Those of us who believe in the importance and necessity of a much improved public education system are fortunate to have the support of pastors who understand the importance of separation of church and state. They also understand that the state will in time put its heavy hand on the affairs of the church if the church becomes dependent on the state. And they know too that a church that needs public subsidy lacks the support of its own congregants.
The leader in this grassroots fight against privatization of public schools is Pastors for Texas Children. It has helped Oklahomans organize Pastors for Oklahoma Kids. It is now working with faith-based groups in Arizona and Arkansas to ward off the attack against public schools. The leader of Pastors for Texas Children, Charles Foster Johnson, will speak at the convention of the Network for Public Education in Oakland from October 14-15. Please come to hear about the important work that is happening at the community level.
In this post, Reverend George Mason explained at a meeting in Simmons, Kentucky, why pastors must join together to protect the rights of African-American children. Rev. Mason is senior pastor of the Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas.
Racism is not the root of all problems of public education in America, but the problem of racism is rooted in public education in America. It should be the mission of the church of Jesus Christ to call it out and root it out.
Public education is under assault in this country. And whom do you think suffers most when it does?
Racism has always prevented black Americans and other people of color from fully grasping the promise of prosperity our country says is dangling just within reach of every child who studies and works hard. Black American children have never had equal access to quality education, and yet they have been blamed for not achieving anyway.
The heroic efforts of people who founded schools like Simmons are to be lauded. The example of successful black Americans who had to work twice as hard as people like me to get where they are today is remarkable. But neither is any excuse for our complacency. Cherry-picking African Americans to praise so we have moral license to condemn many others who haven’t, because of unjust and unequal educational systems we continue to defend, is a sin against God.
You know the history. From slavery to Jim Crow segregation, white Americans have been afraid to be exposed as frauds in our assertion that we have God-given intellectual superiority. We have clung to a lie about ourselves; and it is idolatry, not theology. We have to repent of the contrived notion of whiteness as rightness that has become operational policy in our approach to public school education. It’s not enough for us to feel sorry for our history; it’s necessary for us to atone for it.
Pastors for Texas Children was formed in 2011 as a mission and advocacy organization to ensure that every child of God in Texas have access to a quality public education. We match churches with local schools, creating mentoring and tutoring relationships with students, and providing needed material support to compensate for our state’s failure to fulfill its constitutional duty to fully fund these schools. We advocate for just laws and adequate budgets.
Currently in Texas, and nationwide, we have a privatizing movement underway that wants to peel off taxpayer dollars to private schools through voucher programs. As always, these educational entrepreneurs see themselves as messianic figures, saving disadvantaged students from educrats and bureaucrats who only want to keep their jobs at the expense of the kids. But that argument is bogus.
Voucher programs take our tax dollars and give them to private schools without public accountability. Charter schools do a similar runaround. Vouchers are a ruse designed once again to privilege the privileged and underprivilege the underprivileged.
The people who cry for accountability all the time only want accountability when other people are in charge. And they employ all sorts of negative narratives to support their claims public schools can’t succeed. It’s either corruption of administrators or mismanagement of funds or the breakdown of the black family that makes education impossible. All these arguments are marshalled to undermine public education in favor of moving money and people toward charter schools and private schools.
The performance data, however, don’t back up the claims of failing public schools and thriving charter schools; nor do state experiments in voucher programs justify the upending of a public education system, which was created to strengthen democracy and reinforce our country’s high ideals of patriotism and citizenship. Something else is going on, and we all know what it is. It’s what it’s always been.
After Brown vs. Board of Education, whites fled the public schools for the homogeneity of private schools. When public schools were forcibly integrated, every form of creativity was called upon to maintain white advantage. Black kids and white kids now went to school together, but black teachers—who were invaluable role models in segregated schools—were let go all over the country. Schools were never ordered by the courts to integrate black teachers. Think of it.
Then consider the code language we use in educational reform. Local control, school-based decision making, and here’s the big one—choice. Sounds good in principle, but so did the lofty notion of states’ rights that was used to justify slavery and segregation. The outcome has hardly been different, because when the people in charge locally only answer to people like them, they choose in their own favor time and again, and nothing changes to equalize opportunity.
