Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
As a former public school educator, I have been following what has been going on with school reform in this country. I have written posts about some of the groups and individuals involved in the current reform movement (here), the push to privatize public schools (here), school vouchers (here and here), and charter schools (here and here). Despite all the research that I’ve done on the subject, I hadn’t been aware until recently that there are many publicly funded charter schools across this country that have religious affiliations.
In December 2011, Tiffany Gee Lewis (Deseret News) wrote that there had been a “veritable explosion of charter schools over the past two decades.” She noted that a number of the schools that were riding this charter trend were “founded or authorized” by religious and cultural organizations. As she said, the subject of religion in public schools “has always been a hot-button topic.” She added that “the rise of charter schools that tie themselves to a certain ethnic or religious group introduces a new shade of complication to public schooling.”
According to Jessica Meyers of The Dallas Morning News, “Church-charter partnerships are springing up across the country as private institutions lose funding and nontraditional education models grow in popularity. Their emergence prompts questions about the role religious groups should play in the development of publicly funded schools.” She added, “Critics fear the fuzzy division means taxpayers are footing the bill for religious instruction.”
Meyer wrote the following with regard to charter schools in the state of Texas:
Charter schools are public schools run by private groups and approved by the State Board of Education. They are freed of many state rules. But they must adhere to the state’s accountability tests and maintain a separation of church and state. Religious groups may apply to open a charter school if they establish a separate nonprofit to receive state funds.
Even with a middleman, heavy overlap exists between the school and the religious group that supports it. Dozens of Texas charter school leaders or board members hold prominent positions in the church, where the schooling sometimes takes place. Parochial schools reinvent themselves as charters, often with little guidance on running a public school. And the mission of the school itself typically stems from the values of the religious group.
These close ties stir concern that churches will use state funds to bolster their coffers. In Houston, the Rev. Harold Wilcox and several church members were indicted six years ago for embezzling federal and state funds through Prepared Table Charter School. Wilcox paid himself a $210,000 annual salary to run the school and received $68,000 in rent for classes held in his Baptist church sanctuary.
Morgan Smith reported in The New York Times this past August that auditors for the Texas Education Agency had found that state money had been used inappropriately in some cases where charter schools were housed in churches. The agency discovered that the superintendent of a charter school in San Antonio “had used school funds to buy a former church.” The superintendent then “leased that building to the school she led.” Jack Ammons, who spent fifteen years auditing public schools across Texas as a monitor for the education agency, “said he found it was ‘nearly impossible’ for charter schools operating out of church facilities to avoid spending state funds on students in ways that also benefited the church.”
The majority of charter schools with religious ties are run by right-wing evangelical Christians—but, as Susan Jacoby wrote in The Washington Post, “…Catholics, Jews and Muslims are also getting a piece of the action.” (You can add Scientologists into the mix, too.) Meyers reported that Houston’s Harmony Public Schools “are run by Turkish Muslims who embody the philosophies of a popular imam.” She also noted that “Students at Ben Gamla Charter School in Florida eat kosher food in the cafeteria and learn Hebrew.”
Tiffany Gee Lewis:
Money largely explains why religious organizations get involved in the charter school movement because it allows them to establish a school that teaches the culture of their beliefs without the financial overhead of a private school. The most drastic example of this was in 2008, when the Archbishop Donald Wuerl converted a number of failing Catholic private schools into charter schools in Washington, D.C.
Dan Quinn, communications director for the advocacy group Texas Freedom Network, also spoke of the recent trend of religious schools “converting to charter schools.” He added that the process is legal but raises questions “about how students get accepted into the school and if there is follow-up from the state.”
Morgan Smith said that some educators—as well as other people—are questioning “whether the schools receive the proper oversight to ensure that religious groups are not benefiting from taxpayer dollars intended for public school students — or that faith-based instruction is not entering those classrooms.” According to Smith, many charter schools that are partnered with religious institutions “have cropped up in cities across Texas since the charter school system was established in 1995.” In fact, 16 of the 23 charter contracts that have been awarded by the state in the past three years have gone to schools with religious ties.
