School vouchers are synonymous with federally funding Christian schools. Notice I did not say religious schools? That is intentional because the people behind the push for federally funded school vouchers are political Christians and I guarantee that they are not advocating for federal dollars to be used for schools based in Muslim, Buddhist, Mormon or other diverse faiths. We have heard about this fight for years and the destruction that it is wreaking on our public schools is a premeditated recipe for disaster. Our teachers and students are incapable of succeeding when they are met with constant struggles just to survive.
The Chester Upland school district in Pennsylvania is getting some much needed attention as we hear about severe funding cuts to public education in their state resulting in heroics by their teachers. These teachers are so dedicated to what is best for their students that they are continuing to show up for work to teach even without pay. Every state in America is dealing with the push to use federal tax dollars to fund religion-based schools, but this latest budget round of severe cuts in Pennsylvania and the resultant acts by the affected teachers has elevated this discussion in recent days.
This attack on public education is sectarian extremism and corporate greed joined together in one of the worst, most un-American threats to our country’s freedom and defense. An ignorant society destabilizes our potentials for success and innovation. An indoctrinated society breeds a robotic citizenry that cannot reason and is easily led into disastrous endeavors.
These funding cuts to public education are deliberate and calculated. We hear the goals to cripple this system from Ron Paul to Rick Santorum; John Boehner to Jim DeMint and many more. The political Christians refer to public schools as “Institutions of Satan” and the corporate opportunists see this as a new industry that can be monetized to their advantage.
As I do from time to time, I am posting a recent article from Pastor Howard Bess from Alaska. He is a retired Baptist minister who also taught critical studies of the Bible at the University of California Santa Barbara which – as you might imagine – makes him a foe to Dominionists. Please read below what Pastor Bess has to contribute on this issue…
VOUCHERS, RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT
By Howard Bess
New legislative sessions are about to begin. It is an election year. Old issues will be raised, especially if there are religious and emotional underpinnings attached to these issues. School vouchers will have another hearing. Some will argue that vouchers are about equal access to quality education. Others will argue that vouchers are a challenge to First Amendment mandates for separation of church and state.
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The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees free exercise of religion, but also guarantees that Congress will make no law for the establishment of religion. Religious organizations in the United States have always been free to establish education systems that compete with public schools for students. They are free to teach and advocate for their religion as a part of their curriculum. Roman Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans and Evangelicals have established very large school systems that provide education from Kindergarten through high school. In general the quality of education provided by religious organizations has been quite good. They are taking advantage of the free exercise provision of the First Amendment.
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Religious people and organizations have paid the cost of religion based parochial education, but not without complaint. They argue they are paying for education twice. First they pay through tax systems that pay for public education, and they pay again by covering the tuition that makes parochial education possible. Portable vouchers underwritten by a governmental body is their proposal for equity. Until recently courts at every level have ruled that government funded vouchers are a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
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For the past 75 years the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Freedom has been the leading religious Washington lobby on issues of separation of church and state. BJC has had the sponsorship of every major Baptist body in America until recently when the Southern Baptist Convention withdrew its support. BJC has long opposed vouchers based on the establishment clause in the First Amendment. They have affirmed the right of parents to choose a religious education for their children, but firmly oppose the use of public money in any way to support parochial school systems. BJC has argued that government MUST remain neutral in all matters of religion.
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Eight years ago Congress established what became known as the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. It provided scholarship vouchers of up to $7,500 for 1,000 students. The vouchers were portable and could be used by families at any private school in D.C. Almost all of the private schools in the area are religion based. After 5 years the program was phased out. The program did not produce the predicted result. The children in most need did not get the vouchers. Children involved showed no statistical gain in achievement. The net result was that several millions of dollars were transferred from the federal government to churches through the hands of the 1,000 families involved.
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The issue with the Joint Baptist Committee was not the plan’s failure to produce intended results. The issue was that millions of government dollars went into the coffers of sponsoring churches. For JBC the Washington D.C. experiment was a blatant violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
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The United States is in the process of a significant shift in its religious make-up. There is no question; our national roots are in Christian Protestantism. Then came the Catholics. A flood of immigrants from Ireland and Italy made Catholics a statistical reality. For many years Roman Catholics were religious outsiders in America. Tolerance was the best for which a Catholic could hope. he election of Roman Catholic John Kennedy as president of the United States was a watershed event in American history. Catholics are now seen as a part of the American Christian mainstream; but an even greater challenge to assimilation is in full swing.