In Dallas, 95% of our school district is non-white. 90% of students are on partial or full food subsidy. White flight is rooted in white fright. Yet the one thing proven to improve performance in public schools is real racial and economic integration. Know why? Because children haven’t yet learned how not to love their neighbor. They work together and play together and want each other to succeed. It’s their parents and paid-for politicians who don’t know how to do this.
Cornel West was right when he said that “justice is what love looks like in public.” And public education is a fertile field for justice work. It’s one way white Christians can move from private sorrow over our racist history to public repentance. It’s a beautiful way for us to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Faith and learning, churches and schools, preachers and teachers: all these are organically related. All of us are called to love God and love our neighbor. This is the perfect intersection to keep the Great Commandment.
Charlie Johnson leads Pastors for Texas Children. It was Suzii Paynter’s brainchild to start with, when she worked for another organization back in our state. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Fellowship Southwest are working hard to support this work.
Pastors and churches are busy cheering on kids, encouraging teachers and principals and superintendents. We also try to convince politicians of the error of their ways, and when they persist in their perdition, we work to elect new ones who will make good on the promise to all our kids.
You ought to have a chapter in your state too. We can help you. Talk to Suzii or me afterward, or email Charlie.
Here’s the thing: 400 years is long enough, dear Lord! The children of Angela must ever be before our eyes and in our hearts, because they are God’s children and our sisters and brothers. All children’s lives matter only if black children’s lives matter. And one way we can prove we believe that is to make sure the public in the public education system means all the public.
Pray for us, and join us.
The pastors have a really good example of how public schools come in a distant second in ed reform priorities. Look at what just happened in Illinois. The entire public school system was held hostage until ed reform got vouchers, and they don’t even discuss what the law means for public school families.
Public school families are a disfavored “default” that politicians feel they can safely disregard.
It’s spread from DC to statehouses. This is DeVos:
“U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has spent decades advocating for private school vouchers and charter schools, came to Washington with one item at the top of her agenda: to push for a new federal school choice initiative.”
You can’t pay these people to put in a day’s work on US public schools. They refuse. They simply don’t consider public schools as any part of their job description.
3% of students in Illinois commandeered the whole state apparatus. No one else was even considered.
This type of extortion has happened in other states after the charter lobby sets up shop and buys enough members of the legislature, which controls the purse strings. The lobby starts holding the governor or the entire state hostage unless their demands for additional charter funding are met. This is a perversion of democracy. We need to get the money out of politics as it is the only way the will of the people stands a chance.
It helps when your governor is already member of the charter crowd. Rauner had a charter school named after him!
EXTORTION is right. Politicians and BIG $$$$$$ = BAD COMBO and so dysfunctional.
90% of US kids attend public schools, but the US Department Of Education sees their job as promoting schools that either don’t exist or most children don’t attend.
That’s nuts. They can spin it any way they want but if they aren’t serving 90% they aren’t doing their jobs.
Do our schools bore the Best and Brightest? Is that it? Because they can go to the private sector. The last time I checked no one was forcing to them to take these positions. There’s an entire ed reform industry with thousands of jobs. Go take one of those.
While all of DC and half of statehouses work on vouchers, can “the 90%” hire someone to work with public schools? Maybe raise private funding to replicate the public sector jobs these people have decided they don’t have to do?
I have said often, that it would be terrific, if more NGOs and private sector corporations would become involved in education, including publicly-operated education.
Service clubs, and fraternal organizations would like to become involved, if only they were asked!
Public school districts need to have a person (either a professional or a volunteer), to liaison with NGOs and individuals, to secure donations of items like computers, and other needs like winter coats.
The liaison person, could also work to coordinate requests like tutoring.
Publicly-operated schools, can innovate, and get more in line, with the needs of students/parents.
It will take some “thinking outside the box”.
Charles,
Schools always welcome the help of NGOs.
Professionals do the work, whether in a school, a hospital, or a police station. You don’t turn the work over to volunteers.
I believe that schools SHOULD always welcome the help and assistance from NGOs. I would like to find out, if any publicly-operated school systems, have a person (paid or volunteer), to liaison with NGOs and actively seek out donations and assistance.