Writing for The Washington Post in 2010, Susan Jacoby said that “charter school promoters with specific religious and cultural agendas around the country are using every possible means to skirt the First Amendment and obtain public support for private aims.”
Advantage Academy
In November 2010, Jessica Meyers wrote a newspaper article about Advantage Academy in Duncanville, Texas. She said the students at this school “follow biblical principles, talk openly about faith and receive guidance from a gregarious former pastor who still preaches when he speaks.” She said Advantage Academy is typical of the “latest breed of charter schools”—those “born from faith-based principles and taxpayer funds.” She added, “Advantage markets its teaching of creationism and intelligent design. It offers a Bible class as an elective and encourages personal growth through hard work and ‘faith in God and country.’”
The academy’s founder Allen Beck is a former pastor for Assemblies of God who “hopes to instill morals and ethics in students as they learn to count and read.” Beck was quoted as saying, “America is in a battle between secularity and biblical thinking. I want to fuse the two together in a legal way.”
iSchool High
In his Salon article titled Darwin Inspired Hitler: Lies They Teach in Texas, Jonny Scaramanga tells the story of an engineer named Joshua Bass whose son attended iSchool High, a Houston charter school. Bass and his wife had hoped their son would receive a good college prep education at iSchool High. They were taken aback one day when their son returned home after school with “anti-science” books that were “apparently religiously motivated.” One book implied that Darwin’s theory of evolution had inspired Hitler’s plan to eliminate certain groups of people:
[Hitler] has written that the Aryan (German) race would be the leader in all human progress. To accomplish that goal, all “lower races” should either be enslaved or eliminated. Apparently the theory of evolution and its “survival of the fittest” philosophy had taken root in Hitler’s warped mind.
Scaramanga wrote that “attacks on science in the classroom were unacceptable” to Joshua Bass. Bass decided to investigate ResponsiveEd, the curriculum that was used at iSchool High. He discovered that “ResponsiveEd was founded by Donald R. Howard, former owner of ACE (Accelerated Christian Education). ACE is a fundamentalist curriculum that teaches young-Earth creationism as fact.”
Scaramanga added:
ResponsiveEd is the latest in a long line of concerns raised over the religious affiliations of charter schools. Civil libertarians have raised concerns over Jewish schools converting to charter status. In 2010, more than 20 percent of Texas charter schools reportedly had a religious affiliation. And ResponsiveEd aims to expand further.
Imagine that—more than 20% of the charter schools in the Lone Star State have some form of religious ties.
Tax payer funding of charter schools with religious affiliations doesn’t sit well with everyone. According to Don Byrd (Baptist Joint Committee), “these publicly funded institutions are raising significant church-state challenges, both for the religious organization and the state trying to administer oversight.”
Shekinah Learning Institute
“Dr.” Cheryl A. Washington is the superintendent and founder of Shekinah Learning Institute, a group of thirteen charter schools in Texas “that receive $17 million in taxpayer dollars to educate 2,500 ‘at risk’ students.” In a radio interview with Rhema Gospel Express one day, Washington said, “I know it’s part of my nature to bust a move and take a risk. So what’s in me, when it’s imparted into the youth that I serve, then they become those future entrepreneurs that will not be afraid to take a risk…and know that they can do all things through Christ.” During the same interview, Washington said that operating the schools was a “divine assignment.” According to the San Antonio Current, Washington has claimed that God “has given [her] the jurisdiction to operate with dominion.”
In 2012, Americans United accused Washington of “violating the separation of church and state by secretly funneling religion into public classrooms.” Americans United alleged the institute’s Truth Campus in Dallas had instructed students to bring a Bible and notepad to school and that it “operates as if it were a publicly funded religious institution.”
In Showdown At Shekinah: A Church, A Charter School And Church-State Chicanery (June 2012), Simon Brown of Americans United wrote the following about Truth Campus:
Evidence gathered as of press time indicated that the school promoted weekly chapel services, offered weekly Bible study classes and used a religious name and logo, all of which could be violations of the Constitution’s First Amendment.
