Since the 2020 election, when Republicans won many seats in state legislatures, there has been an explosion of proposed voucher laws, to allow people to get public money to pay for religious schools. David Berliner, one of our nation’s most distinguished researchers of education, explains why funding religious schools with public money is a terrible idea.
Why Religious Schools Should Never Receive a Dollar of Public Funding
David C. Berliner
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College
Arizona State University
I believe in separation of church and state. I think it has done the United States a lot of good to honor Jefferson’s metaphoric and aspirational “wall” between the two. I also believe that money corrupts too many people and too many institutions. Holding those two beliefs simultaneously means 1.) I never want to see any local, state, or federal money used to aide any religious group, and 2.) I don’t want to see any religious group, or affiliated religious organizations, donating to the campaigns of public officials. The latter may be impossible to stop in an era of “dark money.” But the former—government support of religious institutions– is almost always done in public view and is worth stopping now, immediately, as it could easily damage our fragile republic.
Overstated? Hardly! Read on! Few citizens pay attention to the expenditure of public dollars for support of religious schools, but it occurs frequently. It can cost citizens billions of dollars annually, and ends up supporting some horrible things. A contemporary example of this is the criteria for entrance to the Fayetteville Christian School in North Carolina.
Fayetteville Christian School (FCS) are recipients, in a recent school year, of $495,966 of public money. They get this in the form of school vouchers that are used by students and their families to pay for the students’ religious schooling. The entrance requirements for this school, and other religious schools like it, are quite frightening to me, though clearly acceptable to North Carolinians. From their website, in 2020:1
“The student and at least one parent with whom the student resides must be in agreement with (our) Statement of Faith and have received Jesus Christ as their Savior. In addition, the parent and student must regularly (go to) a local church. (We) will not admit families that belong to or express faith in religions that deny the absolute Deity/Trinity of Jesus Christ as the one and only Savior and path to salvation. …. FCS will not admit families that engage in behaviors that Scripture defines as deviate and sin (illicit drug use, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality (LGBT), etc.)
Once admitted, if the student or parent/guardian with whom the student resides becomes involved in lifestyles contradictory to Biblical beliefs, we may choose to dis-enroll the student/family from the school.”
So, despite the receipt of public money, the Fayetteville Christian School is really notopen to the public at all! This school says, up front and clearly, that it doesn’t want and will not accept Jews, Muslims, Hindu’s, and many others. Further, although supported by public money, it will expel students for their family’s alleged “sins”. Is papa smoking pot? Expelled! Does your sibling have a homosexual relationship? Out! Has mama filed for divorce? You are gone! The admissions and dismissal policies of this school–receiving about a half million dollars of public funds per year—are scandalous. I’d not give them a penny! North Carolina legislators, and the public who elects them, should all be embarrassed to ever say they are upholders of American democracy. They are not.
Besides the anti-democratic admission and retention problems in many religious schools, Christian or otherwise, some have serious curriculum problems as well. Those curriculum problems actually terrify me when they occur in publicly supported religious schools. With public money–my money–many of these schools spread ideas that are objectively/scientifically untrue. And some are simply repugnant!
Do you remember Bobby Jindal? A few years back, Jindal was Governor of Louisiana and even, for a short time, a candidate for president of the United States of America. He pushed hard for publicly supported charter and voucher schools. The curriculum materials in these schools frequently came from one of two sources: Bob Jones University Press (associated with the scandal-ridden university), or from A Beka Book, a publisher of Christian books (now called Abeka). Between them, with the public’s money, these publishers have taught our youth some amazing things, as reported either by Deanna Pan2 or by Alice Greczyn.3
Pan and Greczyn share some very interesting text excerpts. For example, I never learned from the textbooks in my public school that “The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well.” Nor did I ever imagine that “To help them endure the difficulties of slavery, God gave Christian slaves the ability to combine the African heritage of song with the dignity of Christian praise. Through the Negro spiritual, the slaves developed the patience to wait on the Lord and discovered that the truest freedom is from the bondage of sin.”
I also didn’t know that “The Ku Klux Klan in, some areas of the country, tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians.”