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While a large Roman Catholic immigration from Latin America continues, the religious face of America’s immigrant population has rapidly changed. Immigrants from the Pacific Rim, China, Korea, India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia are bringing a new religious profile to America. Immigrants, as always, bring their religion with them. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism are thriving in the United States. Mosques, Temples, and Shrines are popping up all over the country. If we Americans take the First Amendment seriously, the idea that the United States is a Christian nation is an absurdity.
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It is inevitable that these new religious groups will flourish and, just like Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans and Evangelicals; they will establish schools for the purpose of maintaining their religions through the education of children. This is healthy and the First Amendment guarantees no government interference in the practice of their faiths, including the establishment of special schools.
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In the eyes of the First Amendment there is no difference between a Baptist school, a Jewish school, a Catholic school, an atheist school and a Muslim school. Under the establishment clause of the First Amendment, BJC believes none of these religion based schools should receive a single dollar of government support. I agree completely.
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The image of America as a melting pot has outlived its usefulness. Our increasing religious diversity is a long term reality. We are a neighborhood that reflects the world. To live in our American neighborhood, we do not need to have the same religious beliefs. We do need gracious respect and understanding. The First Amendment does not allow government funded school vouchers for use at a religion based school. The First Amendment is one of our truest friends.
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THE END
The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska.
We need to support our teachers and students and climb back to a position of educational competitiveness in the world. For those who insist on educating their children in insular parochial environments…I wish them well…just stop trying to destroy our public institutions in the process.
If public schools would provide an education as good as religious schools, parents wouldn’t be clamoring for vouchers! Our public schools are a disgrace.
Then we work to fix our problems in public education rather than destroying them. "No Child Left Behind" was an unfunded mandate that had deleterious effects on teachers and students and schools are working hard to reverse its effects…just to name one major issue.
Please understand that I have not seen any proposed vouchers that would pay for a private school of any kind. Thats why the DC experiment failed. The only people who benefit from vouchers are upper middle class parents. The poor can't afford to pay the difference except in a few cases where the schools offer scholarships, but the vouchers don't affect that.
Not all our public schools are are a disgrace, and not all religious schools are even close to "good". Lets work to better provide what our schools need to do a good job.
Yes, but…I was sent to Christian school my entire life and was always told that I was receiving a superior education. Then when I got to college, I had classmates who had attended public schools and who had received far better educations than I had. So I think the question of which school is better depends very much on the individual schools.
That the "Christian" schools aren't as good – that has been my observation down here. When they teach students creationism (even for students wanting to study medicine)… that poverty and suffering are always because of "Sin!" while wealth, beauty, and so on are because of God's favor, and programming the kids for absolute obedience to authority… that's not a real education.
I also know that the "Christian" colleges in this state tend to be very subtly if not overtly political. A relative went to one of the more "accepted" ones, and was taught that non-American medical systems were vastly inferior to what is in this country (cannot be supported), and that the poor in another country were permitted one hospital visit before having to pay for it (a lie), and that medical care in other countries was rationed (also a lie). This relative is in the medical profession, and has come out with some rather conservative/fundamentalist comments at times.
One dominionist "University" teaches their female ministry students that they are NEVER to have a ministry that competes with or is more important than their husband, and they are directed into a track that limits their choices. The men are encouraged to get married as quickly as possible and to have children as soon as possible, because it looks better to the church that hires them. I've heard that has led to quite a few rapes… and unhappy marriages.
I admit I don't know that much about the Catholic schools (I've heard of extreme regimentation and pressure to a ultraconservative viewpoint shoved on the kids), but I do know that they've had problems with fundamentalist influences in schools by more "mainstream" churches in this state.
The problems with the public schools are (1) teaching to the test, (2) lack of proper funding, (3) kids who are kept in school even though they are a real problem to everyone else – disrupting classes so nobody can learn, and (4) constant political pressure to dumb down the kids (teaching creationism, young earth, etc.). None of those were problems when I was a kid – at least in the school system where I grew up.
I've seen first-hand the results of those "private school" systems – students who attack professors, disrupt classes, and even harass the other students – reason, because something they don't agree with, even though it is fact (i.e., evolution, the Bible can be proved to contain errors, etc.). I've been part of having to throw students out of classes because of the problems they create – in one case the student attacked another because the second student believed in Atlantis. I've also had to tell a lot of students that one can be Christian and accept that evolution is fact – after all, I am a Christian and evolution IS fact. (I used to get several students each semester come to me or email me and thank me for that – they said that all they ever heard about evolution was that it was "An Evil liberal plot to destroy Christianity".)
I learned something interesting – preachers/ministers/pastors have been telling the youth going to college which classes to take and which to avoid… so they don't get exposed to evolution or the truth about GLBT people, or anything like that. They're just continuing the brainwashing that goes on in the private religious schools – or at least the ones in this state. I think that is why it seems that we've been having less problems with fundamentalists in the last couple of years or so.