In Feb. 27 letters to Washington and the Texas Education Agency, Americans United Senior Litigation Counsel Gregory M. Lipper detailed the constitutionally problematic behavior and demanded that these activities stop.
On the Truth Campus’s website, Lipper notes, the organization said it is a public school that is “100% funded by the state of Texas.” Yet Americans United found that the school offers an optional weekly chapel service for its students. A promotional video on the website featured parents explaining how the chapel services teach students “about all the wonderful things that God is doing for them in their lives.” (The Truth Campus website has since been removed from the Internet.)
Note: A WOAI investigation discovered that two doctorate degrees touted by Washington are fakes. “When asked by WOAI in a TV interview why she still chose to use the doctorate title, Washington replied ‘Why not?’”
Life Force Arts and Technology Academy in Florida
Life Force Arts and Technology Academy is a charter school located in Dunedin, Florida. The school, which was established in 2009, receives about $800,000 in public funding annually. Life Force is run by a small Clearwater company called Art of Management, which was “hired to reorganize the school as it filed for bankruptcy.” Hanan Islam, the company president, is also executive director of World Literacy Crusade—an organization that promotes Scientology study methods. When Islam’s company assumed control of operations at Life Force, she assured parents that her group would “not push any religion” at the school.
Some parents of students who attend the school—as well as some former teachers—feel betrayed. They claim that the school “has become a Scientology recruiting post targeting children.” The charter school, which serves low-income students, had advertised its classes in computer and modern dance—but at some point began pushing L. Ron Hubbard’s “study technology.” Critics of the school call the study technology “a Trojan horse Scientology uses to infiltrate public classrooms.” In 2011, students at the school attended a Christmas party at a Scientology church “where they were given Scientology books and DVDs.”
Drew Harwell (Tampa Bay Times—February 26, 2012) wrote that “while Life Force students and teachers worked in poorly stocked classrooms and teachers went unpaid, the bankrupt school funneled tens of thousands of dollars more to Islam’s business interests than she told the bankruptcy court she would charge.”
Tampa Bay Times:
“There can be no accountability when this kind of stuff goes on,” said teacher Tim Roach, who said he was fired from Life Force last month after criticizing the school. “It’s the students who are going to suffer.”
Though mixing public education with religious doctrine is not allowed by the Pinellas County School District, which oversees charter schools, the district has been stymied in attempts to close Life Force because it is under bankruptcy protection.
Ben Gamla Schools in Florida
Peter Deutsch is a former six-term Democratic congressman from Florida. Deutsch, an Orthodox Jew and current resident of Israel, is the founder of and the “driving force” behind the Ben Gamla Hebrew-language charter schools whose curriculum “includes Israel education and Jewish history.” Most of the schools are located on Jewish community campuses. “Supplementary after-school religious programs take place onsite or nearby.” Approximately 85 percent of the schools’ students are Jewish.
In a Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) article titled Jewish public schools? Hebrew charter franchises offer radically different models, author Uriel Heliman wrote the following:
Most of the Ben Gamla schools are purposely situated on Jewish federation campuses. The Boynton Beach school is located on the second floor of a synagogue. The Ben Gamla high school in Plantation recently hired an Orthodox rabbi, Chaim Albert, as its principal.
The Ben Gamla schools are now under investigation because of a statement made by Deutsch in an interview with Uriel Heilman for JTA this past July. During the interview, Deutsch indicated that tax payer money that funds Ben Gamla schools is being used “mostly to benefit the local Jewish community.” Heilman said that the former US congressman hopes the schools will help give “Jewish kids who otherwise would attend public school an opportunity to be in a Jewish environment and develop a Jewish identity — at taxpayer expense.”
Heilman wrote that Deutsch was “unabashed about using public money to support what he describes as Jewish identity-building.” He added that Deutsch told him that 80% of Ben Gamla’s collective budget of $10 million “serves Jewish communal purposes.”
From the Miami Herald (10/28/13):
… Deutsch’s Ben Gamla schools have racked up hefty public funding — more than $10 million for nearly 1,800 students last school year alone.