I admit that I didn’t exactly get an “A” in my high school algebra course, but I never thought that abstract algebra was too complicated to learn. Perhaps I was wrong. An A Beka book states that “Unlike the ‘modern math’ theorists, who believe that mathematics is a creation of man and thus arbitrary and relative, A Beka Book teaches that the laws of mathematics are a creation of God and thus absolute…A Beka Book provides attractive, legible, and workable traditional mathematics texts that are not burdened with modern theories such as set theory.” (Italics mine.)
Another analyst of Christian school text books, Rachel Tabachnick,4 also informed me of things I never suspected. I simply never knew that “Global environmentalists have said and written enough to leave no doubt that their goal is to destroy the prosperous economies of the world’s richest nations.” This quote is from Economics: Work and Prosperity in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1999.
Through Tabachnick I also learned that children receiving their education in some Christian schools supported with public money are informed that gay people “have no more claims to special rights than child molesters or rapists.” That quote is from the Teacher’s Resource Guide to Current Events for Christian Schools, 1998-1999, Bob Jones University Press, 1998.
Writing in Salon Magazine, Wilson5 documents other outrageous claims made in these curricula materials, some of which are purchased with public money for Christian schools in the USA, although these curriculum materials are in use throughout the world:
- Only ten percent of Africans can read or write, because Christian mission schools have been shut down by communists.
- God used the ‘Trail of Tears’ to bring many Indians to Christ.
- It cannot be shown scientifically that man-made pollutants will one day drastically reduce the depth of the atmosphere’s ozone layer.
- God has provided certain ‘checks and balances’ in creation to prevent many of the global upsets that have been predicted by environmentalists.
- The Great Depression was exaggerated by propagandists, including John Steinbeck, to advance a socialist agenda.
- Unions have always been plagued by socialists and anarchists who use laborers to destroy the free-enterprise system that hardworking Americans have created.
Religious schools should not be subject to much state oversight—I understand that. But many such schools claim to offer curriculum compatible with neighboring public schools, thus allowing their students to move to the public schools should they or their parents request that. For example, it is not uncommon for students in Christian schools to transfer at 6th or 9thgrade to a traditional, public junior or senior high. Or, with a high school degree after years of private Christian education, a student might seek admission to a public college. Since student transfers like these are common, shouldn’t there be more inspection and approval of the curriculum and instruction in private Christian schools? Shouldn’t Christian schools, or Jewish or Islamic or any other school receiving public money, be inspected regularly by some agency of the government so they can be certified not to be teaching anti-democratic, anti-scientific, and anti-communitarian values? We have enough strife in this country without paying for schools whose values and curriculum are antithetical to our increasingly secular democracy.
Am I overreaching? Although ordinarily private schools should not be subject to public scrutiny, if they accept public funds and if they are teaching age-inappropriate or anti-democratic content to their students shouldn’t the public know? Shouldn’t all public funds be subject to some kind of public audit?
For example, Rawls6 cites an adult whose memory of sixth grade instruction in a Christian school was still quite vivid. The teacher “passed around shocking photographs of dismembered babies to teach about abortion.” Sometimes abortion in Christian schools is compared to the holocaust. Other times elementary school students have been taken to local and state abortion protests, even to national events in Washington DC. Some schools regularly take their students to abortion clinics to protest. Are public expenditures for curriculum materials and activities like were just cited appropriate? Shouldn’t we know what is taught and learned in schools supported by public funds?
Naturally, as part of their anti-abortion campaign, many Christian schools worry a lot about sex. So, they pass along unsubstantiated claims about condom failure and the horrible and life-long consequences of sex outside of marriage. It is often public money that supports curriculum and instruction of this type. Should that be the case? Should the state, often with comingled federal funds, support schools with anti-abortion programs when many state courts, and the Supreme Court, has ruled that abortion is legal? I have absolutely no issues with debate about abortion issues in upper grade levels, but should schools be providing anti-abortion education for our youth with public funds?
Pregnancy, as might be expected, is often greeted with expulsion for girls at Christian schools. I certainly don’t know anyone who recommends teen parenthood, but if it occurs, shouldn’t the mother be helped, not thrown out of school? Wouldn’t that be the Christian thing to do?