I also have found that those students who were homeschooled or sent to a sectarian school tend to be more vulnerable to the aggressive dominionist proselytizers who come on campus and create problems. They also tend to be far more ethnocentric and think that people from other cultures are just like them, but who dress or speak "weird". They're more vulnerable to the lies regarding Muslims, and tend to think of people such as mine as "primitive" and not realizing how belittling and prejudiced they are.
I don't agree with Bess at all regarding religious schools. They may have been OK before modern science showed that the Bible is not literally true (parts of the Bible are supported, just as others have been disproved), but in today's world, what one thinks about God, Jesus, and Religion MUST evolve. Funny thing – the people who are so dead set against Christianity evolving in face of modern science, don't realize that (1) their religion is largely syncretic in origin, and (2) Christian belief and understanding has been evolving since Jesus' time.
As far back as I can remember, Florida has been a hotbed for trying to fund churches from state coffers… and of course, it's going to be the political churches that get funded. I remember back in my Assemblies of God days, attempts to bring about school vouchers AND discussion about getting state funds for their local ersatz "University" – an AoG Bible College who teaches things to their students that are not ethical (like fake surveys for proselytizing, deliberately invading other churches to try to "save" the people there, ways to harass groups the Assemblies don't like, and so on).
I'm glad to hear a Baptist support separation of Church and State. I'd almost bet that Bess is NOT Southern Baptist, because of the attitudes that are the norm here. This suggests to me that some religious schools might not be as bad as the ones I know about – in other, less conservative and fundamentalist areas of the country.
You are right, Pastor Bess is most definitely NOT a Southern Baptist Convention member. There are typically two main pathways that products of strict environments tend to take – 1) they remain indoctrinated and have learned not to question but absorb; or 2) they take a completely different path and reject. It is simple child psychology that when you tell a child that "they can't" they will grow more curious. Keeping children sheltered at all costs often creates a profound curiosity and then a sense of betrayal when they are eventually exposed to what is transpiring in the world at-large. Abuses are also more likely in private facilities because they subvert the regulations that guide public institutions. Those most opposed to rules that set standards are often the ones that operate outside acceptable norms.
"Keeping children sheltered at all costs often creates a profound curiosity and then a sense of betrayal when they are eventually exposed to what is transpiring in the world at-large."
This is exactly what happened to my siblings and me. I remember sitting down with my sister when we were both in college, looking at each other and saying, "We've been lied to our entire lives."
"Abuses are also more likely in private facilities because they subvert the regulations that guide public institutions."
This is particularly true in totalitarian situations in which children are taught not to question those in charge. "God put me over you, so obeying me is obeying God, and it's a sin to disobey God." That kind of warped logic creates a mindset in which children become docile victims because they believe they will go to hell otherwise. Pretty powerful and scary stuff.
It is absolutely frightening and all of your comments are greatly appreciated, Hope! There is no better discussion on this topic than to hear from walkaways who have been personally impacted by the type of Dominionist education that is being carefully crafted and advocated for in school funding. Thank you!
Hope, I've met in person and online quite a few women who were sexually abused by their pastors or youth directors as young girls… and the argument you gave (God put me over you…sin to disobey God" was the one they almost always heard to get them to submit (albeit unwillingly).
The damage done is heartbreaking, and makes me especially hostile to the Pentecostals, where it seemed to be used the most (fundamentalist Baptists a close second).
It also makes me very resistant to any authoritarian structure, and I will always distrust authority figures (because of that and my own experiences).
I'm with you 100% in regard to that distrust of authority figures!
I don't know of anyone at my school who was sexually abused by our teachers or principal, but in retrospect, it certainly seems like we–by which I mean all girls–were being groomed into perfect victims. (I say that not just because of the "God put me in charge so don't sin by questioning me" line, but also bc of repeated admonitions to girls to dress modestly because boys, men, and even male teachers can't control themselves, the implication that rape victims who wear provocative clothing "deserve" what happens, etc.)
The school I attended was conservative Presbyterian (not mainstream)/Calvinist to the extreme. In reaction to the strong Pentecostal emphasis on emotion, the leaders of my church and school went adamantly in the opposite direction, denying any emotional component to faith and denying the validity of any emotion. In a way, maybe this helped save me from the indoctrination, although it also did a lot of damage.
