Stephanie Simon at Politico.com here documents the spread of the voucher movement, which shifts $1 billion away from the nation’s public schools to private and religious schools.
Hundreds of these schools teach creationism as written in the Bible and teach other subjects, including history and even mathematics, from a religious and dogmatic perspective.
She writes:
Taxpayers in 14 states will bankroll nearly $1 billion this year in tuition for private schools, including hundreds of religious schools that teach Earth is less than 10,000 years old, Adam and Eve strolled the garden with dinosaurs, and much of modern biology, geology and cosmology is a web of lies.
Now a major push to expand these voucher programs is under way from Alaska to New York, a development that seems certain to sharply increase the investment.
Public debate about science education tends to center on bills like one in Missouri, which would allow public school parents to pull their kids from science class whenever the topic of evolution comes up. But the more striking shift in public policy has flown largely under the radar, as a well-funded political campaign has pushed to open the spigot for tax dollars to flow to private schools. Among them are Bible-based schools that train students to reject and rebut the cornerstones of modern science.
This is what might be called 12th century STEM education.
Simon adds:
Decades of litigation have established that public schools cannot teach creationism or intelligent design. But private schools receiving public subsidies can — and do. A POLITICO review of hundreds of pages of course outlines, textbooks and school websites found that many of these faith-based schools go beyond teaching the biblical story of the six days of creation as literal fact. Their course materials nurture disdain of the secular world, distrust of momentous discoveries and hostility toward mainstream scientists. They often distort basic facts about the scientific method — teaching, for instance, that theories such as evolution are by definition highly speculative because they haven’t been elevated to the status of “scientific law.”
And this approach isn’t confined to high school biology class; it is typically threaded through all grades and all subjects.
One set of books popular in Christian schools calls evolution “a wicked and vain philosophy.” Another derides “modern math theorists” who fail to view mathematics as absolute laws ordained by God.
Please read the entire article. What it demonstrates is the wisdom of separation of church and state. Sending public dollars to religious schools does not improve education. It sets back education by a millenium, at least.
The kids attending these schools will enter college–if they enter college–unprepared for modern studies. They will not be the scientists, engineers, technicians, and mathematicians prepared for the 21st century. Nor will they have the critical thinking needed to parse the political propaganda of our times.
This is an ideological crusade that has no relationship to improving education.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/education-creationism-104934.html#ixzz2wtCzciDF
12th-century STEM education
Now that’s funny!!!
Haha…good one: Teach stupid stuff, and create a crisis. Keep the people dumb by common coring and testing them to death. This is classic.
New marketing slogan:
“Have you been Common Cored today?”
Wait’ll these guys get into astronomy.
Then astronomy will morph into astrology.
The upper-eschelon-privatizer goal is not to fund religious and private schools– it is to DEFUND public schools.
… And this is just a happy biproduct.
Your ignorance about how science is taught in (Catholic) schools is astounding. This article is tremendously over-generalizing. There are plenty of wonderful (Catholic) schools that teach science the way it should be taught. In fact, Catholics are taught that the Big Bang Theory is legit – the story of creationism is based on the idea that “they knew something extraordinary happened.”
The topic at hand though…$1B. I’m sure if it went to public schools it would be spent on iPads so that kids could have more digital worksheets – rather than the “ineffective” paper ones. Do you really think that money would be spent wisely?
Vouchers are NOT the same as Catholic Schools.
No! It’s to kill faith-based schools. If Big Brother kills controls every schools, game over kids.