Public school parents had to have a special meeting in Indiana with Secretary DeVos to persuade her that their schools are important.
Gosh, I hope they changed her mind! The fact that no one wonders why we have an entire federal agency opposed to 90% of schools is a measure of how ed reform utterly and completely dominates government.
We’re now supposed to persuade public employees to pretty please do their jobs.
The news on Twitter shows that DeVos is vacationing on the family yacht. 153 feet long, $40 million.
And anyone wonders why she is out of touch with ordinary people?
153 feet long, $40 million.
Hmmm, that’s almost twice as long as the 35-year-old trailer in which I live, not to mention that boat has four levels compared to my one. And that $40M, well let’s just say that 1% of that and I’d be set for life and then some instead of being on the verge of dead broke (and dead). Hell, I could even buy a new truck and not worry about it.
“Faith and learning, churches and schools, preachers and teachers: all these are organically related. All of us are called to love God and love our neighbor. This is the perfect intersection to keep the Great Commandment.”
No, they are not “organically related”. Faith, churches and preachers belong in the metaphysical (non-verifiable faith belief tradition) while learning, schools and teachers belong in the Enlightenment tradition of verifiable proofs in being/living/doing.
Those two camps are actually diametrically opposed onto-epistemologically speaking. Now that doesn’t mean that some in the metaphysical camp can’t believe in the purpose and goals of non-sectarian public education. Nor does it preclude that some in the Enlightenment camp can’t understand the metaphysical camp’s religious underpinnings (usually they tolerate them but also reject them as invalid belief systems).
But for this preacher to proclaim that the two (of many) onto-epistemological camps are “organically related” should rightly be rejected for the sleight of hand that it is.
Duane,
You express your belief. He expresses his.
He has a right to his.
The Pastors for Texas Children are working diligently to preserve the separation of church and state.
I am grateful for their work. I applaud them. I wish them well. If you prefer to curse the darkness, go right ahead.
Your response, Diane, is quite typical of mainstream current thought regarding religions and religious thinking. It is okay for pastors, preachers and other self-proclaimed religious “leaders” to put forth falsehoods but it is not okay for those who think/believe otherwise to question those supposed leaders, e.g., “If you prefer to curse the darkness, go right ahead”.
Maybe a Common Core close reading of what I wrote instead of a knee jerk reaction in defense of the indefensible-a preacher making an inane and patently false statement. Reread the third paragraph. Did I not acknowledge that, yes indeed, some religious leaders do support the separation of church and state (and if one looks at the history of the dialogue, discussion of that separation one will find that many times the most vocal and ardent supporters of that separation were religious leaders-see Susan Jacoby’s work in that area)
I never even came close to hinting that the pastor didn’t have a right to express his opinion, so that strawman needs to be burnt.
And, yes, I applaud them and wish them well.
But that doesn’t mean I will tolerate the “religious” mode of thinking when one attempts to make false, spurious claims such as the one discussed. And I didn’t even comment on the “All of us are called to love God. . .” inanity/falsehood. Ay ay ay!
Duane,
You are intolerant of religion. I am not a religious person, but I respect people with religious views so long as they don’t interfere with my freedom.
These pastors are doing good work. I support them wholeheartedly.
I am intolerant of religion?
You are quite wrong on that account, Diane. Dead wrong. You know me not when it comes to my stance on religion.
I am intolerant of those who make religious proclamations that state such things as “All of us are called to love God”. And that type of statement is just the apex of the tip of the iceberg in inanities (hell, think of David Barton’s history of America) that these supposed religious thinkers spout.
Yes, in that sense I am intolerant, intolerant of error, falsehoods and inanities parading as “religious beliefs”.
Again, you suggest that it is perfectly okay that these people make such statements, but it’s not okay to question and challenge them?? I don’t buy that!
Yes, I’m a doubting Thomas!
” And I didn’t even comment on the “All of us are called to love God. . .” inanity/falsehood. Ay ay ay!”
You don’t gain any points sneering at other people’s beliefs. Why is it you feel the entitled to repeatedly tell everyone that happens to believe in a God that they are fools?