You have been unfortunate in your experience of religious schools. Yes, some of the fundamentalist schools are as you describe, but many of the mainline Protestant/Catholic schools are excellent and very accepting of a wide diversity of students. These schools do not try to convert all their students. Yes, the child is expected to take part in all the activities of the school, but there is no shaming of the non-religious child. I didn't attend any religious K-12 schools, but I have a degree from a Presbyterian college, coursework from a state university, and two graduate degrees from a Catholic University. Aside from weekly chapel (not required) and a year of required Bible (very liberal scholarship), you would have never know the Presbyterian was a religious school. The Catholic University was Jesuit and they are wonderful teachers. There was no required religious studies of any kind. That particular University is known for its emphasis on community involvement and service.
I understand what you are saying, but my point is this…the environment in religiously focused K-12 schools span the gamut and people have the freedom to enroll their children in them. But, when we are faced with the push to cripple public education with proposals to completely eliminate it altogether, those who are working hardest to take up that task are predominantly political Christians whose agendas are not to provide a liberal arts education to their students.
As one example, I own a copy of one of their most relied on history books for middle school children, "America's Providential History". Attending worship services may be optional, but being taught a skewed version of our history in America is not when this is the curriculum that they serve. Let's not forget the debacle in Texas with the efforts of the Texas Board of Education less than two years ago when they nearly succeeded at inserting the curriculum from APH into public school texts.
I appreciate that there are good and bad experiences on all sides, but I am mostly concerned with the separation of church & state across the spectrum.
I don't doubt that there are OK religious schools around… but that also depends on the area. In this area the "public" religious schools openly support teaching creationism (heard it with my own ears – 5 minute rant – as my youngest niece graduated), and at least one public high school held their baccalaureate in a local Assemblies of God church (I attended my oldest niece's Baccalaureate there) where we were treated to sectarian fundamentalist ranting. Talk about a miserable hour and a half!
The private religious schools? They use some pretty horrific curricula, such as the "A-Beka" system (I think I have that right). Their kids are inundated with hate for liberals, LGBT people, and non-Christians almost from the beginning. Their history and science (written to support the Bible) is best described as a sad joke. Most of them are also de-facto segregated so the kids don't get contaminated by minorities or the Other. It's all to make them easier to control and more "good Christians" like their "Good Christian" parents – and I won't get into how Christian those really are.
For the life of me, I can't understand how or why most of the religious schools got certified and accredited.
Imagine now that sort of school being spread across the nation (actually, they have been but most people don't know it). THAT is what this thread is about and what we fight against. That is almost always the background of the students I described.
The school I attended also used ABeka texts. They would be a pathetic joke if people didn't actually take them seriously. I remember, for example, that our American lit textbook had many, many sermons by 19th-century revivalists and evangelists such as Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple MacPherson. It almost seemed as if they had a quota–for every "secular" writer, they had to add a "Christian," even if the text wasn't literature, well-written, influential during its time or since, or recognized by anyone as something that was or should be part of the literary canon.
I knew by that point that I wanted to study literature in college and that I would go either to a liberal religious college or a state school (both of which I eventually did). So I supplemented my education with my own reading program, focusing on books with which I thought I should be familiar. But very few high school students have the requisite motivation and utter lack of a social life to do that.
The ABeka literature textbook had to cover writers such as Walt Whitman, who are inarguably influential, but they did so in a very skewed, censor-heavy way. The lengthy Whitman biography talked about what a horrible man he was, not a Christian, homosexual, etc., and how racy "Leaves of Grass" was. Imagine my disappointment when I spent three months slogging through the darn book only to discover nothing racy or sexy!
When I did get to college, I could not believe how woefully unprepared I was. I had little applicable background knowledge across the range of the curriculum, and most of what I did have came from my own efforts to prepare myself. Thanks, ABeka.
Mack, first you'd have to convince me that the schools were broken in the first place… and that NCLB didn't break them.
I've read some pretty strong arguments that the school systems were fine, excepting they tolerated bullying and religious discrimination (and many tried to indoctrinate students). Granted, the area where the school exists has a lot to do with it – my brother went for a year down here, and the school wasn't very good. They were more focused on teaching the kids submission to authority and tolerating capricious and autocratic rules than actually teaching them to think or the facts that they needed for this society.
My dad has been pro-voucher since I was in school. He says, "Why should I pay to educate my own children AND other people's?" I tell him by that logic, I should have to pay no school taxes at all: why should I have to pay to educate anyone's children when I myself have none? If only people who use the public school system pay taxes for it, then only the people who can afford the payments have access to education, which defeats the whole purpose of public schooling.
Usually at this point my dad concedes that public education taxes are necessary, but he still doesn't back down from his support of vouchers.
We've recently had to declare the whole subject off limits. I, a product of an appallingly bad dominionist school, told him that the government has to get involved in education because some parents–such as MINE– are incapable of making good decisions regarding their children's education. That obviously did not go over well.