For years, politicians around the country have striven to allow families to leave public schools and attend religious (largely Christian) schools through voucher programs. However, many people are alarmed by the call of Rep. André Carson (D-Indiana), a Muslim member of Congress, that our schools should be modeled on Islamic schools or Madrassas. As a staunch supporter of public schools and an educator, I strongly oppose the intermingling of religion with our public schools. I also do not find Madrassas to be a particularly compelling model for education in the United States.
In a recent speech, Carson stated “America will never tap into educational innovation and ingenuity without looking at the model that we have in our Madrassas, in our schools where innovation is encouraged. Where the foundation is the Koran.”
Whether the “foundation” is the Bible or the Koran, the relevance of such religious structure to education is dubious at best and a threat to the separation of church and state at worst. To be honest, it is doubtful Carson’s speech would have generated such controversy if he praised Catholic schools as a model for education. Indeed, we have seen politicians object to the use of vouchers for Muslim schools.
Leslie and I have kept our children in public schools despite our unhappiness at times with class size and bureaucratic nonsense. I believe deeply that our public schools are a critical democratic training ground for tolerance and pluralism. They must be secular and free of religious training by definition as public schools.
I fail to see what the Madrassa model has to offer our school system. Any “innovation” clearly exists outside of such religious systems and is not unique to their religious focus.
“How do we know Madrassas arent a good educational model? Isnt that being somewhat racist and Islamaphobic?
Muslims pay taxes they should have a magnet school for teaching the Koran, their taxes are paying for it.”
No, Bron, it’s called being Constitutional. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” is plain language as is the case law that follows in Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963) – which defined the “secular purpose” and “primary effect” tests – and Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971) – which further refined those tests by adding the “excessive entanglement” test. Setting up Madrassas wit tax payer funds would not pass any of these tests any more than setting up a Fundamentalist Christian or a Catholic school on tax payer funds. If Muslims want Madrassas, they are free to set up and pay for their own private religiously oriented schools just like any other religion is free to do.
Yeah, right. Because we all know what a hot bed of innovation and ingenuity countries with madrassas have been. LOL Innovative new ways to beat your women and repress, well, everything. What a joke.
I don’t like molasses. They are already too slow.
If he wants that…..then he should be forced to send his children to parochial school….
@Woosty – no problem, thought you were getting a cold there for a sec…
If you open a school, funded by the state, and the school is religious, then it’s a state-sponsored religion, Bron. I mean, that’s pretty obvious…
I think we need more diversity in our public schools. I see nothing wrong with teaching the Bible or Koran in a public school or any other religious text for that matter. Comparative religious studies might be an interesting course to take in high school.
How do we know Madrassas arent a good educational model? Isnt that being somewhat racist and Islamaphobic?
Muslims pay taxes they should have a magnet school for teaching the Koran, their taxes are paying for it. You arent setting up a state sponsored religion, just opening some schools, what is the big deal?
Reblogged this on Glory to man in the highest.
Oh yeah. Because what the world needs more of is people who base their actions on irrational unprovable beliefs instead of actually learning how to think critically. Not to mention that whole Establishment Clause thingy.
People of Indiana!
You should not be alarmed that your representative is a partisan or a Muslim. You should be alarmed that he is an imbecile who apparently hasn’t even read the Constitution let alone understand it and seems to think the idea of state sponsored religious indoctrination is a good idea and even remotely Constitutional when it is neither. More to the point, you should be alarmed that you voted for him and what that says about you collectively.
dubing down should be dumbing down
these are just preliminary steps to new money streams…..and the further dubing down and religiousing up of America. Apparently we have chosen to follow rather than to lead.
Church separate from State was too much the Camelot for the Orcs….
idiotic
From a practical point of view, teaching religion in primary education should only in my view be limited to overviews such as history or ethnic studies, not the focus or base of the education. The reason for this, aside from the obvious to me church & state issue, is time / resource management.
There is only so much time to cram in what is to be taught and something has to give. If I had a child, I would like her to learn important issues such as language, mathematics, science, law, logic, history and medicine to prepare her to be a great mind with many choices available to her later in life. Focusing on religion would detract from this goal.
Public schools are good in some areas, bad in others. I would rather my child attend a good charter school free of religion; which is not easy to find. If I was wealthy I would sponsor such a school because children are in my view so underserved by schools here. My wife’s European relatives all speak a minimum of two languages fluently, the products of the the Dutch education system. Children here are just as capable of this if properly educated.
Just shows that if you stop “topping” the wheat, then more and more heads will stick up.
Down with democracy and pluralism. We don’t need any conflicting ideas to spend our mindtime on. Or was this just published as a Friday gag.
Madrassas, not for me. No mixed classes, and improvisation infinitesimally little.
Perhaps Congressman Carson would also approve of reintroducing corporal punishment in our public schools? Caning would solve a host of problems.
It is time for another Democrat to run against this fool. The national party should disavow his statements and condemn them.
To borrow a phrase, “”Stupid is as stupid does”!
“However, many people are alarmed by the call of Rep. André Carson (D-Indiana), a Muslim member of Congress, that our schools should be modeled on Islamic schools or Madrassas. ”
*****************************
Just what we need, more fundamentalist religion in education.
In most of the Middle East, upper class Muslims send their children to secular academies or even to Christian schools because the religious schools are inadequate. Most of the Christian schools are Catholic, and they avoid infecting the Muslim children with Christian religion out of respect for parents (and fear, no doubt). The madrassas teach nothing but religion….
There is a lot of stupid in America. And it seems to be increasing.
A tagline I often use is: “Ain’t Religion wunnerful?” With the implied answer: hell, no.