Jamie_L

Here's the problem as I see it:

Suppose you have an area with a vast majority of one religion. The voucher program goes into effect, and all these religious parents send their kids to religious schools. Because they are using vouchers, money is drained away from the public school system, depriving a problem school of any excess funds to solve their problems.

Given enough time, the religious schools become the ONLY OPTION short of home schooling for parents wanting their kids to receive a decent education. People who have a right to public education are put in a situation where their children must be exposed to religious indoctrination to receive that education.

The distinction between children and college students IS important, because the younger a child is, the more impressionable they are.

Families of other religions (or no relgion at all) should not be required to take on the extra burden of de-programming their children every day after school. Their children should not be required to take on the extra burden of being outcasts in hostile territory.

There must be a vaiable secular option, and voucher programs can lead to a situation where such an option does not exist. Yes, more money alone will not save a failing school. However, taking money away from it will not solve the problem either.

Jamie

mac_philo

I agree with the previous post, right up to the point where 'taking money away from the local public school' shifts into there being no local public school at all.

The system will still guarantee public school coverage for the whole nation. Yes, there's a risk that the money taken away will lower the quality of some schools. But our system already has worthless schools; this is no fundamental shift. The question isn't the number of schools, but the number of students being successfully educated.

The system that scores best under that calculus is the one we should employ.

[ May 13, 2002: Message edited by: mac_philo ]</p>

mac_philo

Yet here I am, living proof that you aren't correct in applying this motivation to people with that opinion.

Jamie_L

Hmmm.

Suppose the government of some area decides that its public schools are failing but Christian religious schools are doing well. To provide a better education for everyone, they close the public schools entirely. The funding from the old public schools is given to the Christian schools, and children wanting a public education must now go to those schools.

They argue that the system still guarantees public schooling. The secular schools were already worthless, so there's no fundamental shift. The issue is that more students will be better educated.

Would this be acceptible? Is it somehow more acceptible for the same situation to occur because parents choose to take money from the local public school via vouchers rather than their elected representatives doing it via legislation?

It's not just about the number of kids getting educated. It's about the rights of minority believers to have their kids educated in an environment free of majoritarian religious indoctrinataion.

Jamie

Toto

Sorry for impuning your motives. I should have qualified that: most of the people who badmouth public education have an ulterior motive, and a substantial number of those pushing vouchers would just like to destroy public education. I would support more diversity in education, and changes in its bureaucratic nature, but not at the expense of the First Amendment.

Buffman

What are the accurate facts?

Precisely how many public secondary schools are there in the U.S.? Exactly how many of them are failing? Failing to do what? To teach students to read, write and perform accurate mental math calculations? To teach students to be better informed citizens? (Better informed about what?) To teach students critical reason skills to be able to better determine the best solutions for the most difficult and contentious issues/problems that they will face after graduation? Exactly how are these unspecified number of so-called failing public schools not accomplishing the goals established by their "local/district" Public School Boards of Education?

mac_philo: "Yet here I am, living proof that you aren't correct in applying this motivation to people with that opinion."

Au contraire! You are a perfect example of how easily people who are not intimately involved in the education of secondary school students can be propagandized, influenced and motivated by all the media and religious conservative hype into believing that the American public School system is failing to "educate." (But educate about what?)

I have no doubt that you have been influenced by the "statistics" being published to indicate that America's educational system is inferior to the educational systems found in other countries. I further suspect that you are being influenced by the "statistics" which indicate that SAT scores have declined. I know that I have been influenced by the number of people interviewed by Jay Leno who don't know who is buried in Grant's Tomb. Or listening to those multi-million dollar atheletes who seem to have difficulty placing nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. together in a communicative sentence. However, I do not view these as the fundamental problem. I believe that it is far more philosophically complicated. Getting a handle on how these differing philosophies impact on church-state separation is not an easy or quick endeavor. I have been struggling with it for many decades. I have some personal thoughts on this, but they do not lend themselves to quick sound bites.

mac_philo

I'm sorry, has this become a fundamentalist site?

How I've been 'propagandized' is hardly the issue. To condescend to spend several paragraph telling a complete stranger how they came to believe what they believe is utterly arrogant. If the issue is as clear cut as your tone indicates, do something besides worrying about hypothetical situtations that aren't at issue and how someone as dim and gullible as I came to be fooled.

[ May 13, 2002: Message edited by: mac_philo ]</p>

GaryP

It does seem as if the pro-voucher side is winning the "propaganda war". It is easy to exploit the public schools that are having problems.

It's important to remember that educating children does not occur in a vaccum. Home life and economic status carries much weight in determining how a child does in school. A single parent can be exhausted at the end of a long day. How can we expect him/her to attend to the educational needs of their kids with any kind of consistency?

Some of the negative news has been over emphasized while positive news is ignored by the medis. It is commonly accepted that parochial schools do a better job. But if one looks at the potential of those students, one can say that public and private are pretty even. Plus, public schools are mandated to have programs such as Special Ed. that private schools do not have to offer.