In Broward, where the English-Hebrew charter schools have stirred the most controversy, Ben Gamla raked in $7.2 million from the state for five charter schools that operate at two sites, in Hollywood and Plantation. Those schools served more than 1,200 students.
A Ben Gamla school in the Kendall area of Miami-Dade received approximately $1.4 million from the state for 241 students last school year. Another Ben Gamla charter school in Palm Beach County received $1.7 million in state funds for 280 students.
According to Americans United, this isn’t the first time that Ben Gamla schools “have faced scrutiny for church-state concerns.” Last year, after visiting the schools, Jewish Week reported, “When it comes to church-state separation, these schools adhere strictly to the letter of the law. However, they arguably push as close to the border of what’s allowable as possible, and some of their practices might raise a few eyebrows.”
Minnesota Charter School Sued by ACLU
In January 2009, ACLU of Minnesota filed a lawsuit against Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA), a charter school that emphasizes the culture of the Middle East, and the Minnesota Department of Education. The ACLU argued that the school, which is supported by tax funds from the State of Minnesota and the federal government, had “repeatedly violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution by using taxpayer money to illegally promote religion.” A federal district court in the state ruled that the ACLU had standing to challenge TiZA.
ACLU of Minnesota released hundreds of documents in its case against TiZA, which is now closed, in October of 2011. At that time, Chuck Samuelson—the ACLU-MN director—said, “There is an overwhelming amount of documented evidence — by people who testified under oath in here — that these facts are as we have alleged they were.” Samuelson claimed the released documents “vindicate what his organization has been saying all along, namely that TiZA ‘illegally transferred money to its religious landlords, promoted Islam through its Arabic curriculum and its connection to the after-school religious program, and used taxpayer funds in excess of $1 million to renovate buildings to the benefit of their religious landlords.’”
According to Americans United, the legal dispute over the role of Islam in the school has been partially settled. “Under the terms of the settlement, education officials in Minnesota have agreed to more closely monitor charter schools to make certain they are not promoting religion. In addition, Islamic Relief, the organization that sponsored the school, has agreed to pay the ACLU more than $260,000 in attorneys’ fees.”
“I think the ACLU wants other [charter school] sponsors to know that sponsoring a religious school can be an expensive proposition,” said Peter Lancaster, an attorney who had worked on the case for ACLU.
**********
What are your thoughts on tax payer money being used to fund public charter schools with religious affiliations?
SOURCES
Darwin Inspired Hitler: Lies They Teach in Texas (Salon)
Religious Charter Schools Try Balancing Act in Texas (Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty)
Court Grants Standing in Challenge to Minnesota Charter School (Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty)
Charter schools with ties to religious groups raise fears about state funds’ use (Dallas News)
Funds misuse, nepotism feared at Texas charter schools (Dallas News)
Church, state, school: Texas charters with religious ties (Houston Chronicle)
Trying to Keep Religion Out of the Charter School Classroom (The Texas Tribune/NY Times)
When Charter Schools Are in Churches, Conflict Is in the Air (New York Times)
Texas Charter Schools Allegedly Funneling Religion Into Lessons (TPM Muckraker)
Showdown At Shekinah: A Church, A Charter School And Church-State Chicanery (Americans United)
Lawsuit Over Islamic Charter School In Minn. Reaches Partial Settlement (Americans United)
Charter For Controversy: Often Touted As A Breakthrough In ‘Educational Choice,’ Charter Schools Instead Are Raising Church-State Problems Around The Country (Americans United)
One of every five Texas charter schools has religious ties (Journal Sentinel)
Public Charter School or Public Christian School? (Texas Freedom Network)
Turkish charter schools growing as some question cleric ties (Boston Globe)
ACLU of Minnesota v. TiZA, et al. (ACLU)
Religion A Big Part Of The Charter School Debate (NPR)
Cheryl Washington, Texas Shekinah Learning Institute Charter Founder, Teaches Religion In School, Americans United Alleges (Huffington Post)
Church-state watchdog claims local taxpayer-funded charter school more parochial than public (San Antonio Current)
Controversy over Scientology influence clouds future of Pinellas charter school (Tampa Bay Times)
Charter school dangers on display in Scientology case (Tampa Bay Times)
Many charter schools continue to defy church-state separation (Washington Post)
