If you live anywhere near Nashville, please turn out to hear theeloquest Dr. Charles Foster Johnson talk about the danger of vouchers and how they threaten religious liberty.
Pastors for Tennessee Children has been expanding but needs your help to reach more ministers and faith leaders (laypeople) prior to the January session of the General Assembly. Come find out why and listen to the dynamic Rev. Charles Foster Johnson advocate for public education as part of our moral duty.
Thursday, October 4, 11:30 AM – 1 PM CT
Nashville Event Featuring Rev. Charles Foster Johnson
Belmont University, Curb Event Center, Vince Gill Room, 2000 Belmont Blvd
Building #26. Parking is available through the P7 entrance- visitors spaces are well marked. The Vince Gill Room is at the Belmont Blvd. side of the building, attached to the Arena. Signs will direct you there.
Lunch provided
To RSVP, contact diana.page@comcast.net
Rev. Johnson of Fort Worth is founder of Pastors for Texas Children and has inspired the Oklahoma, Kentucky and Tennessee groups He is also the promoter of similar groups in formation in ten other states. He has told us how his Texas group of more than 2,000 pastors and faith leaders has helped prevent the passage of private school vouchers in the Texas Legislature since its founding five years ago. Tennesseans hope to similarly convince our legislators to support our Tennessee schools and reject vouchers. We are starting by introducing pastors and faith leaders across the state with a speaking tour to present our positive public education message. You will hear how the voices of ministers, lay leaders, rabbis, imams, and their congregants are needed to support our public school children.
Also. please consider becoming a partner (member) of our network at http://www.pastorsfortennesseechildren.org/ (website).
Contact pastors4TNchildren@gmail.com for more information about the other four stops on Rev. Johnson’s Tennessee speaking tour: Chattanooga (lunch, Oct. 2), Knoxville (lunch, Oct. 3), Pleasant Hill (evening of Oct. 3), and Memphis (lunch, Oct. 5),
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Related- The GOP cancelled ad buys for Michigan’s incumbent congressman, Mike Bishop, who is DeVos’ cheerleader in Michigan. One of Bishop’s education moments was his visit to private, Christian academy, Light of the World. Congress will be better with a strong public schools supporter, which with hope, his opponent, Elissa Slotkin, will be.
God speed to Pastor Johnson.
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Related- The GOP cancelled ad buys for incumbent Mike Coffman, a voucher supporter running for U.S. congress from Colorado. His opponent, Jason Crow, appears to have avoided a stance on school privatization. However his talking points about correcting income inequality are a huge step in the right direction.
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It really has been interesting to watch how many ads against Coffman make the ponint that he “voted with Trump” 90some percent of the time.
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The DEFORMS are for the RICH.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/in-2018-the-u-s-is-even-more-gilded-than-in-1918/
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I have been in correspondence with this man for some months. I believe him to be passionate about his cause, but he is a little slow on the legal issues.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2002, that there is no constitutional issue, with respect to the establishment clause, when a community institutes school choice. This has been the law of land for over 16 years.
To me, it is a puzzlement, how a man who is as highly educated as Rev. Johnson, cannot see that the constitutional issue has been solved. Why he keeps whipping this dead horse, is beyond me.
As they say in Texas: “That dog won’t hunt”.
I have seen in the school choice debate, that in many (not all) cases, the opponents keep bringing up bogus issues, instead of focusing on the real issues.
I grew up in the area near Nashville TN. We got our media and TV from Nashville. When the Davidson county metro school system brought in mandatory busing for racial balance, many Nashville/Davidson parents withdrew their children from the local public school systems (This started in 1972). Many churches turned their basements, and other buildings into “Christian academies”, which were in reality “Segregation academies”.
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Enough, Charles.
This blog supports public funding of public schools, not privately managed charters, vouchers for religious schools, or segregation academies for white flight.
Just stop.
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I support the public funding of public schools. I have never said otherwise.
I do NOT support vouchers for religiously-operated schools, I never have.
I do NOT support segregation academies. These church-run schools teach creationism, intelligent design, and the inferiority of the black race.
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Charles,
I am no longer posting your choice comments. You have written the same arguments over and over. You are a broken record.
You claim you don’t want public money finding schools that teach creationism or segregation academies but that’s precisely where most voucher money goes.
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I posted
Q I do NOT support vouchers for religiously-operated schools, I never have. END Q
That was a mistake, I did not intend to confuse anyone. I just noticed the error 500pm on 30 Sept. Feel free to go in, and erase that portion of the comment.
For the record:
I do support vouchers, etc being provided to families, who choose to opt-out of publicly operated schools, and seek alternate education for their children.
Where the parents choose to redeem their vouchers, is up to the parents.
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So you do support public funds for religious schools that teach creationism instead of science and that are free to discriminate on the grounds of race, disability, religion, and LGBT status.
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Charles: My wife was impacted by this bussing in Nashville you describe. She crossed picket lines demonstrating against bussing and was bussed to a beautiful old school across town where she got a good education. To my knowledge, none of those segregation academies got metro Nashville funding. Most went belly up, unable to pay teachers. Almost all were educational jokes.
What is your point?
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https://www.britannica.com/event/Swann-v-Charlotte-Mecklenburg-Board-of-Education
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I would love to be at that meeting.
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I posted a rather lengthy reply, but it got lost.
We agree that when crosstown bussing started in Nashville TN, back in the early 1970s, that many churches set up Christian “academies’.
We also agree that the quality of these makeshift schools was uneven.
We also agree that the Metro Nashville/Davidson government did not fund any of them .
I just think that it is ironic, that Christian churches sponsored these academies. Now a Christian pastor is going to deliver a message in Nashville, touting how fabulous that public schools are, and deriding school choice.
I find it deliciously ironic.
Many of the parents who will be at that meeting, might possibly have attended some of the defunct Christian academies.
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No, Charles, the parents who attend Charles Johnson’s meeting will be those who firmly oppose funding any religious school with public dollars. The irony does not exist for anyone but you.
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Is Charles one and the same as the former commenter, “teaching economist”?
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I don’t think so.
The Teaching Economist likes to strut his superiority to the rest of us. Charles presents as a naïf.
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I am not a “teaching economist”. I am a telecommunications engineer, and a supporter of quality education.
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Re-read my post. Nashville/Davidson had many Christian “academies” to help families avoid the school bussing, to achieve racial balance. I submit that some of the individuals who are going to attend the meeting, will have attended these defunct academies.
I agree, that many of the attendees are opposed to school choice.
What I cannot understand, is how people can be opposed to what has been established constitutional law for 16 years.
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I can’t understand why anyone would want to send public money to segregation academies.
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Neither do I. In the 1970s when they were setting them up in Nashville/Davidson, no public money went to the schools in church basements.
No person advocates sending public money now.
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No public money should go to any religious school.
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