At my school (elementary) years ago, we gave the 4th graders a test which was suppossed to show what they had learned and compare it to their IQ. Practically all our kids were shown to be doing better than their IQ would predict.

Then Ohio came up with the Proficiency test. It simply measures what they know. There is no base line established and no indication of the kids potential. Now our kids do not appear to be doing too well and of course these are the scores the community sees.

Incidently, when the schools are ranked in the local media by test scores, the weathier communities' schools almost invariably score higher.

Buffman

mac_philo;

For your consideration and thoughts. (Please do not confuse experience with arrogance. You are the one claiming that the public school system is failing.)

What is the agreed upon definition of "Education?" What is the agreed upon "Reason" why an individual needs an education? Are the answers to these two questions attainable and compatible? Do so-called Liberals and Conservatives hold differing definitions and reasons? How might these differing, if that be the case, views impact on church-state separation?

IMHO, the war and battles between liberal and conservative philosophies are the root cause of our secondary school educational concerns/problems. Why do I believe this? Quite simply because, whether liberal or conservative, each side is well aware that their future, if not that of the entire world of humans, is dependent on the generations that follow...and what they do or do not believe and advocate. The ideology managers of religious institutions have recognized, and utilized, this fact for centuries. It is the young, previously unfretted, mind that is the most susceptible to manipulative conditioning that can, and all to often does, allow that conditioning to last a lifetime. If the conditioning is truly successful, issues of accurate fact and testable truth are never surfaced concerning faith beliefs.

How many completely secular schools exist in the world of Islam? Are the graduates of those secondary schools educated? Prior to the evolution of the American public school system of education, how many completely secular schools existed? Why did the Catholic Church feel that it was necessary to establish a parochial school system in this country? Why are there secondary schools established for other religious sect practitioners? What is the impetus behind home schooling becoming one of the fastest growing cottage industries in the country? Why is home schooling suddenly so big today and not 20, 50 or 100 years ago? Here are a couple of my guesses for consideration.

Liberals tend to be more internationalist, and conservatives to be more nationalist, in their world views. Liberals are federalists and conservatives are anti-federalists. Liberals view humankind as responsible for the problems/solutions of the natural world. Conservatives view the supernatural as responsible for the problems/solutions of the natural world. After, and very much due to, the Vietnam War, the Liberals gained control of the federal education programs and the teacher training institutions. Many of these individuals sincerely believed that all humans were created equal and that only environmental (social) conditioning (education) was the cause of failure and war. The individual student could not be held responsible for their own failure...and to avoid failures, the academic curricula most be modified to provide success at the "lowest" common denominator to prevent traumatizing a student for life. At the earliest possible age, students must be made aware of (learn about) international problems and the proposed solutions. Basic education skills and cultural acclimatization tended to be de-emphasized. Gone were the art, music, civics and western civilization classes and expensive field trips to museums of art and science or astronomical observatories only to be replaced by trips to zoos to see endangered species and lakes/rivers to study the effects of pollution or global warming. How could any responsible parent protest their child's new found concern about the future of the planet even if that child could barely read a comic book, or make change without a computer? How did being able to spell accurately help to solve world problems? The problems are real and ever more important to us all with the increase of time and our failure to take appropriate and timely corrective actions, aren't they? How does knowing what the insides of a frog look like, or knowing a foreign language, help solve these critical problems? Therefore I suspect that home schooling has grown from the ranks of the more conservative families who admire, and seek to maintain, the more traditionalist public education of the past. I do not view it as merely a knee jerk religionist response to the current form of secular education.

Additionally, the "One World" liberal educators were quick to point out that the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence stated that all men were created equal. However, they did not give credit to a supernatural Creator for that equality. Thus these, in-power educators and controllers of the federal and state education treasuries, sought to validate their beliefs by manipulating the system to produce educated clones; not educated individuals. This may well be the point at which the current C-S separation battle began. However, I believe that the liberal educators had already made a fundamental mistake in their philosophy. "Humans are not equal regardless of how nationally revered the authors, or the document, are that make that claim." Why would I make such a seemingly un-American and anti-democratic statement? Simple! I believe that there is more testable evidence to support my contention than the opposite one. Additionally, my contention supports a natural basis of human development while the other supports a supernatural one. Evolution vice Creation. Therefore, these zealous liberals, even though sincerely attempting to make the world a more harmonious and safer place, handed the conservatives an unexpected ticket with which to embark on a crusade of supernatural fervor which could well lead to increased national divisiveness and intolerance. When I read fundamentalist tracts I feel that they are saying, "We must place the Creator back in the public school classrooms. We must replace the secular clones with our religious ones." (Perhaps that is why the fundamentalist Christians prefer pointing to the Dec. of Ind. as the source of our government rather than the true founding document, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Perhaps that is why they have few, if any, qualms about violations of C-S separation. They have been led to believe that it is the Creator's Declaration document, not the Godless Constitution, that made America what it once was, but is no longer....but can be once again under their tutorial control. The issue of inviolate C-S separation is a mistake that must be corrected. The one and only true path to equality is through adherence to the biblical truths as taught by Jesus. (Or Moses, Muhammed, Buddha, Confuscius, et al ad infinitum.)