Can religion, charter schools coexist?: Number of ‘religious charter schools’ continues to grow — along with criticism (Deseret News)
ACLU releases hundreds of documents in TiZA case (Minnesota Public Radio)
Largest charter network in U.S.: Schools tied to Turkey (Washington Post)
Charter Schools Tied to Turkey Grow in Texas (New York Times)
Church-State Separation Issue at Hollywood’s Ben Gamla Charter School Revived After Comments by Founder (NBC Miami)
After career in Congress, Peter Deutsch finds new life in Israel (Jewish Telegraphic Agency/JTA)
Jewish public schools? Hebrew charter franchises offer radically different models (Jewish Telegraphic Agency/JTA)
Ben Gamla charter schools take in millions in public funds as founder lives half a world away (Miami Herald)
Hollywood Board to Review if Ben Gamla Charter School Violates Separation of Church and State (Broward Palm Beach)
Fla. Hebrew Charter School Under Investigation For Church-State Violations (Americans United)
An ACLU Legal Bulletin
The Establishment Clause And Public Schools
March 11, 2002
https://www.aclu.org/religion-belief/establishment-clause-and-schools-legal-bulletin
Excerpt:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
These opening words of the First Amendment to the Constitution set forth a dual guarantee of religious liberty. Both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause operate to protect the religious liberty and freedom of conscience of all Americans. Quoting Thomas Jefferson, the Supreme Court has stated that the Establishment Clause was intended to accomplish this end by erecting a “wall of separation between Church and State.” Everson v. Board of Educ. of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 15-16 (1947).
It is one of the fundamental principles of the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence that the Constitution forbids not only state practices that “aid one religion . . . or prefer one religion over another,” but also those practices that “aid all religions” and thus endorse or prefer religion over nonreligion. Everson, 330 U.S. at 15. See Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 53 (1985)(“[T]he individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all”); see also County of Allegheny v. ACLU Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U.S. 573, 589-94, 598-602 (1989); Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U.S. 1, 17 (1989); Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 495 (1961).
For the past 20 years, the federal courts have utilized the three-pronged framework first set forth in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), to maintain the separation of government and religion. Under the so-called “Lemon test,” a court must inquire (1) whether the government’s action has a secular or a religious purpose; (2) whether the primary effect of the government’s action is to advance or endorse religion; and (3) whether the government’s policy or practice fosters an excessive entanglement between government and religion. See 403 U.S. at 612-13. In recent years, the Supreme Court has also frequently asked whether the challenged governmental action constitutes an impermissible “endorsement” of religion. See, e.g., Allegheny, 492 U.S. at 592 (inquiry is whether the government “convey[s] or attempt[s] to convey a message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred”); id. at 592-94; School District of the City of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U.S. 373, 390 (1985)(“[A]n important concern of the effects test is whether the symbolic union of church and state effected by the challenged governmental action is sufficiently likely to be perceived by adherents … as an endorsement, and by nonadherents as a disapproval, of their individual religious choices”)…
III. EQUAL ACCESS TO SCHOOL FACILITIES
The Establishment Clause issues are quite different where a school district wishes to make its facilities available for use by student or community groups during non-school hours. In such cases, the Establishment Clause does not prohibit opening the school’s facilities to religious groups — provided no elements of school sponsorship or endorsement are present.
Irony — in the few minutes it took me to write and post my comment, there was one posted about this wall!
As with one of the other commenters, I did not see anything in the post that looked like the “establishment” of religion. The title of the post shows a problem (in my view): the establishment clause has “morphed” into what is commonly called referred to as the “wall.”
As another also pointed out, some of the resistance to these charter schools is being driven by the established educational forces that are seeing their (near) monopoly power being taken from them.
“As another also pointed out, some of the resistance to these charter schools is being driven by the established educational forces that are seeing their (near) monopoly power being taken from them.”
