The Network for Public Education posted this article.
Anne Lutz Fernandez: School Choice is Becoming Involuntary Tithing
Anne Lutz Fernandez took a look at the growing number of voucher programs, and their close ties to religious institutions.
It may surprise some to learn that 75% of American private school students attend religious schools, with over a third at Catholic schools. A 2017 report by the National Bureau of Economic Research highlighted that “[r]eligious schools not only dominate private education, but also appear to dominate the market for voucher-accepting schools.” As a result, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this redirection of tax dollars is the Catholic Church.
In their study of Milwaukee’s voucher program, NBER found that churches running schools accepting vouchers were funded in good part by those vouchers and that the program had staved off parish closings. With both Catholic and Protestant churches in decline in the US — and some dioceses still in financial trouble as a result of abuse settlements — these programs put taxpayers in the position of helping prop them up.
Now news comes from Iowa that highlights what religious institutions gain from the rapid expansion of private-school choice programs. Within months of the passage of a new ESA program, Catholic schools in the state are hiking up tuition to get more public funding, as the Iowa Capital-Dispatch reported:
Several Iowa private schools announced their plans to raise tuition after the program was signed into law. Holy Family Catholic School in Dubuque raised tuition to be able to receive more of the available government money, with no increased cost to the families using ESA funds. Tuition for Wahlert Catholic High School students is $6,590 for the current school year — in 2023-2024, high school tuition will grow to $7,400. Students who aren’t Catholic will have a tuition of $8,600, and Catholic students whose parishes do not support Holy Family will pay $7,825 in tuition annually — both cases where an ESA would not cover the full cost of attendance.
The separation of church and state in schools is under attack within traditional public schools as well. Texas just passed a bill to allow public schools to hire chaplains as uncertified staff alongside school counselors, an act that would have been unthinkable before we had a Supreme Court determined to redefine religious freedom as the freedom of religious groups to preach on the taxpayers’ dime. Fighting for the separation of church and state in public institutions is hard work enough — there, citizens can vote out state and local officials who want to blur those lines and they have a voice as parents and residents via public boards of education.
Read her full post here.
You can view the post at this link : https://networkforpubliceducation.org/blog-content/anne-lutz-fernandez-school-choice-is-becoming-involuntary-tithing/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The religious right is using public dollars to fund religious indoctrination in direct conflict with the establishment clause of The Constitution. Mandatory religious tithing is a misuse of public dollars, IMO. Religion should be an individual choice, not a public responsibility. Our public schools are our public responsibility, and the deserve our public funds because they serve all students, and they support the civil educational needs of a secular society.
The religious right is scheming its way into our governance to gain access to public funds and influence public policy, and they are dictating policies in conservative led states. The US is not a theocracy, and it has no official religion. The freedom to worship does not imply that the public should be compelled to support religious study. The Supreme Court is dramatically skewed to the religious right and is out of touch with the ideological leanings of most Americans.
LikeLike
RT, totally agree! The First Amendment says “no Establishment of religion” and “freedom of religion.” Most people understand this to mean that public funds should not support any religion and that everyone is free to practice whatever religion they want or none at all.
LikeLike
RT
“is scheming” – HAS schemed for the past 25+ years while the general public remained silent.
Taxpayers have already made Catholic organizations the nation’s 3rd largest employer, 6 right wing Catholics are on SCOTUS, Leonard Leo has $1.6 bil. to advance theocracy,…
The saving grace, the Catholic church’s politicking against abortion rights in Ohio failed yesterday.
LikeLike
Let me try to wrap my head around this. People are using public revenue intended to educate children to pay for the financial troubles of the Church abusing children. Nope, can’t fathom any sense at all in that. Doesn’t make sense.
LikeLike
And, the process that brought us to this point has had no scrutiny for almost 25 years. (“Whose choice? How School Choice began in Ohio,” Akron Beacon Journal, 12-14-1999.)
LikeLike
The right wing has been waging a war against public education for several years now. Unfortunately, most of those who believe in free public education (which I do) fail to understand that public education is providing the fuel for the right wing to dismantle the system. I have written extensively in my blog for ten years now about the problem of the “Fish being the last to see the water.” The present system of public education is out of date and obsolete. It is not meeting the needs of a twenty-first century democracy. I am K-12 certified and have been teaching for nearly 49 years now. I have taught every grade from kindergarten to Ph.D. programs at a variety of schools and colleges. I have mixed feelings about doing anything to save public education because if it does not change it will decay from within. I despair at the right wing nut cases who loath public education and also democracy. However, unless public schools adapt to the 21st Century they will become obsolete and ghettos for poor kids only. IMHO. See my blog
Why Public-School Education is Dying – Part 1 of 5 Parts at http://www.agingcapriciosly.com. No ads on my site and no donations requested.
LikeLike
In my humble opinion, public schools are getting a bad rap and should continue our mission to provide well rounded education to all, including civics, arts, unabashed history, and so on, not just STEM. The phrase 21st century learning is, to me, silly. Teaching students to code cookies and reduce their ability to communicate down to making YouTube videos, typing in prompts for AI to do the thinking for them, and creating 141 character tweets will not fulfill that mission. I guarantee you that the tech industry has little to do with the future of education. Okay, that’s not so humble an opinion, but it’s right.
Public schools are good, always have been, and hopefully always will be if we support it strongly enough. We don’t need to adapt; we need tech billionaires to pay their taxes.
LikeLike
There’s always the possibility that there will be a widespread understanding in the US that the Catholic Church is not benign, certainly not politically benign.
LikeLike
You wrote: “…in the US that the Catholic Church is not benign, certainly not politically benign.”
So TRUE! The religious yell ‘Separation of church and state’ until (1)$$$$$ is involved and (2) no accountability re: the money.
LikeLike
Yes.
LikeLike
I think it’s actually a lot worse than “Involuntary Tithing”. That’s because a tithe is supposed to be a merciful gift to the needy (originally, a tenth of one’s income or crops, hence a “tithe”.) As far as I know, vouchers are not necessrily means tested though, so lots of people who get them are not poor and can well afford to pay to send their kids to religious schools. Many of those families have been doing so for decades, too, including Catholics with a lot of kids.
LikeLike