Right-wing legal power exploiting loopholes for a fundamentalist takeover of public education. [View All]

[madfloridian]

Americans United is starting to speak up some on this issue of the various ways that public money is going to religious schools.

From Rob Boston at AU.

Religious Right Activists Use Wide Variety Of Tactics To Evangelize In The Classroom

Religious Right leaders often heap abuse on public schools, calling them “godless” and recommending that fundamentalists put their kids in private academies or educate them at home. At the same time, the Religious Right lusts for influence over public schools, seeing them as a “mission field” for new recruits.

Most public school officials want to do the right thing and realize that pushing religion is not among their duties. But a few won’t accept that and insist on bringing proselytism into the classroom. At the same time, public schools are often assailed by outside forces – local Religious Right groups and right-wing state and local legislators – determined to use them to stoke the flames of the culture wars.

Southern Baptists have often put out the call to leave the godless schools and homeschool.

There are many legal groups that work full time to figure out how to infiltrate public education. Some of these groups are from the efforts of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, and the law schools they set up.

An array of well-funded, fundamentalist Christian groups work overtime to find new ways to promote their religion in schools. Organizations like Gateways to Better Education, the National Network of Youth Ministries, the Christian Educators Association International, the Gideons and others see public schools as targets for proselytism, bursting with young people in need of conversion. Increasingly, they are backed by right-wing legal power. Groups like the Alliance Defense Fund, Liberty Counsel, the American Center for Law and Justice and others exploit any loophole they can to find new ways to slip fundamentalism into America’s classrooms.

Is the campaign having an affect at the grassroots level? Attorneys with Americans United say yes. Despite a clear track record of federal court rulings striking down coercive forms of religion in public schools, AU’s Legal Department receives a steady stream of complaints about this issue.

Religious right groups are "pushing the envelope" to convince school officials that they have rights in public schools.

Religious Right groups continue to push the envelope in this area.

In late September, the Alliance Defense Fund and Gateways to Better Education announced a joint venture to “educate” public school officials and students about their alleged rights in class. The two groups are distributing a pamphlet titled “Free to Speak” that purports to be based on guidelines promulgated by the U.S. Department of Education. While the document does selectively quote from department-issued guidelines, its description of some issues appears to be overly broad and misleading.

...."Furthermore, Gateways to Better Education has a poor track record in this area. In the past, the group, which works with Focus on the Family to get wider distribution for its materials, has disseminated booklets purporting to outline the law relating to religion in public schools that were riddled with errors. One infamous publication featured a talking Easter Bunny explaining how teachers could use the holiday to discuss the resurrection of Jesus.

From Focus on the Family, James Dobson's works were/are used by many guidance counselors in our area, and some teachers as well. One of the main topics we would hear discussed was from the title of one of his books...the contents were interpreted here as breaking the strong-willed child. Getting the upper hand, not much about trying to work with and talk with and understand that child.

Rob Boston and Americans United are correct. Here are the words from the Christian Coalition in 1995. Read them carefully in case you think they have disappeared from the scene or had a losing agenda.

Coalition called to eliminate schools| "Charter Schools" A Ruse For Destroying Public Education?

Raleigh, North Carolina - "We must eliminate public education as it is structured today and reinvent it in a new form," according to Roxane Premont, director of the North Carolina Education Reform Foundation (NCERF). If successful, the "new form" of public education will ultimately result in private religious schools paid for by taxpayer money.

Premont addressed Christian Coalition members in a Saturday afternoon workshop at the annual Road to Victory conference last September in Washington, DC. Literature outlining the plan to eliminate public education was distributed during a workshop called "Vouchers and Tax Credits - It's Time for Parents to Choose."

The first step in the proposed plan is to establish charter schools, which are, according to Premont, "public schools that operate independently of local school district jurisdiction and operate much like private schools."

According to NCERF literature: "Charter schools will provide a pool of independent schools that can readily be converted to private schools to meet increased demand for private education once voucher laws are passed. Charter schools that are converted into private schools will be initiated by those persons who want religious education.

"With charters the money goes directly from the state to the charter school. With vouchers it goes directly to parents who then take it to the school.

The first step in the plan is to establish charter schools. That deed is done now. Over 4 billion dollars await the districts that form more charter schools. The money is coming from a Democratic administration.

And we are not fighting to save our public schools. The complacency is due in part to ignorance of what is going on...in part to our desire not to make waves in the party.

There are now at least 8 religious schools in Florida getting taxpayer money. They are eating away at the resources for traditional public schools.

Yet we still ignore the fact that the goals of the Christian Coalition are winning the day.

On edit: Here are the known religious schools that are turning charter for public money.