And you have it wrong also, speduktr. I said nothing about anyone being a fool. Putting words in someone’s mouth is, well, a foolish strategy.
A couple of things about the statement. First, all it takes is one counter example to show the statement to be false. So. . . I am not called to “love” any god. Statement false.
Second the fact that the preacher has determined that it is okay for him (and you seem to concur) to hubristically speak for all of humanity with that statement points exactly to the problem folks like Jefferson and Madison, and many religious believers in the early 1800s understood and therefore advocated for a need to keep the state and church from entwining. Because which sect’s orthodoxy gets the official okay as supposed truth.
Again, it’s okay for preachers to say inane things and it’s not okay for others to question and challenge those statements? Sorry, but I’m not the one who has this situation backwards.
inane: “silly, foolish, stupid, fatuous, idiotic, ridiculous, ludicrous, absurd, senseless, asinine, frivolous, vapid; childish, puerile; informal dumb, moronic, ditzy, daft. ”
You are right. You didn’t call anyone a fool. You just said what they said was…
And saying that what someone says is inane is completely different than calling someone, labeling someone inane. Big Difference. I hope you understand that difference.
Yes, you are entirely right. I should have said saying that someone said is:
inane (“silly, foolish, stupid, fatuous, idiotic, ridiculous, ludicrous, absurd, senseless, asinine, frivolous, vapid; childish, puerile; informal dumb, moronic, ditzy, daft. ”) is not exactly encouraging that person to continue a dialogue. The fact that you feel the comment is, say, “moronic” is not exactly an indication that you might value further conversation. If that was your intention, then you got a logical response, however flawed it was.
Speductr,
I’m not quite sure what you mean by my “insisting on a philosophically purist dialogue”. Please explain. Gracias.
I’m sorry, Duane. Somehow I missed this response and had to go searching for it to respond to it and not the string. I have noticed that you have a great love for philosophy and its terminology. On at least a few occasions, I have noticed that you use that knowledge to express your disagreement with some comment made by someone else. Unless one is well versed in philosophical argument, the language can get in the way of response. Roy Turrentine is able to converse with you on that level, but it off putting to me who has no background in it other than an entirely premature introduction and interest killing introduction in senior English class. (Then too, girls of my generation were not encouraged to study philosophy and/or debate, and I had plenty of other interests.) It appears to me that on occasion you dismantle other peoples’ statements using that knowledge. Maybe it is just me overreacting, but I find it off putting when what you are trying to say could probably said in the vernacular.
If I may paraphrase (hard not to when someone has already put an idea into words) one of my favorite current thinkers, Andre Comte-Sponville: “To do philosophy, to philosophize is to think without the benefit of proof [such as math or the hard sciences].” If we are talking/thinking/writing without proof, how can one know what is a valid argument/statement, or the flip side, to use the term that I used, whether something should be considered inane? Not sure, other than the force of rationo-logical thought.
If I may suggest, start with learning a little on logical types and logical fallacies. Doesn’t have to be fancy, for example see Wiki’s discussion on logical fallacies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
I make no pretense of knowing all of them. Part of understanding is learning to recognize when a statement isn’t “quite right”. It seems some of us, for whatever reason, have a tendency to pick up on those “not quite right” statements. Don’t know why, but my mom tried to cure me off the “Why?” question and didn’t succeed. Life is a lot easier when one doesn’t question everything and accepts what they are told. I’ve often thought what it would be like to not question things. But that’s not how I operate.
Yes, I do have a tendency to “dismantle” others’ statements-what some call “deconstructing”. But if you look you will also see that I support those statements that others make that “ring true”. I’m certainly not the end all be all in these matters, far from it, but I believe society would be better off if more questioned what they are told (from a very early age) as to how the world is.
And one of the reasons that I use the terms/words I use is because they fit most precisely with the meaning I intend. And when I don’t know, the thesaurus is my best friend. English can be a wonderful language to use due to the many words available for us to use. At the same time it can be frustrating because of all the subtle differences in meanings of “synonym” words. At the same time I have realized as a Spanish teacher just how difficult communication actually is, no matter what language or between languages which adds a whole other level/layer of (mis)understanding.
