Buffman

Alonso,

Would you mind providing me with your definition of "education?"

So? If we were to discover that 95% of the books checked out of a public library were religious text, would this justify closing the library? As long as other books are available, the fact that a large percentage of the population choose the religious option is their right.

I do not equate a public school system for which I am forced to pay taxes as equivalent to a library. If I am being forced to pay money to support a religion in which I have no faith/confidence, thus allowing that religion to use some of its financial resources elsewhere to enhance its self-serving dogma; and if I am being forced, by the government, to contribute to a religious school that will indoctrinate its students into the specific religious dogma of that school, I consider that that government is in violation of the separation of church and state and is forcing citizens to contribute their personal financial resources to the promotion of denominational religious faith beliefs with which I adamantly disagree. Perhaps you have forgotten what James Madison said after this:

"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?"

He continued with:

"...that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?"

The folks who ratified the Florida Constitution obviously understood this quite well.

Or if 95% of the money went to private secular schools, because people valued a secular education over alternatives, that would not be seen as a problem.

Just what America needs most...greater polarization and non-standardization of education. (Said with considerable sarcasm.)
If some people believe that private secular or religious schools can, and will, serve their children better, I have no problem with them sending their children to these institutions... but not at my expense. I agreed to support a public educational system, not any form of private one.

If atheists want to compete on this ground, then the proper step would not be to stop the voucher program, but to build secular schools and go into competition.

That is hardly the most reasoned argument for Vouchers. Public schools "are" secular/non-sectarian schools. They must educate any and all students. That is their charter/mandate. They may not discriminate.

private schools can pick and choose, while public schools must take everybody.
Actually, I think public schools should be dividing students up according to their abilities, and offer different types of instructions based on student abilities. This distinction now is based almost exclusively on age, but age is not a reliable measure of ability -- and true ability should be the method for distinguishing among different classes. The public school system will still likely get the majority of students, and will have sufficient students to form his its own advanced schools.

I might suggest that you run for the Public School Board office and see what the real problems are concerning your suggestions. Or just do a little homework to see why this can or can not be done/work...especially if more and more money is being diverted into private/religious schools.

My tax money is being used to support religion.
My tax money is also used to support religion when a state employee tithes a certain percentage of his income to his church, or gives it to some tele-evangelist. Yet it would not be sensible to argue that the government should not hire employees likely to spend money on religious items.

A state employee is paid, with taxpayer monies, to do specific labors/items for the supposed benefit of everyone. What that individual does with their pay after they have done what they were hired by the people to do is no one's business but their own. If they decide to throw all the money out the window, that is their choice regardless of what others may think.

What I pay for with my taxes is to fund public education -- for children to acquire a certain level of basic knowledge -- the child's ability to pass a test. If a private school is able to accomplish that, then it is irrelevant if, at the same time, the children in that school are also learning a religion that I may not agree with.

Have you given that statement any real thought?---The goal of a private school is to remain in operation/business. How do they do that? The goal of a religious school is to indoctrinate the students in the faith. How do they do that? Do you know the goal(s) of the public schools? Here are those just for North Carolina and Wisconsin.

<a href="http://www.ncpublicschools.org/news/00-01/budget_chart_2001.html" target="_blank">http://www.ncpublicschools.org/news/00-01/budget_chart_2001.html</a>

<a href="http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/dpi/dfm/pb/strategic.html" target="_blank">http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/dpi/dfm/pb/strategic.html</a>

Here is a cogent argument for Charter Schools. (This could be more in line with your blue and white collar ability thought.)

<a href="http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/3118452.html" target="_blank">http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/3118452.html</a>

That is outside of the scope for which I pay my taxes. The only thing that I really have a right to demand of the private school is that they do what the public school would have done.

If they do that, then they are no longer private.