Well, if the government is letting plutocrats destroy public schools and experiment on millions of kids for kicks, (common core, huge classes, attacking teachers, etc.) then I say give me a voucher to take my money to a good rigorous Day School. The public schools are just about destroyed, so I need the money. If someone wants to send their kids to a Catholic school or some other “superstitious” school, then let them. That is their personal decision. That is freedom. What do you care what they believe or think? I want the “freedom” to get my kids out of there. I guess I am a conservative now. I voted for Obama twice, but somehow this was not the “change” I voted for. When it comes to education, I am an “elitist”! I want my kids to get an “elite” education, and you should too! This is why Dr. Ravitch’s parents probably sacrificed to send her to a private school in Texas. They valued education. Can you imagine what it is like to go to public school in Texas? Can you imagine what yahoos are in those schools. Bring on the vouchers!
Mike,
They can give away voucher $$$$ all they want. It still will not enable the poor working class a way “in” to elite private schools. They will just jack up their prices and keep the “riff raff” out. Now charter schools and “on-line” schools will open/close at will with taxpayer money, and the cycle starts all over again. Hmmmmm wonder if that fits in to my ‘life cycles” unit. Oh wait, is that CC$$? Gotta go look that up.
Unfortunately for your argument, Mike, Diane went to public schools in Texas.
The Columbus Dispatch:
“Separate but equal” does not apply for children in Ohio’s schools today. It is becoming increasingly evident through news stories like “Voucher kids need not pass reading test,” (Dispatch, March 8), and “Charter failure,” (Dispatch, Jan. 12) that logic and reason do not follow the billions of taxpayers’ dollars funding vouchers and charter schools in Ohio.”
This is worthy of note because the Dispatch is a conservative paper and the paper has been absolute cheerleaders for reform from day one.
It would have been helpful had they demanded “logic and reason” (!) from the beginning, but better late than never, I guess 🙂
Wait until they discover the damage a decade of neglect of the public schools in this state has done. Then we’ll really get a blistering editorial. There are two parts to this story, and the public school story shouldn’t be forgotten. There’s the laser-lilke focus on charters and vouchers, and the abandonment of public schools that has gone along with the focus on charters and vouchers.
We have to stop hiring “relinquishers” and “agnostics” to run public schools. They don’t value our schools.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2014/03/22/charters-vouchers-take-public-funds-but-arent-held-to-account.html
I think this will work out great for lawmakers.
All they have to do is issue checks to various private contractors and set up a “choice” website. Public education? Done.
Maybe we can return the privatization favor and replace lawmakers with an accounting firm to issue payments and audit the contactors and a manager for the web site. What do we need lawmakers for in this privatized system? Anyone can issue a check.
Here’s the Friedman Foundation crowing about how much vouchers save taxpayers, and eagerly anticipating even more gutting of public ed budgets:
http://www.edchoice.org/Blog/March-2014/If-you-think-expanding-school-choice-is-expensive-
Because it’s all about “great schools!” don’t you know. NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the people who back the Friedman Foundation and their hostility to supporting public schools with tax dollars 🙂
They must be high fiving around that place, I’ll tell ya. I bet they never dreamed Democrats and “liberals” would join them in their 50 year quest to close every public school in the country.
Also, the complete and utter incoherence of the ed reform “movement” should not be lost on people.
These are the same folks who are spending billions of dollars pushing national standards, WHILE they funnel public money to schools that have no standards!
Does any of this hang together? Did anyone wonder where we they were going when they set out on this zany, madcap adventure of completely overhauling US public education?
They’re just making it up as they go along, right? It may be time to admit that. “Building an airplane in the air” except the airplane has tens of millions of children onboard.
Good point. We’re going to have standardized kids on one end and all kinds of fanatics on the other.
I am disgusted.
Yep, In AZ they’ve passed legislation that will make about 70% of our kids eligible for vouchers. And they plan to fund them at a higher per pupil rate than public schools receive. We already have tons of charters, some good, many not. Some of you may remember an exchange I had with parents from BASIS School. I pointed out that my public school district was able to prepare students for the rigors of BASIS and provide services for the learning disabled and ELL’s. The response from the parents was “If they can’t cut it a BASIS, they can go back to public schools.” I am watching the re-segregation of schools here, not by race , more by family support and culture.. And the Charters can hide how they spend public money in private management companies.
