Federal Government giving vouchers to Religious Schools

We went here. It was fun. 

http://stcyprianschool.org

I think the concept is to allow parents to use vouchers for whatever school they want, religious or otherwise. I don't see this as giving preferential treatment to, or otherwise endorsing any religion.

I'd figure you'd be much more concerned with home schoolers and their religion of libertarianism.

So you're telling me my tax dollars are being given to little Muhammed so he can go to Islamic Jihad High for free? Because I don't like the sound of that. 

Sounds like you should lobby your elected representative to eliminate 501(c)(3) status for Islamic Mosques if you're that concerned.

cool

You're making points? 

>>>>but if one chooses to educate at home they don't deserve to get any vouchers that would deplete the resources for public education

Why not?  Are you happy with the U.S. ranking in education?  Do you feel most high school graduates are ready for college or tech schools?

Do you realize that the vast majority of school funding comes from the states and not the federal government?  

I can only speak for Alaska, but I'm able to use $2,000 a year for my daughter.  I usually end up spending about $1,500 of that money per year.  A kid in the local school is allocated $3,500.  This is not including the money the schools receive for teachers, building maintenance, and bussing.  I save my school district money by home schooling. 

My daughter tests several grade levels above the national average in EVERY category.  I'm not anti public schools and will eventually enroll my kid, but I'm grateful for the help I'm getting in securing her a better educated future than most of her public school peers.  

>>>>Are you happy with the U.S. ranking in education? 

Which ranking system are you using?

The voucher plan will take us further away from the top of the pack.  That's not how any of the countries ranked above us handle education.

https://rankingamerica.wordpress.com/category/education/

http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/u-s-students-compare/

>>>>Which ranking system are you using?

You can look at any ranking system and find that we are not in the top ten in any list. 

>>>>That's not how any of the countries ranked above us handle education.

You're right.  They spend less yet achieve better results. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-education-spending-tops-global-list-study...

>>>>>>They spend less yet achieve better results. 

Finland ranked number one, spends $12,545 per student.  http://ncee.org/what-we-do/center-on-international-education-benchmarkin...

The US ranked 14 spends $11,700  per student.  https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

Which country's system ranked above us do you think we should be more like?

>>>Finland ranked number one,

Not on your link, it was #5  (The first link)

>>>>The US ranked 14 spends $11,700  per student

S. Korea and Japan spend less.... (Your link had them #1 and #2)

My state spends $26,000 per student and is consistently in the bottom half of education.  Granted, a large portion is spent in remote areas with high costs, but even road system schools lag behind.

I'm glad you brought up Finland.  Their model is what we should aspire to in the U.S.  Kids need more play time and less homework. 

>>>>>Not on your link, it was #5

Like I said, which ranking system.

http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3749880

How about the first link you posted? 

https://rankingamerica.wordpress.com/category/education/

Maybe I'm not finding the link where the U.S. is in the top 10

The simple answer; no, our tax dollars CAN NOT be used to send children to parochial schools. This isn't a matter of opinion.

>>>>>Maybe I'm not finding the link where the U.S. is in the top 10

I'm not finding anyone suggesting it was in the top 10

Nancy,

How is giving parents a voucher to spend at any accredited school promoting or endorsing religion?

Maybe we should address the real purpose of the vouchers. The fact is, someone like AK Dread, who gets some money to homeschool, would be in the minority.

As far as I can see, there are the real purposes of the vouchers:

- To subsidize wealthy students going to private schools

- To circumvent and national and state educational standards

- To circumvent the costly special education laws

The voucher system is really only viable in places with a population density, where there are charter and parochial schools. The top performers (and wealthy) will end up at those places, while the bottom performers will stay in increasingly under-funded public schools. The whole idea that the better schools will get bigger is total bullshit. Beverly Hills High isn't going to accept 500 kids from Compton.

>> The point is that the vouchers would be endorsing Religion. Doesn't matter if the government vouchers could be used for schools other than Christian ones - in theory of course. This is headed to SCOTUS. 

