religious indoctrination, even though more than 95 percent of the vouchers are used to subsidize Catholic or other religious schooling.

Bush has been a staunch advocate of school vouchers, and emphasized the issue in his campaign for the White House.

Congress last year shelved that effort. But Bush resurrected the idea, proposing in his 2003 budget to give families up to $2,500 per child in tax credits if they choose a private school rather than a failing neighborhood public school.

In another schools case today, the court approved random drug tests for many public high school students, saying anti-drug concerns outweigh an individual's right to privacy. That vote also was 5-4.

Key to the court's reasoning in the voucher case was that children in the Cleveland program have a theoretical choice of attending religious schools, secular private academies, suburban public schools, or charter schools run by parents or others outside the education establishment.

The fact that only a handful of secular schools and no suburban public schools have signed up to accept voucher students is not the fault of the program itself, Ohio authorities say.

The court majority agreed.

"We believe that the program challenged here is a program of true private choice," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for himself and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

The dissenting justices said the Cleveland program goes too far toward state-sponsored religion. It does not treat religion neutrally, as Rehnquist contended, wrote Justice David H. Souter. The majority is also wrong about the question of whether parents have a true choice among schools, Souter wrote for himself and Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

"There is, in any case, no way to interpret the 96.6 percent of current voucher money going to religious schools as reflecting a free and genuine choice by the families that apply for vouchers," Souter wrote.

The Bush administration sided with Ohio, arguing that the program is constitutional because parents control where the money goes.

In Cleveland, the public money flows to parents, not directly to the church-run schools, the program's supporters noted.

Today's ruling continues the conservative court majority's pattern of mandating equal treatment for religious organizations or ideas. In general, the court has ruled that once a public-funded benefit or forum is available to secular users, it cannot be denied to religious users merely because they are religious.

Using that rationale, the court has previously opened schoolhouse doors to a Bible club, required school funding for a religious magazine and allowed government aid for computers and tutoring in parochial schools.

In Ohio today, Elaine Barclay, who has two daughters attending a Baptist school under the voucher arrangement, said, "It's an excellent program. We were praying they would rule for the vouchers."

Lori Kaloger, who has three children attending a Catholic school with vouchers, said, "This is going to be a whole new thing for people around the country. It gives people choice to spend their tax funds in a school where they can get a good education."

Supporters of vouchers prefer the term "school choice," and say the arrangement gives parents power to reject chaotic and dangerous public schools and sluggish bureaucracies.

By endorsing the Cleveland program, the court drew a map for numerous states and cities awaiting a ruling before seriously considering their own versions.

The decision probably also helps two other tax-supported voucher programs, in Milwaukee and Florida, but it was not immediately clear if those meet all the tests the court majority set out.

The debate will probably shift now to state legislatures.  Teachers' unions lead the opposition to vouchers, which they say skim the most motivated students and parents from public schools, and rob those schools of much-needed money.

The Cleveland program, set up by the Ohio legislature, provides $2,250 tuition assistance vouchers to about 4,000 of the district's 57,000 elementary-age students.  The money may be used at any of 51 participating schools, all but nine of which are religious. Most are Catholic.

The voucher amounts often nearly cover the cost of a church-subsidized education, but do not begin to cover normal tuition at many secular academies.

The voucher program followed a court-ordered state takeover of the city schools, where roughly 10 percent of ninth graders met standards for their grade and the graduation rate was 40 percent.

A federal appeals court had struck down the Cleveland program as a violation of the Constitution's First Amendment. The amendment says government may not establish or promote religion, but also must protect people's right to practice their religion.

The Supreme Court last ruled on a similar question in 1973. Then, a more liberal court struck down a New York tuition assistance program.

The cases are Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 00-1751; Hannah Perkins School v. Simmons-Harris, 00-1777; Taylor v. Simmons-Harris, 00-1779.

San Francisco — For the first time ever, a federal appeals court Wednesday declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because of the words “under God” added by Congress in 1954.

The ruling, if allowed to stand, means schoolchildren can no longer recite the pledge, at least in the nine Western states covered by the court.

In a 2-1 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the phrase amounts to a government endorsement of religion in violation of the
Constitution's Establishment Clause, which requires a separation of church and state.

“A profession that we are a nation 'under God' is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation 'under Jesus,' a
nation 'under Vishnu,' a nation 'under Zeus,' or a nation 'under no god,' because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion,”
Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote for the three-judge panel.

In Canada, where President Bush was taking part in an economic summit, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said: “The president's reaction was that this ruling is ridiculous.”

“The Supreme Court itself begins each of its sessions with the phrase 'God save the United States and this honorable court,' ” Fleischer said. “The Declaration of Independence refers to God or to the Creator four different times. Congress begins each session of the Congress each day with a prayer, and of course our currency says, 'In God We Trust.' The view of the White House is that this was a wrong decision and the Department of Justice is now evaluating how to seek redress.”

The ruling was also attacked on Capitol Hill, with Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., calling it “just nuts.”

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., also condemned the ruling, saying the court's reasoning “offends all logic.”