And perhaps the biggest cut of all– The voucher schools will not be required to give the State mandated tests.
Our schools, universities, hospitals and military are filled with people who believe that God created the earth.
That’s a far cry from insisting that taxpayer dollars subsidize schools that refuse to teach evolution.
Yes, and the vast majority of them went to public schools.
What is your point?
Which “god” might that have been?
I don’t think you give 12th century societies enough credit
I mean Arabs were inventing algebra during that time. Give them more credit than today’s bible schools lol
Estimates are that Spanish is comprised of around 30% words of Arabic origin.
Steve, I don’t think that Chrustian schools are teaching students that Arabs invented algebra in the 12th century, do you?
Would you feel better if I referred to the curriculum in Bible-based schools as teaching 1st century STEM subjects?
Not a real answer, Diane. In any case 1st century STEM included Euclid, Aristotle, and Archimedes, among many, many others of singular note.
“EDUCATION CREATIONISM” Indeed it is.
Vouchers are for Culture Vultures.
What’s their next strategy to defund public schools, to fund home schooling for those parents who voted in favor of the deformers!
This is getting out of control. It is time for a civil rights action where every parent, teacher, student and community advocate pick one particular day encircle their public school with signs telling Congress and their state legislators – DON’T DEFUND PUBLIC SCHOOLS! DEFEND PUBLIC SCHOOLS!
This civil rights action should be done nationwide.
Ms Ravitch wrote on 5/21/12…
“The Catholic schools have a proven record. They are safe, well-disciplined, and get consistently good results.”
…
“Just think of the billions that have been poured into charter schools for a tiny percentage of the nation’s students (is it 4% now?). Imagine if the same money—or even half of it—had been devoted to building a foundation for the future of Catholic education.”
So are we for Catholic schools or against them today?
Won’t vouchers help pour a fraction of tax dollars into proven Catholic education?
A good response to a bogus article: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/374069/politicos-voucher-story-bogus-michael-mcshane
Let’s keep church and state separate, shall we?
Yep, no student loans for students at Notre Dame or Loyola, and no state required inclusion of contraception and abortion in insurance policies paid for by religiously sponsored institution.
Oh, but you didn’t mean that did you?
Well, if we get enough kids mired in 12th century STEM, we might actually develop a shortage of real scientists. Then, maybe the salaries of real scientists and engineers would go up. No, wait a minute. We would have industry who supported these ALEC reforms screaming for more green cards so they could import cheap scientists.
Diane: To what extent do public schools teach the equally false dogma of global warming?
The argument that vouchers should be opposed because they support schools that teach untruths is thus a failing argument.
Public schools are notorious for their promotion of false teachings from science to history to math.
Oh, Diane. Your Stephanie Simon is pushing Common Core in her attack on vouchers. NOT a good omen in a supposed defense of public schools.
Public schools have shot themselves in the foot by lack of true scientific skepticism about global warming, misplaced environmentalism, mistaken multiculturalism, historical revisionism, statist economics, and the developmental inappropriateness of new math.
Thus, public schools are guilty of their own religious, i.e. faith-based dogmatism as much as the evangelical schools. That dogmatism has become the secular state established religion. Woe to a student who doesn’t toe the liberal teacher doctrine of social theory (statism), or American history as unrelieved exploitation, or the unnecessary attempt to ground arithmetic and algebra in set theory and mathematical philosophy.
It is not REALLY the existence or system of public education that is being attacked, but what has been done to its content by those charged to care for it. Much of that content has become dogmatically imposed on students by omission of relevant counter content, just as the evangelical schools do. The evangelical schools want to make little conservative Christians. The Public Schools want to make little socialist atheists.
It is a pity that public education has forced that kind of choice on its clients, because clearly properly funded neighborhood schools really are what’s best for the country. Geoffrey Canada proved it in Harlem.