To accommodate the fact of teen motherhood, a public high school I visited proudly showed me a classroom-cum-nursery, allowing teen mothers a safe place to leave their infants while attending classes to earn their high school diplomas. In fairness, one might ask if that is a proper role of a public school. I believe, as do many Americans, that preparation for successful adulthood is the mission of our public schools—even if it entails these kinds of accommodations to keep youth in school and help them to graduate.7
Another curriculum question is this: Is it appropriate for American education to promote lessening tensions between nations and religions? I think so. But public funds support Christian schools that teach “[T]he darkness of Islamic religion keeps the people of Turkey from Jesus Christ as their savior.” They teach that “[O]ver 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus Christ, [but] no one witnessed Mohammed’s supposed encounters with the angels.” And they teach that Islam is “fanatically anti-Christian.” 3
Finally, I want to point out the almost unanimous call to end corporal punishment of minors by the UN and by psychologists and other social scientists. Because of this I ask, should public money be used to support schools that still engage in corporal punishment? Sadly, both Christian and public schools, particularly in the Southern United States, approve of and still engage in spanking, or “paddling.”8
Although physical punishment of children has not disappeared in contemporary times, it appears to be more prevalent in Christian schools than in public schools because many of them operate on the principle of “spare the rod spoil the child.” Codes of conduct for many Christian schools say it is their obligation to use physical punishment, citing Proverbs 23: 13 and 14, among other biblical sources. There they are told “do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul…”
Thus the “rod,” switch, or paddle, along with other harsh punishments to ensure proper child rearing, is recommended in many Christian advice books for Christian parents.9 So it is not surprising that more physical abuse takes place in fundamentalist Christian schools than in public schools. For example, in 2007, a Chicago Christian school was sued for injury and surgical costs after forcing a 14-year-old boy to kneel in place for nine days, causing a hip injury. In 2011, a Christian school teacher in Orlando was arrested on charges of beating a boy at her home with a rusted broom handle.6 And in 2015, at the Christian based Zarephath Academy in Jacksonville, Florida, a cell phone video shows male students holding down a female student, while her teacher paddled her in front of the whole class. The horrible offence the student committed? Running in the cafeteria!10
Conclusion: There are certainly debates to have about the admissions and retention policies, qualifications of teachers, and especially the curricula used in all our schools—public, private, charter, religious or secular. We, the American people, settle controversial debates about issues like these in public forums. We rely on an open press, and we settle these debates through citizen voting and in our courts. Public oversight of public funds is part of the American tradition.
Frequently, oversight of public funding is carried out by inspector generals. In fact, the first inspector general of the USA was appointed, in part, because General Washington had an ill-trained army for the task he had ahead. So, our very first inspector general was charged with identifying an educational problem, and asked to rapidly fix it!
Now, literally thousands of people work for various offices of federal, state, and (occasionally) municipal inspector generals. Each are typically responsible for identifying fraud, waste, abuse, and criminal activity involving public funds, programs, and operations. But outside of the federal government, few inspector generals are devoted to education, even though roughly 45 percent of all state budgets, and 45 percent of all local budgets are used to support educational activities11. Thus, there is little oversight of how educational dollars are spent, and some of that spending has turned out to be scandalous!12 Just as bad, I think, is that there is even less concern about what is taught and what is learned in secular charter and private schools, or religious schools, that receive public money. This is not how it should be. I certainly would rest easier if there were inspectors spending a bit more time in the field overseeing what is taught and what is learned in our schools, in addition to their worries about how public money is spent. In particular, we need to examine religious institutions receiving public funds, so that the public has the information needed to maintain Jefferson’s wall, as best we can.
In fact, if I made law, I would see to it that no private school– religious or not—ever received a dime of public money! Such schools can too easily sow seeds of separateness, privilege and dissension, hindering the achievement of one of our nations most cherished goals: e pluribus unum. Out of our many, one!
1. Fayetteville Christian Church, Admissions. Retrieved February 8, 2021 from https://www.fayettevillechristian.com/copy-of-criteria-1
2. Pan, D. (2012, August 7). 14 Wacky “Facts” Kids Will Learn in Louisiana’s Voucher Schools. Retrieved February 13, 2021 from https:/www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/08/photos-evangelical-curricula-louisiana-tax-dollars
3. Greczyn, A. (2020, Blog of June 7). Christianity’s Role in American Racism: An Uncomfortable Look at the Present and the Past.