There is also a part of me that expects that the readers here will be at a different level of understanding language usage than the “average” (and I don’t like that term) person. I’m saddened that you are “put off” by some of my writing, because that certainly is not the purpose at all.
Whether you frame it in terms of a logical rational argument or not, you chose to use a word, “inane,” that carries an emotional charge. The argument moves from debunking to disparaging. I am sorry I am doing such a poor job of making myself clear and have spent far too much time on it especially when it doesn’t portray how much I enjoy most of your comments. Peace.
cx; could probably have been said
Plain and simple you speak a language I don’t.
“Duane is able to control the conversation…”
I am trying to “control the conversation” in rebutting accusations thrown my way? Sorry, I don’t buy that at all.
I put my thoughts out there for all to read and rebut if they so choose. When the rebuttals do not address what I have said, when words are put in my mouth and strawman arguments and falsehoods in paraphrasing my writing are used against my arguments, yes I do “try to control” the argument so that those blatantly wrong rhetorical devices are not used. If that is “controlling the argument” so be it as I will always try to “control the argument” in that regard.
Duane: it is always wonderful to read your getting worked up about religion. As a person who goes to two different churches most Sundays, I would agree with you and John Locke that faith and reason are separate entities.
What history suggests is that everyone who strives to unite societies does so by insisting on a unity of common belief. Absent the church, which Jacobin France saw as an anathema (and perhaps for good reason), the incorruptible Robespierre slug to declare a religion of reason, complete with Greek-looking goddesses and a sort of cult that held to its precepts. There grew a problem. Robespierre had substituted himself for God, and heads rolled until his did.
Voltaire had anticipated this problem when he suggested that without God, there would be no morality, thus inducing man to invent one. Robespierre had invented himself as God and called it reason. Many are the atrocities invented by man in the name of God, but godless atrocities have existed too. So, in the words of Voltaire’s Candide, “let us cultivate our garden”
Roy T,
I am not “getting worked up about religion”. I am getting worked up about the falsehoods that some religious folks put out as truths. And I “get worked up” at anyone who defends those who spout those falsehoods as religious “beliefs” and that I should tolerate those falsehoods as okay because it is a supposed religious belief.
As you quote Voltaire, allow me to reiterate a very common aphorism: Live and let live. I have not attacked the beliefs. I have attacked what I have proven to be inane false statements by the preacher who is presuming to speak for all when he doesn’t. (See Jon’s response for a good explanation.)
“What history suggests is that everyone who strives to unite societies does so by insisting on a unity of common belief.”
And yes, our country is supposedly “united” by a common belief or beliefs, that/those which are stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution which in their own ways point to a plurality of beliefs allowed with no religious orthodoxy (despite the protestations of patently false American histories like David Barton’s) obtaining priority over others.
Make sense?
Duane,
Let me give you a simple non-religious explanation. You don’t crap on your allies in a vicious fight. You may not like their clothes, their smell, their view of heaven and hell, but please respect the fact that those who join us in our effort are people of good will. The speaker that you attacked did not attack you. He is our friend. He is our ally. Stop.
I didn’t “crap on our allies”. I did not “attack” anyone. Re-read all of my posts on this thread.
It is an interesting concept, that of “not crapping on allies”. Truman certainly didn’t crap on Stalin until Hitler was the common enemy. Please point out where I attacked anyone. I challenge the thoughts and statements, not the person. Show me where I crapped on the person.
It’s sad that you don’t see the difference.
Duane, your comments about our friends and allies were hostile. I am aJew and I am proud to have the support of the Pastors in Texas, Oklahoma, and elsewhere in our common mission of staving off the DeVos agenda of privatization and vouchers.
And I agree with “. . . And I am proud to have. . . “. We need all the help we can get and, whether I like it or not, pastors and preachers hold a lot of sway in our country.
Thank you. Kissed and made up.
Won’t be responding for a day or two as I go help my son process the deer he shot last night. It’s a bit of a chore, but hey, I’ve got time and I get to hang out with him!
Duane: I hope I did not offend you in any way. I really do enjoy your passionate responses to social and intellectual issues. I also see Diane’s point, that these pastors are our allies in the fight to save public schools from “reform”. I realize that you are pointing out a logical problem you see in their thinking. I am perfectly willing to honor your point. Let us cultivate our garden. Better yet, let us go down Jack’s Fork in the same canoe.
