Rebecca Klein, education editor of Huffington Post, reports here on a HuffPost analysis of the nation’s voucher-supported private and religious schools.
Many of these voucher schools teach creationism, sexism, racism, and homophobia. They are supported by your tax dollars.
These are the schools that Betsy DeVos wants to send more tax dollars to. Unlike public schools, which are expected to accept all children and to teach tolerance and democratic values, voucher schools teach whatever their religious sponsors want. And all too often, their teachings are hateful toward minorities.
President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have openly championed such programs and have encouraged states to embrace school choice, arguing that voucher programs give parents an alternative to low-performing public schools. Currently 14 states and the District of Columbia have voucher programs, and 17 have tax credit programs. DeVos has made it a top priority to push a federal school choice initiative.
Should federal and state tax dollars support the teaching of hate? DeVos and Trump say yes.
Our analysis found that about 75 percent of voucher schools across the country are religious ― usually Christian or Catholic, with about 2 percent identifying as Jewish and 1 percent identifying as Muslim. There were gray areas: At least six schools identified as non-religious but used a curriculum created by the founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard.
42% of voucher-funded schools are non-Catholic Christian schools, many associated with an Evangelical group.
HuffPost spoke to nearly a dozen former students and teachers at schools that relied on Abeka, Bob Jones and Accelerated Christian Education curricula. Many of these students, who consider themselves no longer religious, reported feeling traumatized by their educational experiences. A number of them communicate with each other via online support groups for survivors of fundamentalist schools, including Bishop.
Some say these curriculum sources left them woefully ill-equipped to thrive in a diverse society while instilling in them racist, sexist and intolerant views of the world. Bishop [the focus of the article] said her fundamentalist education made her wary of people from other religious groups whom her teachers and textbooks had demonized.
“Anything that wasn’t Christianity was a strange religion,” said Bishop, who made it a priority to study other religious practices after high school and even spent time with the Hare Krishna. “But even other denominations were evil. Catholicism especially.”
Another former student who spoke to HuffPost under the pseudonym Natasha Balzak, was taught at home that all Muslims hate America, she said. Teachers at her Florida school reinforced this idea, telling students to pray for Muslims and other non-believers, like atheists and gay people.
“When it comes to hateful ideology and rhetoric, I was taught a lot of things to skew my mind into believing ― I guess you could call it brainwashing,” said Balzak, 27, who is using a pseudonym to protect the identity of family members who are still deeply involved in their church.
Balzak recalled that her school, Coral Springs Christian Academy, used a mix of ACE and Abeka materials, but the head of the school said they were not aware of the school ever using ACE and that they currently used only Abeka in lower grades for phonics.
The school participates in Florida’s three private-school choice programs and currently enrolls 172 students on these scholarships. It received $554,418 in taxpayer-funded scholarships this year, according to a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Education.
A HuffPost analysis of Abeka, Bob Jones and ACE textbooks confirms the recollections of these students. These materials inaccurately portray events in Muslim and Catholic history while perpetuating anti-Semitic stereotypes. The materials speak disparagingly of Native Americans and Native culture…
“When I took my first real science class, a million light bulbs went off,” said Balzak, who had only been taught creationism in school. “Everything finally made sense.”
The experience made Balzak feel robbed of a fact-based education.
Indeed, Balzak’s former school, Coral Springs Christian Academy, includes a statement of faith in its parent-student handbook, which is posted on its website: “We believe God created the entire universe out of nothing.”
The handbook also describes the school’s attitude toward LGBTQ students. It says administrators will reject applicants or expel current students if they are caught “living in, or condoning, or supporting any form of sexual immorality; practicing or promoting a homosexual lifestyle or alternative gender identity.”
Voucher schools are free to teach lies about the environment and about people who are different from the dominant religious group in the school.
These are the schools that Betsy DeVos wants to fund with more taxpayers’ money.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is the Pandora’s Box that so-called reform, and charter schools (always intended by the Right as a stalking horse for vouchers, with pro-“reform” Democrats as their useful idiots) has opened.
Ignorance and the inability to reason are already epidemic in this country; it’s almost inconceivable to imagine the depths we’ll sink to when a significant portion of youths have been educated in these ideology mills…
I should have written, “Cultivated ignorance and…”
Now add a tax bill designed to start a taxpayer rebellions in blue states . . Those voucher schools are a hell of a lot cheaper .
Ideology mills which are not even on the same page as to what is true and what is false.
They’ll teach “alternative facts.”
DeVos is the best ed reformer ever because her claims of being “agnostic” are laughable. No reasonable person outside the ed reform echo chamber would believe this political operative is “agnostic” and that’s not because of what anyone says about her- it’s words out of her own mouth.
She goes to private schools and promotes private schools. She goes to PUBLIC schools and promotes private schools. She seems to be going to public schools for the sole purpose of promoting private schools.
It’s funny how The Agnostics somehow manage to omit any positive mention, support or promotion of public schools even when they’re standing in one.
Is it fair to compel public students to take part in US Department of Ed political events bashing their own schools? Is this what their parents are paying these people for? Do we have to keep them home the day the DC lobbyists parachute in?
The only thing about which DeVos is “agnostic” is public schools.
Shouldn’t that be “antagonistic?”
