Peter Greene worries that the Espinoza decision is another step in the movement to establish the principle that the public should fund religious schools. He believes this is ominous.
I don’t disagree. That’s why Trump and DeVos celebrated the Court’s decision that all state scholarships for private schools must include religious schools. I was pleased that the Court did not take the final step that would completely eliminate any state bans on funding religious schools. That would have the public pay for thousands of religious schools, as well as ersatz religious schools, of meager or low quality. They left open the future disposition of cases that test the legitimacy of state constitutional prohibition of paying for religious school tuition. This underscores the importance of the 2020 election and of ousting Trump. No more justices who would destroy public education.
Greene begins:
The Supreme Court has, as expected, poked another hole in the wall between church and state; it will weaken public education and open the door to making taxpayers foot the bill for religious discrimination.
Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue has further extended the precedent set by Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, a case that for the first time required “the direct transfer of taxpayers’ money to a church.” Historically, the free exercise clause of the First Amendment has taken a back seat to the establishment clause; in other words, the principle was that the government’s mandate to avoid establishing any “official” religion meant that it could not get involved in financing religious institutions, including churches or church-run private schools.
This has been a big stumbling block for the school voucher movement, because the vast majority of private schools that stand to benefit from vouchers are private religious schools. In fact, where school vouchers have been established, they are overwhelmingly used to fund religious schools.
But for several years, conservative fans of school choice (including Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos) have been pushing the argument that a religious school is not free to exercise its religious faith if it does not get to share in taxpayer dollars. The wall between church and state has thus been characterized as discrimination against religion, and as conservatives celebrate this decision, they repeatedly characterize it as a blow for freedom. Turns out you can’t be really free without taxpayer funding.
There are a host of problems with the SCOTUS decision and the arguments behind it.
For one, the freedoms that private religious schools wish to enjoy include the right to discriminate. Choicers like to argue that vouchers make families free to choose, but private schools are free to reject students for any reason they choose. Investigations found that Florida’s robust voucher program funnels millions of dollars to schools that reject or expel LGBTQ students and faculty. Because Florida imposes little accountability on its private schools, the Orlando Sentinel also found private schools teaching about the happy co-existence of white owners and Black slaves in the pre-Civil War South as well as how men and dinosaurs once lived together.
For taxpayer dollars to flow to private religious schools, one of two choices has to be made. Either private schools retain their freedom to operate as they please, or they are accountable to taxpayers for living under the same rules as a public school. The former opens up the possibility of students being taught ideologically based falsehoods, even as taxpayers fund schools to which their own children would not be admitted. The latter means that private schools would trade a financial windfall for a loss of autonomy, maybe even have to accept some of Those Peoples’ Children in their private school. Sometimes we forget that the wall between church and state was also meant to protect the church; when you mix religion and politics, you get politics.
An unprecedented crisis for tens of millions of public school students and families and here’s what the Trump Administration is focused on:
“Secretary Betsy DeVos
Today’s landmark SCOTUS decision in #Espinoza v. Montana is a huge victory for students and parents across America. Religious discrimination is dead. All states need to seize this extraordinary opportunity to expand all education options at all schools to every single student.”
Promoting private school vouchers.
They simply do no work on behalf of students and families who attend public schools and it’s such an echo chamber, such an ideological bubble removed from reality,that this is completely accepted in ed reform circles, despite the fact that 90% of students attend the public schools ed reformers refuse to serve.
It’s ludicrous. We are paying tens of thousands of public employees who are ideologically opposed to the schools 90% of our kids attend, to the extent that they refuse to do any work at all on their behalf. This is what ed reform has given us- an echo chamber so closed that public schools and public school students are the dead last priority of lawmakers and political leaders.
Maybe when these thousands of public employees and lawmakers are done spiking the football on another win for students in private schools they could turn their attention to the 90% of students who attend public schools?
It’s July. School begins in August. Have they accomplished anything at all to assist public schools with reopening?
How do 90% of kids get past the ed reform policy echo chamber and become a priority?
There are going to be a lot of court cases that will test the impact of the Espinoza case. Blurring the lines between church and state is always a slippery slope. Remember when we were told that charter schools are not vouchers. Yet, we have slid down that slope in several states. “There are a host of problems with the SCOTUS decision and the arguments behind it.” Truer words were never spoken.
“Treasury Secretary says schools will be able to open safely. Is he not aware that school districts are already announcing they are providing distancing learning in the fall?”
Of course he’s not aware. They expend no energy, work or thought on behalf of the 50 million children and families who use the unfashionable public schools.
Hire people who oppose public schools to run policy and this is what you get. Nothing.
I do love the complete and utter disconnect. Whatever these people “believe” 50 million families still rely on public schools and they are sure to notice that none of the government leaders they’re paying lifted a finger to assist the schools their children actually attend.
That will be noticed. Munchin doesn’t value the schools the peons attend but families do.
This only encourages segregation. Dividing us is the policy of the Republican “conservative” Party. Real conservatives would want the 1st Amendment enforced especially since the interference of religion in government was a serious issue to create the United States. Vouchers allow for segregation when children need to be together. They don’t hate but it is certainly learned at home.
As happens in so many things important about public schools….the media….not just fox….seems ho hum and too bored to examine the implications and actually report…..lots of ho hum about this supposedly inconsequential decision.
Here are a couple of practical lay person terms comments or question.
Years ago right wing folks connected to the infamous Phyllis Schlafly sued a local school district here because they were denied access to hold an religious club after school. It went all the way to the Supreme Court and they won. They won on the premise that if the school allowed other “non-curricular”clubs, they couldn’t discriminate a religious club.
OK SCOTUS – so now the religious schools get tax dollars. Then they play by the same rules, right?
So – the LGBTQ Club can now be started at the religious schools?
And the American people are ok with TAX DOLLARS paying the salaries of people who will lead Jewish, Muslim, and Christian prayers?
And, religious schools will now have restrooms of either gender accessible to self-declared transgender students and allow those students to declare their gender on records without parent consent?
And, they cannot censor books on the library shelved or stop teaching evolution? (Two for one if they have to stop teaching “Inherit the Wind”
And, of course they will accept every student with disabilities regardless of it being a costly low-incidence disability requiring the care and teaching the public school provides.
Oh by the way SCOTUS,, the people in the village prefer to use the Country Club pool, not that public one. Can they get a voucher for that?
“President Donald Trump will ask for a “one-time, emergency appropriation” for a new grant proposal, according to an outline of the plan obtained by McClatchy. The grants would be provided to states to distribute to nonprofit institutions that disburse scholarships to qualified students who want to attend non-public schools.”
Nothing for public schools out of the Trump Administration, but it’s all hands on deck for emergency funding for private schools.
Utter contempt for public school students and families. They make it clear every single day.
Thanks to Peter Greene for talking about religion. Is there unanimity to support the pretense that the political activities of specific religions aren’t driving school privatization?