Aside, I really enjoyed my one trip down that River.
Roy T,
I hope that you got to float the upper part of the Jacks Fork-above Bay Creek. Do you remember what part you floated?
No matter, let me invite you to come float it again! I’ve got enough room in my canoe! And there are a few other very similar rivers to float.
Besides from doing an annual family camp/float with my life-long friends every summer for the last 43 or so years-at one point we had four generations camping together, my inlaws (they have both passed on-RIP) used to live about 20 minutes away from the upper Jacks Fork. What a shame to go visit and float and fish as often as we could. Many a time we got back at their house at “dark thirty”.
I am with you, Duane. I do not trust religiously-oriented people to get involved in education. The Roman Catholic church forbade autopsies for 600 years, and the only reliable anatomical drawings were done by doctors in the Islamic world.
Galileo spent the end of his life, under virtual house arrest, because he proved that the earth is not the center of the universe.
John Scopes, a public school teacher, was prosecuted for teaching evolution in Tennessee.
The Protestant establishment, forced Roman Catholic immigrant children, to read the King James Bible, in publicly-operated schools, and attempted to “protestantize”, the waves of immigrant children (arriving from predominately Roman Catholic countries like Ireland and Italy).
The list of religiously-inspired abominations goes on and on.
I can understand, why liberals want to make “common cause” with religionists, in their drive to crush school choice for lower-income parents, and keep the publicly-operated school monopoly.
Politics makes strange bedfellows.
Charles,
You don’t trust religious people but you want the public to pay for religious schools.
Q You don’t trust religious people but you want the public to pay for religious schools. END Q
Not quite. I believe that the religiously-oriented people who are objecting to school choice/vouchers are sincere in their beliefs. Nevertheless, these people have an agenda, like everyone else.
I believe that none of these pastors are trained as educators, none of them have ever taught in a publicly-operated nor a privately-operated school. Many pastors are financially secure, and are able to send their children to non-public schools. Call me a cynic, but I find it hard to believe that these individuals, are all as pure in heart, and altruistic as one would think.
It is overly simplistic, to state that I “want the public to pay for religious schools”. That is not the case.
I advocate giving parents more control over the education of their children, and more control over the spending of their education dollars. If you are opposed to vouchers, then you should be supportive of ESAs, which permit parents to direct the spending towards tutoring, transportation, computers/internet, and so forth.
I advocate the school choice which the Supreme Court approved. Giving parents a variety of school choice, including secular private schools, home schooling, publicly-operated schools, and religiously-operated schools.
I advocate NOT trusting the government to make all of the educational decisions for families. In this blog, I see all kinds of complaints against the government, when it comes to items like national defense, and foreign policy, and the combat in Afghanistan, and medical care, etc etc. But when it comes to education, the government can do no wrong. Publicly-operated schools, where children are assigned based on their zip code, are all fabulous, and publicly-operated schools, run by unionized teachers, are all going to take us to the Promised Land!
I look forward to the day when you have a new thought.
I do not understand your blind faith in government. You lived through Vietnam and Watergate. You saw Bill Clinton commit felony perjury, and get impeached. Even today, the government is helpless in the face of the opioid epidemic. Government lies to the people about the combat in Afghanistan.
Government at all levels is bankrupt in thought and ethics. I speak from experience, having 12 (twelve) years of federal service in three different government departments. I have worked as a federal contractor for over a dozen years as well. I have seen the stupidity, waste, fraud, and abuse, and flat-out incompetence pushed out by government at all levels.
All Americans should have a mature cynicism and distrust of government. And an equal skepticism about projects run by government, at all levels, including the publicly-operated schools.
How liberals/progressives continue to worship at the altar of government, and government-run enterprises like AMTRAK and the public schools, is just beyond me.
I worked in the federal government, Charles. I didn’t ever meet anyone who was corrupt. The ethics rules, until Trump, were rigorous.