Retrieved February 2, 2021 from https://www.alicegreczyn.com/blog/christianitys-role-in-american-racism
4. Tabachnick, R. (2017, January17) Vouchers/Tax Credits Funding Creationism, Revisionist History, Hostility Toward Other Religions. Talk to Action. Retrieved February 18, 2021 from: http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/5/25/84149/9275
5. Wilson, B. (2012, June 19). Shocking Christian school textbooks:Thousands of Louisiana students will receive state voucher money to attend religious schools. What will they learn? Retrieved February 7, 2021 from: https://www.salon.com/2012/06/19/shocking_christian_school_textbooks_salpart/
6. Rawls, K. (2015, January 12). 10 Frightening Things Happening at Conservative Christian Schools That May Be Funded With Your Tax Dollars. AlterNet. Retrieved January 29, 2021 from https://www.alternet.org/2015/01/10-frightening-things-happening-conservative-christian-schools-may-be-funded-your-tax/
7. It is worth noting here that public schools frequently do spend our public money counseling such students and their families, while private schools frequently do not. It is a simple fact that all sorts of “problem” students, the more costly ones, not just the sexually active or pregnant, are frequently expelled from charter and private schools of all kinds, and sent to genuine public schools. Moreover, most charter and voucher schools frequently find ways not to accept special education students, either. Thus, the public schools incur educational expenses that most charter and voucher schools receiving public money do not. So public schools face budgeting challenges that private schools receiving public money do not. Thus, when one hears that charter or voucher schools are more cost efficient than “wasteful government schools,” these facts must be kept in mind.
8. So common has been physical punishment that the precise size and thickness of paddle to be used has often been codified, eg., specifying the type wood, length of paddle, thickness of paddle, etc. Moreover, there is a likely reason that paddling is more common in Southern schools. Severe paddling was used to punish slaves so as to not leave any scars. A whip-scared slave was of less value than an unscared one, because the scars indicated an uncompliant slave and/or a runaway slave. Severely paddled slaves, it was believed, obeyed their masters better–as is desired of children by many adults.
9. Berliner, D. C. (1997). Educational psychology meets the Christian right: Differing views of children, schooling, teaching, and learning. Teachers College Record, 98, 381-416.
10. Retrieved February 10, 2021 from: https://www.news4jax.com/news/2015/03/10/video-shows-girl-held-down-paddled-in-school/
11. The Condition of Education, National Center for EducationalStatistics (2020). Retrieved February 20, 2021 from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cma.asp
12. Berliner, D. C. (2022, in press). The Scandalous History of Schools That Receive Public Financing, But Do Not Accept the Public’s Right of Oversight. In Berliner, D.C. and Hermanns, C. (Eds.), Public Education: The Cornerstone of American Democracy. New York. Teachers College Press.
I am passing this post on to others.
Berliner is “spot on.”
Diane, thanks for publishing this piece by Berliner.
Nice! This was a super thorough argument against vouchers based on the separation of church and state. Other arguments I hear supporting vouchers are the “marketplace/competition arguments” and the “I am relieving the public school of having to teach my child so why shouldn’t I get that money back”? I would be curious to hear of responses to these arguments as well.
The best one I have heard that brings the conversation back to the common public good is to ask – “if you don’t like or trust your town’s police department and you hire a private security force to protect your home… A) would you want a situation where lots of homes have private security forces protecting them? and B) would you expect the town to pay for them?”
Contra the marketplace/competition argument: We decided as a nation that some public goods are so important that we fund them through taxpayer dollars: interstate highways, federal aviation regulation, police forces, fire departments, defense. Surely, education is such a public good.
Contra the “why shouldn’t I get that money back” argument: You benefit, as so does everyone else, from having a system committed to educating every child. It’s not just YOUR CHILD that your part of the education tax dollar goes toward educating–it’s children in general, and that system ensures an educated populace going forward, a good that serves you and your loved ones and everyone else.
Would you expect taxpayers to pay for your private home security?
Diane Ravitch has made the same powerful argument many times.
My 2nd child attends private HS (“small c” progressive catholic boy’s school) at our expense. Our public district and state (MD) is heavy into CC, testing, data collection and public school had become a nightmare for this child. Most children in these private HSs are from the public system and many of the teachers left public systems. I DO NOT want vouchers or tax schemes to fund my child’s private education. If one takes $$$ from the government, the government wants something in return. The state would gladly demand the use of CC curriculum and demand that students take the stupid tests….for the data. I keep reminding parents when they complain about the cost that vouchers would enable the state to make decisions that they didn’t like when their children were attending public schools. NO on vouchers….period! Church and State must be kept separate.