The leading recipients of vouchers are evangelical schools of questionable educational value. This is another opportunity for Christian libertarians to isolate young minds and brainwash them teaching them whatever the Koch brothers or any other narrow minded group wants them to understand and absorb. This is like the American version of the Hitler youth. What is even more disturbing is that they are using public funds and harming legitimate public schools to achieve their goals. https://thinkprogress.org/big-business-modern-christian-nationalism-5e0af6e36192/
YES to: “This is like the American version of the Hitler youth. What is even more disturbing is that they are using public funds and harming legitimate public schools to achieve their goals.”
BLAME for this horror sits directly in the laps of those deformers from BOTH parties.
I took a look at some of the curriculum materials for two of the evangelical Christian franchise schools, Abeka and Bob Jones. I think the vouchers are probably paying for more homeschooling programs than instruction in private place-based schools. In any case the curricula for these two programs can be used in either setting. Here are some brief descriptions for two Abeka courses.
GRADE 8. From earthquakes and volcanoes to clouds and galaxies, show your child the features of God’s Creation here on earth as well as the Great Beyond with Science: Earth and Space! This textbook guides your child through a study of geology, oceanography, meteorology, astronomy, and environmental science.
A thorough study of rocks, soil, and fossils will give your child ample proofs that this earth was created by God and not evolutionary processes. With Section and Chapter Reviews plus articles to defend Creation and 650 picture and diagrams, your child will complete 8th grade science with a detailed understanding of earth and space science.
GRADE 12 The purpose of Economics: Work and Prosperity is to teach basic economic principles and to give students a clear understanding of free-enterprise capitalism, individual moral responsibility, and the biblical work ethic from a conservative Christian perspective.
This course emphasizes God’s Word as the one standard for man’s thoughts and actions and encourages man’s dependence upon God rather than upon government. It stresses acceptance of moral responsibility and accountability to God and man. Finally, this course strengthens the link between economic freedom and the political and individual freedoms Americans enjoy.
I think that we are seeing these viewpoints being played out ,and played with, as if they should TRUMP all other views.
Here’s a real STEM crisis, not a manufactured one. Young people served a steady diet of misinformation and lies may likely group up to vote for candidates with the same anti-science, anti-reality proclivities. This is the propaganda message of many of these schools. They want to create an army of narrow minded voters to ensure a future of Christian conservatism, all paid for by tax dollars.
As that there is little evidence of a STEM crises . That would be good for the job prospects of students who attended schools that taught science. .
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Welcome to the Koch brothers’ world of Trump and DeVos. “Many of these voucher schools teach creationism, sexism, racism, and homophobia. They are supported by your tax dollars.”
From the article Q We did not assess Catholic schools END Q
Your tagline on this post is incorrect. The Huffpost article did NOT analyze every non-public school in the USA.
Someone as ignorant as Trump got elected by conning the populace. Imagine what these students who are being ‘educated’ in these off the wall ‘religious’ schools will expect from government. They are being taught the wonderfulness of their strict ‘Christian’ religion and to hate everything else. The environment exists to be exploited, Native Americans should welcome the attempt to bring them out of heathenism, Gays are to be vilified, hate Muslims and Catholics, etc. Who wants to live in a world populated by such extremism? It will bring nothing of value to our country but politicians are continuing to do nothing to curb this garbage that will infect society. (Gee, and I thought Tea baggers were bad enough.)
The message from Jesus is that all men are equal and should be respected. Love one’s neighbor and help the needy. That message is totally gone and replaced by intense hatred and instilled fear. There is nothing Christian about these groups.
The current measures of good education draw no distinction between sane and insane content. They are content-agnostic. If you can identify supporting evidence in a random reading passage, you are “college and career ready” and a possessor of “21st Century Skills” regardless of whether you were taught the Earth is flat or that Jews and Catholics are demons.
What’s really insane is that content doesn’t matter in the public schools anymore. It’s all about math and literacy skills these days. Thanks Teachers College and David Coleman and George Miller (author of NCLB)! We need to heed E.D. Hirsch and start prioritizing content again. If we believe that content matters, we’ll have a better chance of opposing the crazy-content schools. If only skills matter, then the crazy-content schools that teach skills will look legit.
“School choice”, the way the expression is used in US politics, has such a narrow definition; ditto “school vouchers”. The system ed-reformers have in mind is clearly none other than the free-for-all Friedman designed for Pinochet. In its 40+ yrs the only good thing it seems to have done was to extend education into remote rural areas that had none before. But over the long haul, the main effects were to exacerbate class- & racial-segregation, make free schools for poorest far worse [minimal funding], & stretch lower-mid/ mid-class budgets to breaking point w/increasing fees piled onto charter/ private tuitions. Its utter social failure was illustrated by several yrs of street protests clamoring for a return to free public schools for the commonfolk. (Don’t know how the reform-reform is proceeding under new govt promising it.)
If ed-reformers want school choice so badly, let them study the only school-choice system I know of that is equitable & has good ed outcomes. That would be in the Netherlands, another place which has assimilated groups fleeing religious persecution, so ‘religious freedom’ has a historical meaning & something they’ve had to struggle with politically.
I expect ed-reformers shun the 100-yr-old Netherlands model– aside from using it as an example of ‘school choice can be successful’ to fool the ave person into thinking the Dutch model is remotely like the laissez-faire model being pushed here. Much fed/ municipal/ parent oversight, 100% accountability to [visionary] fed stds,no penny spared [extra $ for pockets of poverty/ hi incidence SpEd], nobody makes a profit. They’d drop it like a hot potato.