For corruption on a grand scale, look to big corporations. The tobacco industry. The big banks. How many millions of phantom accounts at Wells Fargo? See “Inside Job.” How many financiers went to jail for causing a worldwide economic collapse and causing millions of people to lose their homes? How many thousands of veterans and widows lost their life savings to Trump University? How many Americans lost their savings and pensions because they invested in Enron?
I would trust government over corporate America any day of the week.
Do you support the defunding of public schools when the peasants cannot afford to send their children to well funded schools? All of the choice options to improve public Ed are more expensive than what we do now. Who among the advocates of choice will admit that real choice is much more expensive. Taxes will have to go up.
Q Do you support the defunding of public schools when the peasants cannot afford to send their children to well funded schools? All of the choice options to improve public Ed are more expensive than what we do now. Who among the advocates of choice will admit that real choice is much more expensive. Taxes will have to go up. END Q
This is a loaded question. I favor giving parents the option to leave the local publicly-operated school, and rebate a portion of the per-pupil expenditures to the parents. The parents would then be able to purchase educational services (or home-school). The per-pupil expenditures for the students remaining in the publicly-operated school would be unchanged.
If a state provides a voucher equivalent to 90% of the per-pupil expenditure, the remaining 10% would stay in the publicly-operated system; enabling additional funding to the students who remain. This is definitely non “de-funding”, it is the opposite!
I disagree, that the choice option would be more expensive. Some (not all) parents would augment the voucher with their own funds. Some parents who cannot afford to pay $9,000 for a non-public school, in an area where the voucher is equal to $7,000, could possible afford the additional $2,000.
Some non-public schools, may choose to offer discounts, to serve the demographic who possess vouchers. Some non-public schools may offer partial scholarships, to get students. Some NGOs may step in, and assist parents at the K-12 level, similar to what NGOs are currently doing at the university level.
I do not stipulate that school choice will cost the public treasury more than the current system of mandating publicly-operated education based on the zip code of the family.
I will agree on one point. Good education costs more than poor education. Excellent teachers should command adequate salaries. Top-grade computers, software, and video equipment costs more.
” And I didn’t even comment on the “All of us are called to love God. . .” inanity/falsehood. Ay ay ay!”
“You don’t gain any points sneering at other people’s beliefs. Why is it you feel the entitled to repeatedly tell everyone that happens to believe in a God that they are fools?”
Atheists would fiercely object to the insulting to them claim that they are called to love god, and they have the absolute moral and ethical right to do so. Duane is not sneering at anyone’s beliefs here or saying that believers are fools. You are misinterpreting his words, badly so. You hear what you want to hear, NOT what he has said. He is rightfully objecting to a person in power, a religious leader, speaking for those he has no right to speak for by describing them in a way that implicitly rejects their right of self definition. The leaders of the various faiths of the world do not have any right (other than that of free speech to voice an opinion) to speak for all of humanity.
Perhaps I am although I did not understand the pastors to be speaking for anyone but those who are Christians (I don’t know if other faith traditions are included in the pastor group). He may not like the terminology they choose to express their ideas which is also fine and his right. Duane is able to control the conversation by insisting on a philosophically purist dialogue. In some ways, I find that no different than data gurus trying to tell me how I should run my classroom. Roy Turrentine is able to argue with him in those terms. I should leave those discussions to him.
What is there about religion that attracts so many people with a craving for authoritarianism and intolerance.
https://newrepublic.com/article/133488/evangelicals-like-trump
I am afraid that the good pastors are a minority who will be marginalized in many religions. It is a worthy effort . Yet I doubt they will be the determining factor in any battle over vouchers or any other issue.
Whether the issue is race, pubic schools \ education or immigration.
A few weeks ago the question was about the Orthodox or ultra Orthodox Jewish Community .And how they could support Trump. If you change the garb the world view is the same on school vouchers or authoritarianism . I suppose there are many good Catholics waiting for this Pope to pass on. As I said to a friend a while back. “what is Joe going to do now that Trump and the Pope are feuding” his answer “covert to Protestantism”
Religion was an issue not lost to the founders . This is more than an education issue, this a constitutional issue . The only way to preserve freedom of religion is to preserve freedom from religion . Any tax dollars going to a private religious educational institution is subsidizing that institution. The overwhelming majority of private schools that would receive aide in the form of vouchers are religious in nature . Of course Charles will now come at me spouting some court decisions . Based on a thinly worded documented we call the Constitution . The more critical thing to do is read what those that wrote the document had to say about Religion, to understand their concern.