Mahtso,
Like the other commenter you agree with, you frame the question falsely. Public Education has been a tradition in this country since our founding and our founders both supported and understood the concept. We have entrepreneurial minions looking for an easy way to make a buck, working together with people who hate government, working with people who would have government support their religious schools and finally with legislators and governors who have assured that the education of people of color and the working classes get short shrift educationally. It never fails to surprise me how intelligent people can so misconstrue history and the principles upon which this country was founded, sacrificing it upon the altar of economic quackery and selfish sophistry.
Thanks, Elaine for lifting the veil on this battering ram to the wall of separation between church and state.
What was will be because it was….. When we get back to the basics it’s really the money that counts…… Kids don’t need no stinkin education….
How about the Obama administration issuing a map of ACA coverage without including Michigan’s Upper Peninsula…… That’s what it gits ya….
Excellent article Elaine….
Charters emerge as threats to Catholic schools
Archdiocese won’t sell, lease buildings to ‘competition’ as system seeks to stabilize
March 16, 2011|
By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-03-16/news/bs-md-ci-archdiocese-charter-leases-20110316_1_charter-schools-baltimore-international-academy-catholic-school
Excerpt:
When the leaders at the Baltimore International Academy read a property listing for St. Anthony’s of Padua — a vacant Catholic school building that is nearly three times the academy’s current size and five miles from its location — the $2.5 million price tag was an afterthought.
The advertisement posted by the Archdiocese of Baltimore boasted “big, bright and uplifting” classrooms that could alleviate the public charter school’s cramped learning spaces. The building’s “auditorium that converts easily into a cafeteria” could give kindergarteners who lunch at their desks a place to eat.
But the description for preferred applicants was not as promising: “This school building cannot be leased or sold to public charter schools,” the listing said.
St. Anthony’s is one of 13 vacant Catholic school buildings listed for sale or lease that the archdiocese decided should not be acquired by charter schools because they are considered a threat to its troubled Catholic school program.
Vincent,
Parochial schools feel pinch
Study says charter school creation has unintended consequence of reducing Catholic education options
By Scott Waldman
September 24, 2012
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Parochial-schools-feel-pinch-3890891.php
Excerpt:
ALBANY — Charter schools, which were created as competition for traditional public schools, have been detrimental for parochial education, a new study contends.
In Albany and other cities across the country, an unintended casualty of charter schools has been Catholic schools, which anchored their communities for well over a century, said Abe Lackman, the study’s author and government scholar in residence at Albany Law School, who spent a year collecting data and studying the effect of charter schools in Albany.
In Albany and other cities across the country, an unintended casualty of charter schools has been Catholic schools, which anchored their communities for well over a century, said Abe Lackman, the study’s author and government scholar in residence at Albany Law School, who spent a year collecting data and studying the effect of charter schools in Albany.
“We’ve wound up replacing a good system with a system that is inferior, and it’s cost the taxpayer a good deal of money,” he said Monday.
For every charter school that has opened in New York in the past decade, a parochial school has closed, Lackman states in the report that will be published next month in the Albany Law Review.
*****
Charter schools called threat to Catholic schools
Paul Moses
March 17, 2011
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/charter-schools-called-threat-catholic-schools
Excerpt:
The Archdiocese of Baltimore has refused to sell or lease vacant school buildings to charter schools because it has found that charter schools are siphoning students away from Catholic schools, according to the Baltimore Sun.The decision highlights the sharply conflicting approaches that U.S. dioceses are taking to competition from charter schools, since Baltimore’s next-door neighbor, the Archdiocese of Washington, turned over seven of its former schools to be used as charters. My own diocese, Brooklyn, is very active in leasing properties to charter schools – encouraged by Mayor Bloomberg, a big supporter of charter schools.The Archdiocese of Baltimore will no doubt take some heat for resisting the rush to charter schools, which are publicly funded. But I think it is a thoughtful stand.Charter schools, pet projects of both powerful foundations and powerful elected officials, have produced mixed results. In many ways, they emulate Catholic schools and so are drawing away students who might otherwise go to the Catholic schools. The foundation and government officials who are pushing charter schools – the Gates Foundation, the Obama administration, and others – have an obligation to face up to the fact that they are contributing to the demise of Catholic schools.