The tax I pay is not mine, it’s the Nation’s, and the People will decide what it is used for. If I do not like how tax is used, I need to convince the People to change.
Individuals cannot choose what their tax dollar is used for, and hence certainly cannot get it back.
There is no
I want to make my own choice whether I want to support the Internet hence I want my Internet voucher.
I want to make my own choice whether I want to support the Intestate Highway System, hence I want my Intestate Highway System voucher.
I want to make my own choice whether I want to fly, hence I want my Airways voucher.
I want to make my own choice whether I want the Military to defend me, hence I want my Military voucher.
…
They’re passing the voucher laws with no discussion or debate at at all on what the private schools owe to the public in return for public funding.
If private schools don’t have any duty to taxpayers or the public as a whole in return for receiving public funding, why should public schools have a duty? Why should public schools accept regulation and mandates and testing schemes if private schools that receive public funding are exempted from all the these responsibilities?
They’re creating a two tier system, where the public entity is at a huge disadvantage to the private entity. I get that this is the ideology in ed reform- they prefer private entities to public ones – but why should public schools accept the entire burden and publicly funded private schools get a pass?
Now that they’re funding all private schools with public funds, can the public use private school facilities like they use public school facilities? If not, why not? Why would there be two sets of rules for two sets of publicly funded schools?
None of these questions are debated or even mentioned in ed reform. They’re just jamming thru privatization with no dissent or discussion.
The religious schools in my town use the public school’s music program, pursuant to state law.
There is no reciprocal offer to public school students from the private school.
With ed reform utterly dominating Ohio, we’re now publicly funding the private school. Seems to me the private school should have to offer the same access to public school students. How is it fair that public schools shoulder the entire community burden while private schools that are publicly funded don’t have to?
I know the ed reform movement are ideologically opposed to the existence of public schools, but should they be permitted to put public schools at this kind of disadvantage in pursuit of their ideological goal?
Some of the stuff the voucher/charter lobby are doing in Ohio is absolutely outrageous and shows their clear ideological preference for private schools.
They lobbied for and got an exemption to the junk state testing they impose on public school students for the private school students they prefer:
“Thanks to the budget, these testing related provisions are about to change. Now, private schools that enroll voucher students will have the option to administer an alternative standardized assessment instead of the state exams given to public school students in grades 3–8. This change covers schools that must test individual voucher students, as well as those that are required to test all students because they meet the 65 percent threshold. Schools will still be required to report the results to ODE, and the department’s compilation and aggregation duties appear to be the same.”‘
All of these ed reform groups who are demanding that public schools administer standardized tests to public school students? They lobby for and get exemptions for voucher students.
You won’t see this mentioned on any of the ed reform sites because obviously it’s incredibly hypocritical and unfair to public school students. This is the quiet back room lobbying they do in state legislatures every day. Always for voucher and charter students, never to benefit public school students.
https://fordhaminstitute.org/ohio/commentary/ohios-voucher-students-no-longer-have-take-state-tests-heres-why-matters
Public school students get the worst of both worlds- they get all the ed reform junk policy, gimmicks and fads and mandates but none of the support. It’s a raw deal for public school students. They’re second class citizens in ed reform.
Accountability for public money should be more than a tradition. It should be a requirement. Why are we doling out public funds without knowing if the funds are being spent appropriately, particularly since we already know that many charter schools are notorious for misusing and embezzling funds? Knowing how money is used should be a basic principle of management.
I seem to remember that there is a Biblical verse that has been applied to support the separation of church and state. Mark 12:17 “Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.” When church and state co-mingle, we wind up exactly where we are, in a muddle of confusion and misinformation. Religions are by definition divisive. In a democracy we need to bring people together despite any differences in religion. Secular education is the means through which we can accomplish this in our diverse public schools.
A superb point, RT!
How Much Federal Relief Funds Have Oklahoma Private Schools Received?
One of the education relief programs Stitt created was the Stay in School Fund, using $10 million for tuition grants for returning private school students to remain in their schools. The fund gave out 1,893 awards averaging $5,132 each, according to a report by the governor’s office.
Click to access sis_report__print.pdf
Every school from the Stay in School Fund was religious.