It already went to SCOTUS:

Delivering the opinion of the Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist declared that the school voucher program was not in violation of the Establishment Clause. The 5-4 ruling upheld the Cleveland school voucher program. Additionally, government support for religion is deemed constitutional as long as it occurs de facto and not de jure, or does not specify or encourage religious schools. Maintaining the program's strictly secular aims, Chief Justice Rehnquist refers to this program merely as assistance for the poor, low performing children otherwise stuck in the communities failing public school district. Moreover, the issue is whether the school voucher program directly encourages or inhibits religion. Noting the Court's ruling in Mueller v. Allen (1983), this issue is confronted. Parallel to Mueller v. Allen (1983), the Court found that in reference to the Establishment Clause there are no religious advances. The vouchers are available to a general class of citizens who meet the needed criteria and are given a personal independent choice of voucher-accepting schools. As a state plan to make a better education readily available for poor students, there was no religious bias. Offering parents the opportunity to use the voucher for tutorial aid in public school, a scholarship for religious or nonreligious private schools, magnet schools, or enrollment in community college makes no incentive to pick a religious private school. If the parents want to pick religious schools for their children to attend, then that should have no bearing on the government.The incidental advancement of a religious mission,is reasonably inferable to the individual, not the government; the government's role ends with the expense of beliefs. Chief Justice Rehnquist continues to provide defense that the program encourages the true private choice of the family. Basing school vouchers strictly on the economic means of the student, and geographic location, religious concerns are factored. Another primary issue of the case concerns the 96% of scholarship recipients who attended religious private school. That is overturned with help from the Mueller v. Allen case; the likelihood of religious private schools, in the area, at the particular time, and the decision of the student are not fundamental in the constitutionality of the voucher program. Overall, the Court ruled 5-4 that Cleveland's voucher program was religiously neutral and gave parents the benefit of true private choice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelman_v._Simmons-Harris

Is education bad now?

>>>>>>How is giving parents a voucher to spend at any accredited school promoting or endorsing religion?

Because if they use that voucher to go to a religious school it's federal money going to a religious institution, just through a middleman.

I see how both arguments have merit.

 it's federal taxpayers' money going to a religious institution

No power may interfere with or control an individual's free exercise of religious worship, and no person can be compelled to attend or support religious worship against that person's conscience.

Guys,

That's what the law says or how SCOTUS interpreted it:

Offering parents the opportunity to use the voucher for tutorial aid in public school, a scholarship for religious or nonreligious private schools, magnet schools, or enrollment in community college makes no incentive to pick a religious private school. If the parents want to pick religious schools for their children to attend, then that should have no bearing on the government.The incidental advancement of a religious mission, is reasonably inferable to the individual, not the government; the government's role ends with the expense of beliefs.

It's a waste of time for you to argue it. There is no way you are going to re-draft the first amendment. There is no way with SCOTUS's current composition it will get overturned.

We love our school district. 

Nancy,

Re: the Private Choice Test, I imagine that's a litmus test that will apply to individual school's programs and locales. The federal law will obviously be designed around it, so that won't be an issue.

Ultimately, though, the real problems with vouchers get lost in the BS of religion.

THe poor kid in rural Alabama (regardless of color) may have access to a voucher, but has no outlets to use it. THe wealthy family in urban Alabama has choices.

>> THe poor kid in rural Alabama (regardless of color) may have access to a voucher, but has no outlets to use it. 

I'm sure new schools will pop up once the voucher money comes in.

The real problem with vouchers is that, as more taxpayer money goes to private schools, religious or not, less money goes to public schools. Thus, public schools get worse.

>> less money goes to public schools.

They will still get the same amount per student, right?

What if there are no private schools around? Which school in our district benefits and which ones get screwed? 

>>I'm sure new schools will pop up once the voucher money comes in.

What makes you so sure? 

As an FYI, money and education are shitty bedfellows. Schools may open just for the financial payoffs.

I could start my own charter school, and accept 10 kids. That would pay me about $150k a year. I would have little oversight, wouldn't have to comply with special ed laws, etc. I could do it out of my house and get a tax writeoff for the space, electricity, heat, phone and internet. I'd go 175 days a year, 8:30 - 2:30.

Actually, it seems kind of cush!

>>They will still get the same amount per student, right?

Economy of scale. Small schools already have a hard time funding music, art, PE and Science. Removing students means removing programs, and eventually shutting down.

>> Schools may open just for the financial payoffs.

I don't know why you think that's a bad thing. 

Because money and education are shitty bedfellows. Yeah, it may work in a school that costs $25,000+ a year, but not for the needs of the many. K-12 education, on the large scale, should not be an industry. You know, nor should prisons.

"The point is that the vouchers would be endorsing Religion."

No, a voucher is an inanimate object that doesn't have the power to "endorse" anything.  The parents are simply choosing to allocate the resources made available to them as they see fit.  And their children will be better off for it.  If you have a problem with that then you are part of the problem.

I'd ask you to explain why, Thom, but I know that you won't.

>No, a voucher is an inanimate object that doesn't have the power to "endorse" anything. 

