We live in the most contradictory of times in American history. Recently the Catholic Church has applied for “charter school” status with funding by tax dollars. The school will provide all the required educational benefits as any public school PLUS a robust helping of religion. This revolutionary move defies logic, law, the charter school strategy and the US Constitution. Some very basic facts need to be addressed here. First, charter schools were intended to compete with traditional public school systems in the hope that such competition would improve the educational experience in both systems. That has not happened for a variety of ingrained reasons. Second, how do Catholic educators intend to improve on their own private school system? Or are they expecting to recruit converts by exposing children to the Catholic faith? Or are they simply trying to level the playing field when it comes to paying for the cost of education? Thirdly, we have about 60% of the citizenry declaring “Christianity” as their belief. So this Catholic school would theoretically address only 60% of the kids in its classrooms. What about the other 40%? Fourth, the US Constitution says in the First Amendment: CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION…” How can public tax dollars be directed to a school system that teaches Christianity? There are many other complications surrounding this situation. But the basic failure of any such movement is that charter schools have not been successful anywhere. They are poorly run, are not monitored or held accountable to any standards and frequently involve mishandling or fraudulent use of their tax funded dollars. What further complicates this weird situation is that several states have legally sanctioned (pun intended) the posting of the Ten Commandments on public school premises. Until now the US Supreme Court (as dysfunctional as it is) has ignored the Ten Commandments issue. But–with the Catholic charter school move–it would seem that the courts will be required to interpret the US Constitution’ First Amendment. The question: is it legal, under our accepted set of laws, to use public tax dollars to fund any system of education that includes religious instruction of any type or intensity? In the broader perspective, violating the Constitution seems to be a growing trend in the Trump Administration, more about that later. We expect a flurry of lawsuits to be filed over religion in public schools as diverse religious or atheistic cultures react to the “threat” of any organized set of beliefs. After all, isn’t that the reason for the First Amendment?
Comments are closed