“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.” James Madison
“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.” James Madison
“In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.”- James Madison
“Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.”
James Madison
and lastly, one thought of Madison that people on both sides of this fight, should consider.
“There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.”
James Madison
“In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.”
James Madison
For generations religious, mostly Catholic, schools in the inner cities have provided quality education the children of the poor and the immigrant. Now, they are closing due to lack of enrollment which, in turn, is due to increased, unaffordable to many, tuition which is, in turn due to lack of nuns which had worked for close to nothing. The nuns part is beside the point. They did great work but they are no more and tuition rose because of their absence.
Throughout the inner cities there are vacant religious school buildings. Yet, the unions and the rabid non-religious begrudge giving these institutions taxpayer money to continue to provide quality education to the taxpayers’ children. They would rather have the kids educated in substandard public schools at higher cost than give a few bucks to a religious institution that does more with less merely because that institution instills values in the kids it teaches, values which not coincidentally may be at variance with the values of the unions and rabid non-religious.
Sure, you can find a religious school which teaches something that is not mainstream, even unorthodox, maybe even bizarre. It was once unorthodox to teach that the earth is not the center of the universe. What is accepted fact today may be out of fashion tomorrow. Quick, tell me how many planets are in our solar system. You can find teachers in public schools who teach bizarre or irrational renditions of their subjects. My public school teachers taught that slavery wasn’t all that bad, that slaves were generally treated well, and that removal from Africa improved their lot. How’s that for an irrational rendition of fact?
You can find embezzlers in religious institutions just like you can find embezzlers in public institutions. When the public gives money, there will be unscrupulous people who will take the money and not produce results, like the contractors who took government money and failed to produce a workable website for healthcare.gov. Anecdotal evidence is often misleading. The bottom line is that the vast majority of religious schools produce better results with less money than the public schools. To decline to support their efforts only hurts the kids.
In a previous incarnation I was a human and an atheist. I chose to go to a Jesuit university and majored in history. The majority of professors were not Jesuit. I found the Jesuits to be an incredible group and I took courses from Jesuits in philosophy, history, English, and World Religion. The Jesuit who taught that last course was one of the most open minded fellows I ever ran into and was great at explaining the various religions. I took that knowledge with me when I travelled the world later on. But, this was not public money spent on grade schools. I would not want a kid getting rapped on the knuckles with a ruler by some nutty sister. Thank Dog that this new Pope is a Jesuit. Good will come of it. But, do not spend public money on religious schools. Nuff said.
Elaine,
Another excellent product in your ongoing education series, with your usual meticulous documentation. My own view is that once the attempt to desegregate the nation’s schools came to pass, the idea of private education began appealing to certain segments of our population. That led to entrepreneurial hucksters seeing that there was money to be made in education and that led to religious institutions finding ways to get around the separation of church v. state. The bottom line is that almost no one in the charter school business is in it for the students, or for better education. Perhaps some of their under-trained underpaid teachers are, but then that makes them suckers just as much as the parents and students that are being defrauded.
“@Davidbluefish, posting an otherwise ballsy comment on a blog like this under an alias is a sign of a weak, fearful, and unself-reflecting mind. Now, where were we?”
Tony Viera,
David originally posted under his own last name as regulars here know. Her prefers this posting name, with nothing to be inferred as you are doing. We have more than a few regular posters who post under pseudonyms for various reasons, mostly dealing with their careers or avocations. Anonymously Yours,
Anonymously Posted are longtime regulars who use pseudonyms and have distinguished themselves through the years. I’ve never used one, but then I am retired and don’t have anything to lose careerwise. People’s judgments here should be content based.
So what?
There are many unconstitutional budget items.
Religious people pay taxes, they should get some of it back. If they choose to spend it on schools for their children, more power to them.
As long as other religions have the same options for funding, I cant see this as an establisment of any one religion.
