Now that the Supreme Court has agreed to rule on Cleveland's school voucher program, it has the opportunity to clear an artificial obstruction from the road to genuine education reform.

Cleveland provides up to $2,250 annually for tuition at private schools – modest compared to per capita public education expenditures. More than 4,000 children use these funds to attend 56 private schools, which are predominantly religious.

In their desperation to defeat school choice, teachers' unions latched on to this aspect of the plan as the easiest point of attack.

While the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled the program constitutional, last year, a federal appeals court held the Cleveland plan ``clearly has the impermissible effect of promoting sectarian schools.''

But the effect is incidental. Government didn't begin with the intention of aiding parochial schools.

With their vouchers, parents could send their children to a nonsectarian, private school or to one connected to a religious denomination. The state of Ohio, which provides the funding, doesn't push recipients toward one type of school (although from a practical point of view those dollars go a lot farther at religious schools than at most other private schools).

The Cleveland voucher program has often been compared to federal college loans and grants, which for years have been used at religious institutions. The grant goes to and benefits the recipient. And it's the recipient, not government, who decides where the money is spent. This isn't a difficult concept to understand.

The Supreme Court ought to see the logic in that comparison and affirm this educational lifeline thrown to thousands of poor families.