So it's cool if I spend food stamps from my EBT card on crack & 40's?  Since it's my money I should be able to spend it the way I want, correct? 

>>>most of the home schoolers are whacked evangelicals

wow, not the ones i know.

though i know nationally a majority of them are.

Yeah, it's a pretty ignorant statement.  I have a lot of friends who also home school.  Most work seasonally and like to travel in the winter.  Very few that I know personally are religious at all.  A lot of us like to spend time with our children rather than send them away.   Several, like my wife, have elementary ed degrees. 

nice to see some red asses from nancy's spanking again. 

>>  it's a fact that most home schoolers are evangelicals

How can you say something is a fact without citing sources?

Try again. The word "evangelical" isn't even on that webpage.

If anything your link shows that in 2012 there were 3 more popular reasons given by home schoolers as why they home school than "A desire to provide religious instruction".

I'm in a home school group and I don't know a single family who has religion as their primary motivator for home schooling.

>> Home School Legal Defense Association

That's a Christian non-profit advocacy group. There is no polling or stats behind Ian Slatter's statement. 

You see what you want to see Nancy. The gov stats don't say anything about Evangelicals.

>> the fact about them being mostly evangelicals comes from those who provide the materials to homeschoolers and the homeschool organizations

There is no central place where all home schoolers get materials. You can't figure out what people are teaching their kids by what materials are sold/downloaded because you can't collecting a complete sample (or even representative sample). 

And this is all theoretical, you never even posted these "materials sold" statistics.

IMO if vouchers can be used as a way to give Federal money to religious schools, then we should also issue health care vouchers so women can get abortions and other health care not provided by the gov't.

In Colonial times, schooling (as was pretty much everything) was done thru the local Church, which was always some Strain of Protestantism.  By the mid 1800's, the Catholic population had increased to the point where Catholic schools became widespread.  At the same time, the traditionally Church run local schools gradually became a charge of the Government.  The widespread fear amongst the Establishment of the "Whore of Rome" led to legislation in most states banning funding for religious schools.  So it's ironic to see the Protestant Evangelicals leading the charge in this whole Voucher for Religious education effort.

The half-dozen or so Families I know who(m) Home-Schooled their kids were Atheists or Pantheists, not bible-thumpers.

They did so for practical reasons... shitty school district,  one or both parents could be at home, good educational background among both Parents.

Usually a few parents participated in the educational experience.  Trusted individuals amongst the Group.

People with Bachelors & Masters degrees,  with skills for teaching Kids to learn.

They went through all of the Math, English, History and Science as appropriate for the age groups.

Later, those Kids went through Public or Private school for the social aspects, but with better test scores.

If you're going to be a lab-rat, so much better to be a more intelligent lab-rat.

Every state has its own regulations on home-schooling. Some have more oversight than others. It's just the way it is.

I know a couple of kids who are home-schooled, for religious reasons. The younger brother is 13 and can barely read or do basic math. The older kid is 15 and has severe learning disabilities or a developmental delay. He can't read a word, and would benefit greatly from an IEP.

Quite a few home schoolers feed into my program. The vast majority are for religious reasons. A few have parents who are growers, and another few just wanted to. From my experience, per capita, the latter two groups have much more of a focus on education and educational quality.

Absolutely, Nancy, religious freaks continue to make up the highest demo of home schoolers. Interestingly, though, the fastest growing demo is patents with education degrees. I wrote a grad school paper on it and have the reference somewhere.

Violates the separation clause.  

Do you know why there are Catholic schools in the US?  The prayers in US public schools were Protestant.

In today's world much more diverse.  The moment of silence is the perfect compromise. 

Not all home schoolers are right wing or evangelical.  I know several who did it because they were lefty or didnt like conformity. 

The public school is the best hope for democracy.

Too bad some are into avoidance response flight. 

I'm 100% in favor of using taxpayer money to send kids to Taliban high school.

i give up.

privatize everything.

for profit shit hole.

>I'm 100% in favor of using taxpayer money to send kids to Taliban high school.<

yeah, totes. all them privateers are cool w/ sending them to muslim institutions then, right?

What are the stats on "Kid's just too weird for public school"?

>> all them privateers are cool w/ sending them to muslim institutions then, right?

Sure, with the caveats already imposed by SCOTUS:

• the program must have a valid secular purpose
• aid must go to parents and not to the schools
• a broad class of beneficiaries must be covered
• the program must be neutral with respect to religion
• there must be adequate nonreligious options

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelman_v._Simmons-Harris