Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-242) and index.

Vouchers and adult-centered legal reasoning -- Education reform and adult-centered political theory -- A utilitarian assessment of vouchers -- A moral rights-based assessment -- Making sense of antiestablishment principles -- The equal protection strategy for compelling aid to religious schools -- An introduction to the real world -- A moral assessment of existing voucher programs -- Applying constitutional principles to vouchers in the real world.

Dwyer makes the case that state funding of religious and other private schools is not only permissible, but mandatory, as a moral and constitutional right of the children already in private schools. In Vouchers within reason, he also demonstrates the necessity of attaching to that funding robust standards for the content and nature of instruction and for treatment of students. These are just the sort of regulatory strings that most current supporters of vouchers fear. In the author's view, vouchers represent an opportunity for states to accomplish what they have been unable to do in the past--namely, to bring academic accountability to religious schools, many of which fail to provide a good secular education. He sees voucher programs that are now in place as morally irresponsible and clearly unconstitutional, however, because they require almost nothing of recipient schools in return for the funding.