What’s then to choose between a politically and economically destructive ideology IN the public schools and “choice”? It is public school intransigence, hubris, and arrogance that has created the challenge to the actual existence of public school education.
I see education as a service business which forgot to respect the wishes and needs of its customer base. Oh no, I hear frequently said. “Education is not a business.” I contend that it surely is, just like a regulated utility. But it forgot what it was. It came to believe that it was a divinely ordained monopoly, just like an established church, with the teachers as the clergy protected by is own clergy union against the needs of the secular world. That’s what eventually broke up the Catholic church in England, its determination to have civil crimes committed by priests tried in church courts only. The people knew the priests would be let off easy by their brother priests. Weak accountability. Inadequate self-discipline within the privileged group, by which I mean teachers in this analogy.
Here’s another analogy. Today we are seeing a latter day version of the public mood prior to the enacting of the anti-trust legislation which broke up Standard Oil. Progressive reformers didn’t like monopolies back then. Why are they defending an educational monopoly now, which has become ineffective in delivering its products to some and inefficient in delivering its products to the rest, largely because of high overhead and bad judgement (think LA for both)? Underfunding too, but underfunding of what? Inefficiency and inefficacy.
The trouble is that vouchers for all will necessarily result in public money funding all kinds of religiously oriented schools, Muslim, Gulen, Fundamentalist and many others, as well as weak schools. That’s not good either, but it is an unfortunate result of the infiltration and takeover of the public school systems by a profoundly un-American social philosophy. Can John Dewey coexist with the NFL, March Madness, the World Series, and Wimbleton? I don’t think so. It is a truly noble attempt in the public school system to save every single kid for a prosperous life. It’s like Christianity trying to convert every person on earth. Will the missionary effort succeed in saving every kid from sin? That’s the public schools’ inner criterion, even. Everyone is to be converted to middle class college and career readiness. We have to keep on trying, but do we have to keep on trying the same WAY? It’s a deeply ingrained Protestant trait, to form a new sect, when the dogma of the old church doesn’t satisfy. European Catholicism imposed orthodoxy. Luther rebelled, and impose Puritan orthodoxy. But the example of rebellion was not lost on the congregation. When the Massachusetts Bay clergy tried to impose orthodoxy, Roger Williams split off and fled the Puritan tyranny and founded Rhode Island. THERE the first synagogue on American soil was founded, and we account that kind of tolerance and freedom as what America is all about.
I see a parallel impulse these days toward freedom of conscience in education. The public school system is like the Catholic Church in 1600 or the Puritans in 1630, two tyrannies. But not everyone liked those dogmas. So they formed their own schools with a dogma more to their liking. No real surprise there, disorderly and incoherent as the result is.
Public school personnel have a great deal to answer for in their possibly unconscious collaboration in the destruction of their own institution by adhering to an outmoded faith—marxist egalitarianism—even as the Catholic Church became dogmatically defensive over Galileo and the new science. The power of the church had to be broken, and to be made subordinate to freedom of conscience and thought. It took 400 years, culminating in the absolute privatization of religion within the state that we have now.
Unfortunately, because public education over the last 100 years adopted as the criterion for certification of its “clergy” the intrinsically tyrannical and now shown to be utterly unworkable faith of socialism (USSR, Cuba, Venezuela), we now have a messy counter revolution going on within education, and the legal, non-violent way it is happening is through increasing privatization of its churches, i.e. public schools via charters and vouchers.
It ain’t pretty, but when an entire organ of state goes corrupt intellectually, especially the organ that is supposed to know professionally what truth is, what is one to do?
An excellent observation by a colleague of mie this morning:
“Politics determines the science that you hear.” –Greg Varnado
http://living.msn.com/family-parenting/raising-kids/this-little-girl-was-pulled-out-of-christian-school-for-her-tomboy-haircut
If a private school takes public voucher money, let’s hope they have to follow public rules against discrimination based on race, creed, etc.