“Unlike the ‘modern math’ theorists, who believe that mathematics is a creation of man and thus arbitrary and relative, A Beka Book teaches that the laws of mathematics are a creation of God and thus absolute”
There is a third possibility: that math is neither a creation of man nor of a God, but that it has an independent existence which can be discovered by any beings with adequate intelligence. Even bees can understand basic arithmetic, it turns out.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-scarlett-howard-learns-from-the-bees-she-teaches-20200122/
And the geometry involved with the honey bee waggle dance is actually more complex than the geometry that many humans can do.
“or burdened with modern theories such as set theory”
Oh my Lord. Public funding of idiocy.
Well, there is a fundamental paradox inherent to set theory (pointed out by Bertrand Russell)
Namely,
“The set of all sets that are not members of themselves.”
or barbers who shave all those, and only those, who do not shave themselves
I felt much better about Russell’s famous letter to Frege after I learned that the latter was a virulent anti-Semite. A man with monstrous political views.
Ofc, this is no more a death blow to set theory than Gödel’s incompleteness papers were a death blow to arithmetic.
Thank you, Dr. Berliner!
Why do right-wingers want to overturn the clear precedent of separation of church and state in schooling? Well, they can read the polls. They can see that on issue after issue–guns, abortion, Medicare for all, taxes, climate change, LGBTQX rights, etc.–there is, among young people, a SUPERMAJORITY that is against them. If right-wingers don’t convert MILLIONS of young people, they are facing extinction a generation from now. And what better way to effect indoctrination of a new generation of right-wing lemmings than to create fundamentalist Christian madrasas around the country? Doing so would also have the salubrious effects, from their point of view, of killing teachers’ unions (which are a public school phenomenon) and diverting billions of taxpayer dollars into private profits.
However, right-wingers, be careful what you ask for. For much of their history, the nation states of Europe were officially theocratic, with what our founders called “established”–by which they meant “government-sponsored”–religions. After the Reformation, there were Protestant nation states and Catholic nation states. In England, the monarch was officially the head of the church.
When Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which provided the basis for the clause in Article Six of our Constitution that prohibited a religious test for office and later for the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, there were those who were horrified by this Roger Williams-like call for strict separation. Would the new United States become an irreligious country?
Well, precisely the opposite happened. Today, in the former theocratic nation states of Europe, religious belief is in sharp decline, and many fine churches stand empty. In the United States, with its wall of separation between religion and the state, religion flourishes, and literally thousands of denominations have sprung up. Freedom is a fertile soil.
Nutcase Evangelicals and right-wing politicians may think they want government sanctioning of religion–the use of taxpayer dollars to fund their madrasas. But they won’t, if they are successful, end up with the Handmaid’s Tale world they so fervently pray (prey?) for. They will end up with schools full of kids pushing back against the rigidity, the stupidity, the dullness and sameness, of the official line, what with the arc of history and all. LOL.
However, in the short term (for many decades, before we arrive at that future irreligiosity) there will be much strife if the voucher proponents get their way. If the country is forced to swallow this diseased Apple of Discord, much sickness will result in the Body Politic, which is already on life support due to the autoimmune disease of factionalism. The question will arise, over and over, again and again, in other areas of public life. Will the citizens of a town be able to declare it officially Christian? Will the Church of Satan and the Wiccans and the ayahuasca churches and the Pastafarians and the Church of Bob (yes, there is such a thing) and the Church of the Dude be able to set up schools in Florida and Mississippi and demand taxpayer dollars (in the form of vouchers or direct subsidies) for those? What will the bible thumpers of Florida and Mississippi think of that?
So, there will be all these battles, further dividing us, further factionalizing us, at the very time when we are so factionalized that reasonable pundits are talking about the possibility of Civil War again in these dis-United States.
Yikes. Diane, sorry. I accidentally posted the same comment several times. Alll are, however, in moderation. I was for some reason having trouble logging onto your site.
I will fix it, Bob.
It is a spring-like day in NYC, and I just took a long walk on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade with my dog Mitzi and my partner. Watched the boats, ferry boats, pleasure craft, tugs, go by.
Oh my, that sounds WONDERFUL, Diane! Much love to you and Mary and Mitzi!!!
Another example of the selective narrative?
“Jindal of Louisiana”
The most recent statistic found in an internet search is from 9 years ago. Louisiana was 3rd in the nation in private school enrollment. “The majority attend Catholic schools.” (Times Picayune).