(End guesswork and frustrated rant.)

Buffman

(mac_philo quotes in bold print)


I considered posting this kind of response based on your initial one. However, I elected to wait until I was able to read some additional ones if they were forthcoming. Now that I have, I hope this one will be of some value to you and any others with similar views. That's one of the beauties of these forums Within the published guidelines, we can agree to disagree. (Now lets hope that I have all the appropriate UBB Codes annotated before I hit the Reply icon.)

How I've been 'propagandized' is hardly the issue. To condescend to spend several paragraph telling a complete stranger how they came to believe what they believe is utterly arrogant.

You certainly have every right to believe as you do...just as I have every right to disagree in any manner that suits me within the terms of forum usage. In this particular instance, I could care less whether I know you or not. I am commenting on your thoughts and words for others, as well as you, to read.

If the issue is as clear cut as your tone indicates, do something besides worrying about hypothetical situtations that aren't at issue and how someone as dim and gullible as I came to be fooled.

First, I believe that you will find that I have described this particular C-S situation as being very complex. I am sorry if my words led you to a different conclusion. However, under no circumstances have I assessed you as harshly as you seem to have assessed yourself.

I don't really see the problem. The funding is to religious institution(s) and secular institutions.

I agree. You really don't see the problem. We are only discussing the taxpayer monies being diverted from the funds designated for secondary school, public, education and being allotted to private religious schools by government edict and sleight of hand. Were you compelled or intimidated into to attending religious indoctrination classes while at your Pell Grant and Stafford loan Christian College/University?

There is no coercion.

Given the ratio of available secondary religious private schools, to secular private schools, seeking these voucher students, it would seem that a religion-government funding conspiracy is a more apt description than coercion.


The facts are,...

Whose facts? What facts?

... public US schools in many areas are horrible, and giving the bureacrats more money is not going to solve it.

And exactly what areas and how many US public schools are horrible? How many aren't horrible? Why aren't they? Are your elected School Board members part of this bureaucracy? Are your elected state and federal representatives part of the bureaucracy?

The question isn't the number of schools, but the number of students being successfully educated.

I believe that statement is more in line with my understanding of the current situation. Unless we can reach agreement on the meaning and purpose of education, I doubt that either of us can make accurate assessments of what is or is not "successful" education. My state has been attempting to make that assessment since the current voucher supporting administration and legislature came into power. Upon what valid and reliable factors do you rate one school with another. (I recommend that you reread "GaryP's" post. He identifies some of the problems with public school rating systems.)

If this program is shown to get results, I support it.

If the bank where you kept your money was robbed and not insured by the FDIC, but the robbers gave their ill-gotten gains to the local synagogue/church/mosque, would you support more robberies? (I don't think so! But then, I don't know you, do I?) If the U.S. Government gives taxpayer money to any religious faith organization, for any reason, how is that not helping to establish that (or those) faith belief(s) to the disadvantage of all other faith or non-faith beliefs that were determined to be unqualified for this governmental largess...even if it only means that that particular faith belief organization doesn't have to expend any of its own funds which can then be used for direct proselytism? Don't you believe that government neutrality in matters of religious conscience is the best course of action?

A hardcore atheist, I spent my US subsidized pell grants, stafford loans, and work study at a 'christian school.' So what?

I have no idea what you think that being "a hard core atheist" has to do with C-S separation. I wager that the majority of American theists support strict C-S separation...because it is in our country's best interest, and their own, to do so.

The precedent has been set for college students; the idea that it isn't applicable to elementary age students seems absurd.

Hmmmmmm? So you see no differences between a college student and a secondary school student. (How many children do you have and what are their ages?)

What's the message here--we're going to prop up a failing system using students from the lower and lower middle classes, but when it gets to be time for college anything goes?

Sorry! I am having some difficulty following your train of thought here. You seem to be assuming that all secondary schools are failing and that there is nothing that can be done to identify the reasons and correct them. I believe that you will discover that there have been many corrective actions recommended but very few placed into being because of a lack of proper political leadership and funding. (Classroom size immediately comes to mind, as does greater parental involvement.) You also seem to have it fixed in your mind that college students are no different than secondary school students.

As long as they have to follow a standardized science curriculum and aren't studying theological matters more than a certain portion of the day, I'm not going to rule these programs out of hand.

A standardized science curriculum? In a fundamentalist Christian private school? How would you standardize Creation Science?Studying "theological matters" for only a "certain portion" of the day in a private religious school? Pray tell! Exactly how would you propose to monitor this private school's adherence to your specific science curriculum and portions of the day devoted to theological matters (indoctrination/conditioning)?