I also think people have a right to use the public square to present their ideas and beliefs. Vishnu next to Jesus is ok by me.
I dont agree with the ideas of many who teach in and run the public school system in this country but I have to fund them. Why cant I specify that I would like my portion of taxes to be used at a pro-individual rights school which teaches children for free?
Annie 1, November 9, 2013 at 12:59 pm
Holy fraud.
I’m reading “A Christian Nation”, very apropo.
=======================
As you do so, remember, that every religion has those who claim to be one of its membership, but are really not (On the Origin of the Bully Religion).
The new Republican mantra, “Reduce public education till it can be drowned in a bathtub, …..then let the magnanimous oligarchs run it”
Once public education gets out of the hands of the public our children will become servants of the Oligopoly. …. No need for arts, philosophy, or civics. …. Maybe I meant we will become serFants of the Oligopoly.
Tony V.,
You mistake disdain for weak argument as anger.
Els DL,
Move Over, Koch Brothers: A Bigger, Darker Rightwing Funder Is Out to Destroy Public Education
by Ruth Conniff
5/3/13
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/03-7
Excerpt:
It’s “the most powerful organization in America that no one seems to know about.”
That’s how Scot Ross, executive director of the progressive think tank One Wisconsin Institute, describes the Bradley Foundation.
Unlike David Koch of the Koch Brothers, whose cover was blown when a gonzo blogger named Ian Murphy (editor of the Buffalo Beast and a frequent contributor to The Progressive), impersonated him in a prank call to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
The Milwaukee based Bradley Foundation operates off the mainstream media radar. Yet the group has made more than $530 million in grants and awards since 1985, making it a much, much bigger giver to rightwing causes than the Koch brothers. With more than $290 million in assets, Bradley is one of the biggest foundations in the United States.
A new report by Ross’s group One Wisconsin Now reveals the Bradley Foundation’s particular focus on privatizing the public schools.
Among the report’s findings:
–The Bradley Foundation, headed by Governor Scott Walker’s campaign co-chair Michael Grebe, has underwritten a massive, pro-privatization propaganda campaign, including “a systematic and relentless campaign to turn public opinion against the public school system.”
–Bradley has spent more than $31 million since 2001 supporting organizations promoting education privatization, academics providing favorable pro-privatization pseudo-science, media personalities promoting the privatization agenda, and lobbying organizations advocating for privatization legislation.
–The Bradley-financed campaign has manufactured an education “crisis,” proposed a “solution,” attacked and undermined the ability of potential opponents to block their agenda, and funded aggressive pro-privatization media and lobbying efforts.
–The Bradley-financed Wisconsin Policy Research Institute has manipulated research and pressured a University of Wisconsin professor to downplay results that show school vouchers in a negative light, while highlighting scientifically dubious favorable results.
Way back in 1990, Bradley backed the first private-school voucher program in the nation, right in Milwaukee.
This year, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker plans to expand the voucher program to nine new counties, despite test results that show voucher students underperform compared with their public school peers.
Els DL,
I read Sirota’s Salon article yesterday. Interesting stuff…wouldn’t you say?
I just noticed that my link was automatically activated once I clicked on the Leave a Reply button. I’m in awe. LOL.
@Elaine W. Thank you for keeping this most important and to me troubling development alive. Seems like the religious right, regardless of their God, are making very concerted and very well-planned efforts to slowly take our tax payer monies to fund their dreams. I don’t like it a bit. Another interesting article recently on Salon.com describes those and other problems. Also, don’t forget to mention the Koch Brothers as the insidious funders of efforts to convert public schools into religious schools.
Here’s the link to the Salon article by David Sirota: http://www.salon.com/2013/11/04/chris_christies_demented_you_people_movement_the_rights_school_for_cash_obsession/
Can someone help me out and tell me how I can turn a link here into a working one? I’m pretty daft when it comes to technology.
@Tony Vieria: calling people like me who don’t believe in God ‘God haters’ is incredibly lame. You may be a lawyer and who knows what else and I’m just an educator and human rights activist, but I recognize immature behavior regardless. Grow up if you still have time left to do so.