At Louisiana Voice in 2016, James Finney, Ph D, wrote, “The total amount of voucher money spent in 2014-2015” was close to $40,000,000. Two-thirds of the money went to schools associated with 7 Catholic dioceses.
All male or coed Catholic schools in LA are football teams with schools attached for appearances sake.
Interesting
Another example of David Berliner’s outstanding work on public policy as supported by his insightful research. We are so fortunate to have him working on behalf of public education. I hope this piece gets the wide attention it deserves because it has become evident that the grip of many Americans on what is generally considered knowledge and science has loosened.
It has not just loosened.
It has broken free of its mooring entirely and is now floating wherever the wind and waves take it.
My parents had a sailboat that did that a couple times on Cayuga Lake in upstate NY.
Luckily, we were able to track it down and retrieve it unharmed.
The boat didn’t seem to like being tied down.
It was aptly named –” Ramblin’ Rose” (before it ever rambled)
“if I made law, I would see to it that no private school– religious or not—ever received a dime of public money! Such schools can too easily sow seeds of separateness, privilege and dissension, hindering the achievement of one of our nations most cherished goals: e pluribus unum. Out of our many, one”
I haven’t rubbed my eyes so many times or taken out my hearing aids to see if their working so many times as I have this past five or so years of continual disbelief, watching and listening as the inexorable harvest from ground fertilized by religious and other private providers of questionable education continues.
In league with, and fed by, opportunistic politicians, who, having noted diminishing voter registration, grabbed this life raft floating by. They show no sign of discontinuing the flow of public funds with which to buy another and another scratch-your-back, batch of seeds.
I worry into the black shadows of night about the country I dread is coming for my two great grandchildren. Is there another Lincoln in our midst? Will the number of differing factions be such that a civil war can be avoided by current institutions of law?
An eternal optimist, I hope so. Teachers feeding gaping mouths of curiosity have historically shown mankind the paths of progress.
to progress
The fundamentalist religious wars on everyone else never end. Too bad we can’t find another liveable planet in a galaxy far far away and send them there on a one-way trip.
The aliens on that planet undoubtedly would not want them — and probably have their own fundamentalist types that they would like to send to Earth.
Case in point, Matt Schlapp who leads the organization hosting CPAC-
Schlapp co-chaired an important group that campaigned for Trump -a religious faction that approaches the majority position within the religion. Unfortunately, the politicking of Schlapp’s religion, unlike Christian nationalists or evangelicals, gets a hands-off approach from media.
Leaving aside the egregious issue of vouchers, religious schools get significant funds for speciial education and from Title I. From my perspective, this is also a church/state separation violation. The children have right to support but not if parents choose to send kids out of public system.
This is one of the many reasons why religious schools shouldn’t exist.
“(We) will not admit families that belong to or express faith in religions that deny the absolute Deity/Trinity of Jesus Christ as the one and only Savior and path to salvation. ”
Is there some control over what these schools can teach? For example, can they teach Intelligent Design, or that the Earth is flat, or that the Universe is 5 thousand years old? If they teach any of this stuff, the school is teaching something to children which is not true. There surely must be some law against that!
They don’t teach that the earth is 5000 years old.
The best Biblical analysis puts the age at 6000 years.
There’s a big difference.
There is no way in Hell Dinosaurs could have existed if the Earth were only 5000 years old instead of 6.
Dinos didn’t exist, only their fossils were created for our puzzlement and enjoyment.
I submit that creation has never stopped. Just consider all these new, ever more potent and deadly variants of COVID, for example. In them we can witness the miracle of God at work even as speak. .
Here is an excellent argument against the old age of the universe
many scientists believe the world is old because they believe most other scientists think the world is old.
There are other really good stuff over here
https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/the-age-of-the-universe-part-1/
I do not see the rationale why big and dangerous lies like these are allowed to exist on the Internet.
I bet that if God wants it, he can make 5K as close to 6K as he wants. He may even make them equal by tomorrow, in which case 1K = 0, which is miraculous, you have to admit. I love God. I wish he made love = God, and then I could tell my mom “I God you”. I get goose bumps just thinking about this possibility. I’ll pray for this to happen. Good project for today.
“Why Religious Schools Should Never Receive a Dollar of Public Funding”
Actually they never do receive (just ) a dollar.
It’s always thousands, tens of thousands , hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.