“your sect by it’s sufferings has furnished a remarkable proof of the universal spirit of religious intolerance, inherent in every sect, disclaimed by all while feeble, and practiced by all when in power. our laws have applied the only antidote to this vice, protecting our religious, as they do our civil rights by putting all on an equal footing. but more remains to be done. …”
Jefferson said more had to be done not less. And he and Madison did not do it alone.
Not with my tax dollars .
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Seconded, and Double Like!
Joel,
The Pastors for Texas Children have been extremely effective in fighting vouchers in Texas. There are many legislators and church members who listen to them.
Don’t dismiss them out of hand. I certainly don’t. I hope they spread their word throughout the Bible Belt to fight off the attack of the billionaire-funded groups like BAEO, which tells black people in the South that they should fight for charters and vouchers because only the private sector can save them. George Wallace must be laughing, wherever he is.
Many of those young adult racists who marched in Charlottesville are products of that portion of America’s school system that has been re-segregated by the charter schools movement that became widespread at the beginning of the 1990’s…and there are tens of thousands more of them in the segregated charter school pipeline that keeps churning them out.
Racist re-segregation being fostered charter schools is clearly an issue that isn’t even on the radar of Senators Sanders and Warren, and none are at all aware of the racist roots of charter schools or how they are re-segregating the education of America’s children. But the NAACP is, and it has called for a total moratorium on charter schools. For your ready reference, here’s a thumbnail background on the racist roots of charter schools, “choice”, and vouchers:
The racist roots of charter schools traces back to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision that required the racial integration of public schools. That triggered “white flight” from public schools and into private schools. But white parents found the cost of private schools was expensive, so the call went out for vouchers to enable white parents to have a “free choice” of schools. In 1959, just before the Court’s deadline for racial integration of public schools, a prominent newspaper in Prince Edward County, Virginia, published the outline for the charter school scheme to resegregate education: “We are working [on] a scheme [with members of Congress] in which we will abandon public schools, sell the buildings to corporations, reopen them as privately operated schools with tuition grants [vouchers] from [the State of Virginia] and from Prince Edward County. Those wishing to go to integrated schools can take their tuition grants and operate their own schools. To hell with [the Supreme Court and non-whites].”
At the same time, a prominent Virginia attorney who was an advisor to Virginia politicians announced a corollary scheme for resegregating public schools by means of standardized testing: “Negroes can be let in [to white schools] and then chased out by setting high academic standards they can’t maintain. This should leave few Negroes in the white schools. The federal courts can easily force Negroes into our white schools, but they can’t possibly administer them and listen to the merits of thousands of bellyaches [from white parents].” That was the conceptual beginning and foundation of all the standardized testing we see today, many of which tests are are designed with built-in racial and cultural biases to manufacture failure. The test results were and still are used to “prove” that traditional public schools are “failing” — a claim abetted by drastic underfunding of public schools so that they lacked the resources to teach effectively. The “failing” test scores were and are also used to “prove” that unionized public school teachers are “ineffective”.
That’s the beginning of charter schools, vouchers, and testing. That conceptual foundation remains the same today, which is why the NAACP has called for a moratorium on charter schools, which are openly practicing racism. For more details, read the UCLA-based Civil Rights Project report “Choice without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards.”
The Washington State Supreme Court, the New York State Supreme Court, and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled that charter schools are not public schools because they aren’t accountable to the public since they aren’t governed by publicly-elected boards and aren’t subdivisions of public government entities, in spite of the fact that some state laws enabling charter schools say they are government subdivisions. There is simply no such thing as a “public charter school” because no charter school fulfills the basic public accountability requirement of being responsible to and directed by a school board that is elected by We the People. Charter schools are private schools, owned and operated by private entities. Nevertheless, they get public tax money.
Thank you for your work in behalf of all God’s children. I believe in your good work.
I could but I won’t beat that dead horse again.