Said U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District: “We must never become a nation that adopts an official religion, but neither must we advance the religion of secularism ... the idea that there is something objectionable or illegal about acknowledging that this is 'one nation under God.' ”

The government had argued that the religious content of “one nation under God” is minimal. But the appeals court said that an atheist or a holder of certain non-Judeo-Christian beliefs could see it as an endorsement of monotheism.

The 9th Circuit covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state. Those are the only states directly affected by the ruling.  However, the ruling does not take effect for several months, to allow further appeals. The government can ask the court to reconsider, or take its case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case was brought by Michael A. Newdow, a Sacramento atheist who objected because his second-grade daughter was required to recite the pledge at the Elk Grove school district. A federal judge had dismissed his lawsuit.

Newdow, a doctor who holds a law degree and represented himself, called the pledge a “religious idea that certain people don't agree with.”

The appeals court said that when President Eisenhower signed the legislation inserting “under God” after the words “one nation,” he wrote that “millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.”

The appeals court noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has said students cannot be compelled to recite the pledge. But even when the pledge is voluntary, “the school district is nonetheless conveying a message of state endorsement of a religious belief when it requires public school teachers to recite, and lead the recitation of, the current form of the pledge.”

The ruling was issued by Goodwin, who was appointed by President Nixon, and Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a Carter appointee.

In a dissent, Circuit Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez, appointed by the first President Bush, warned that under his colleagues' theory of the Constitution, “we will soon find ourselves prohibited from using our album of patriotic songs in many public settings.”

“ 'God Bless America' and 'America the Beautiful' will be gone for sure,” he said, “and while use of the first and second stanzas of the 'Star-Spangled Banner' will still be permissible, we will be precluded from straying into the third.”

Fernandez said the same faulty logic would apply to “In God We Trust” on the nation's currency.

Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., was one of many lawmakers who immediately reacted in anger and shock to the ruling.

“Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves. This is the worst kind of political correctness run amok,” Bond said. “What's next? Will the courts now strip 'so help me God' from the pledge taken from new presidents?”

Harvard scholar Laurence Tribe predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court will certainly reverse the decision unless the 9th Circuit reverses itself . “I would bet an awful lot on that,” Tribe said.

The 9th Circuit is the nation's most overturned appellate court — partly because it is the largest, but also because it tends to make liberal, activist opinions, and because the cases it hears — on a range of issues from environmental laws to property rights to civil rights — tend to challenge the status quo.

The nation's high court has never squarely addressed the issue, Tribe said. The court has said schools can require teachers to lead the pledge but ruled students cannot be punished for refusing to recite it.

In other school-related religious cases, the high court has said that schools cannot post the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms. And in March, a federal appeals court ruled that Ohio's motto, “With God, all things are possible,” is constitutional and is not an endorsement of Christianity even though it quotes the words of Jesus.

Mr. Bush will make early progress if he plows fields where there is already general agreement. If improving public education gets bogged down over the volatile issue of private-school vouchers, progress is unlikely. But there is a middle-ground approach. A demonstration project such as that proposed by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., would be a good compromise.

Wide support exists among Republicans and Democrats to help preschool children learn to read as a way to push poorly performing schools to improve reading performance. That's an area that could be mined without much controversy.

Further, improving teacher quality, giving schools more flexibility to spend federal aid and heightening standards for student achievement are worthy goals. Mr. Bush has made the right moves, meeting with moderates of both parties to share ideas targeted to achieve those goals.

But tampering with the constitutional barrier against paying for a student's education in religious schools is bound to trigger divisions that may hurt the cause of improved education.

Supporters of vouchers understandably argue that parents must be given recourses to remove their children from failing public schools. One alternative is to offer vouchers that would be good in any other public school in the region. Another would be to test the idea of using vouchers for nonsectarian private schools.

The best way to fix broken public schools is to give them adequate resources and hold them accountable for results. Schools that fail to improve should be closed. Or they should be reconstituted, with new administrators and teachers who must reapply for their jobs.

If schools show improvement in student performance, allowing them more flexibility in how they spend federal funds is also reasonable. Student performance is likely to improve if, as Mr. Bush and others have proposed, programs such as Head Start become accessible to all preschool children.

Offering vouchers en masse for private school education, however, could drain resources from public schools, sap them of their best students and diminish public support for their mission. The United States pioneered public schools and most Americans still believe that taxpayer-supported education is a core value of democracy.

Polls show most respondents wanting good public schools in their neighborhoods. Private-school vouchers were rejected in recent referendum proposals in California and Michigan and a judge struck down a voucher proposal in Cleveland.

Still, students shouldn't be condemned to stay in a failing public school. Mr. Lieberman has proposed demonstration projects to test private-school vouchers in about 20 places across the country. This is an idea worth pursuing. Any such experiment would, of course, have to pass constitutional muster.  By all means, the federal government should do more to help public schools to succeed.

Public-school advocates would be wrong, however, to oppose an experiment such as that proposed by Mr. Lieberman. The goal, after all, is to make sure that all children can get the best education possible.