Ultimately, there is one argument against vouchers that carries some weight with me.
Tax money will be used to teach children to hate.
If the private school is not also teaching good citizenship, teaching those children to be intolerant of rather than tolerant of those who believe differently than they do, then the voucher system is a bad idea.

Neither the state nor the federal government has any serious form of control or monitoring over the curriculum/programs/beliefs taught at these schools like they do over the public schools.

I don't mind if the school being funded in part with my tax dollars instills a peaceful belief in God. But if it instills a belief that all atheists should be driven from the country, then I have grounds for complaint.

Based on the current Voucher programs you pay-in, but have no/none/nada/ziltch control over what these schools will instill in the students. That's why they are called "Private" schools.

I would hold a similar objection to vouchers being used to fund a neo-NAZI institution that worshipped Hitler and called for a second holocaust, or a KKK school that taught the need to segretate the races.

And exactly what would you do if you discovered that that was exactly what they included as part of their indoctrination/education/teaching program...just as long as their students could pass state mandated tests to receive a graduation diploma? They are protected by the 1st Amendment free speech clause...and your tax money is helping to promote their beliefs. (And you think Vouchers are fine?)

No such school of this type should be able to appeal to the 1st amendment to claim that they have a right to funding -- it serves a valid state interest to bar such schools from receiving tax money.

Sorry! That's individual discrimination on your (the State's) part. What right do you have to decide what a private school can or can not teach. NONE! (Just keep your tax money coming.)

But, again, the problem here is not with the voucher system, but with the procedure for certifying which schools will get the money.

Right back to the beginning. Whose religious beliefs shall government favor and support as the "established" one(s)?---Vouchers violate the 1st Amendment.---Here are some very insightful thoughts about "education."

"Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson to Littleton Waller Tazewell, 1805.

<a href="http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1350.htm" target="_blank">http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1350.htm</a>

Here is an extract from "Teaching in the Secondary Schools" Blount & Klausmeier, 3rd Ed., Harper & Row Publishers, N.Y., 1968.

"At present, instruction is the greatest service provided our youth by organized government. When we look at the high schools of 1900 and compare their enrollment, instructional methods, and organization with those of the present, we discover that the progress achieved in the past half-century represents an outstanding contribution toward democratic life in America."

(I used that quote to head-off those that might use early American, private, formal education as an example of why we became a powerful nation.)

[Forgive typo mistakes. I'll try to correct them later. Right now I have to go get something to eat or collapse from hunger.)

Ugh! Lots of corrections.

[ August 07, 2002: Message edited by: Buffman ]</p>

Philosoft

Besides the constitutional issues, something else that really bugs me about vouchers, at least in Florida, is the smugness that ematates from the individuals who think vouchers are some kind of fix-all.

Florida's population is about 16 million. Of that, perhaps <a href="http://www.firn.edu/doe/strategy/0001finalfte.pdf" target="_blank">2.5 million are school-age</a>. I don't know how many are in failing schools, which qualify for voucher lotteries, but let's say 2% ,or 50,000 kids. Of that, something like 700 received voucher money last year. That, apparently, is enough to make patting oneself on the back a state pasttime.

Oresta

The mission of a public library is not religious indoctrination, which is the case with religious schools. I don't follow your analogy here. What has what books citizens check out of their public library have to do with "rights"?

You haven't addressed the second anti-voucher argument which you have set up here. Private schools do indeed have the option to refuse applicants if they do not meet student criteria, and to expel them if they do not perform appropriately. Public education in America grew out of the concept of secular universal education for all socio-economic classes, supported by public funds. This was a revolutionary concept in contrast to the class-based systems in Europe. Not only does the voucher system assault the First Amendment, it insidiously subverts this core concept of American democracy.

Could you give me any examples of those religious schools that are taking voucher students in Cleveland where kids are grouped any differently than by age? Virtually all urban school system alternate levels, track and magnet schools allowing for ability and interest differences. In fact, public schools are more likely to have the resources for providing alternatives than the parish schools.