COLUMBUS, OHIO - The Supreme Court ruling upholding the use of taxpayer money to send children to religious and other private schools will encourage the establishment of school voucher programs nationwide, experts predicted Thursday.

"It took one of the biggest arguments off the table," said Paul E. Peterson, a voucher researcher and director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University.

"The ruling now focuses the attention on the other important argument - do vouchers help kids, are they the best for kids," Peterson said. "That argument will come out on to the table across the country."

Voucher programs now operate only in Cleveland, Milwaukee and Florida. Experts said they expected state legislatures to take up the issue.

The court's 5-4 decision, which addressed the 6-year pilot program in Cleveland, said public money can be used for religious school tuition if there is choice among a range of religious and secular schools.

The Milwaukee program, the nation's first in 1990, started with 300 students in seven private schools. It now has 10,800 students in 103 private schools, and critics feared the decision will help it grow even larger.