Your second link worked, thanks.
I know that is the case - but that’s not really what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that Maine seems to have some standards that are bizarre in a real world sense- there is no standard that would prevent state funding to go to a non-religious school run by a secular racist organization and a school that seeks to instill the same secular values as a public school is ineligible because the religious group that runs has a religious belief that requires those values. The lawyer says that if a school that taught white supremacy popped up, the legislature would act to prohibit funding form going to those schools - but they aren’t currently ineligible.
I do- but it may be too late to do it now… There are school districts in Maine and elsewhere that do not have high schools , but most do not pay for the kids to attend the private high school of the parents’ choice, even across the country. They either pay tuition to a nearby district or contract with one or two local private high schools to provide high school education to the district’s children. Maine should have required that years ago rather than allowing the districts this option - and then this whole situation wouldn’t have happened because then every family in Maine would have been in the situation of " Go to the high school provided by the district or pay yourself "
I don’t think it necessarily is - because in my experience of K-8 religious schools, the very same teachers who are paid to teach a full day (including religion class) at the church-run school also often volunteer to teach unpaid in the afterschool/weekend/Saturday religious education classes provided for public school students in the very same school building. It would indeed be possible to have all teachers and children in attendance from say 8-3 and have optional religious education from 3-4 with volunteer teachers.
I’m rather on the fence here. As a point of reference, here in Ontario (and also Quebec – not sure about other provinces) there are two separate public school systems, one is a regular secular system and the other is a Catholic school system. The laws about which one your tax dollars go to have varied over time and among the provinces, but at this point in Ontario you simply make a choice (the regular secular system is the default). Anyway, my point is that both are of course accredited school systems and although the Catholic schools do teach religion, which is what those who support that system want for their kids, they otherwise have a normal curriculum that lacks any batshit craziness.
The one aspect that I greatly dislike is the control that the Catholic church has over those schools, which some years ago manifested in a Catholic School Board banning a student club called the “Gay-Straight Alliance” that sought to normalize gay students and prevent bullying. I remember reading a fiery op-ed from a Catholic bishop railing against this type of club as being the unholy work of Satan or something. So there are potentially two things to worry about – how religion would affect objective teaching of science subjects like biology and cosmology, and some of the insidious cultural ramifications of Biblically-inspired bigotry.
Come to think of it, wasn’t there a similar case a few years back, somewhere in the Midwest? IIRC, the state had a program where recycled tires were used to make playground ground cover, and the resulting material was donated to all sorts of playgrounds… but not to playgrounds owned by religious organizations, due to a clause in the state constitution prohibiting any governmental support of religious organizations.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer?
Yes.
Can you expand on this assertion?
I remember the Trinity case now. I disagreed with the decision. It seemed like a perversion of logic – much like using affirmative action to blatantly discriminate against certain races, agitating for war to preserve peace, or calling people who are trashing government buildings patriots.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean since the whole reason this case exists is because the plaintiffs live in school districts that do not operate high schools. But according to this article , half of Maine’s districts do not operate a high school, here is an article about school districts in NJ with no schools at all and this thread has some examples of districts without high schools.
Yep. An interesting situation. First off, I had no idea Maine did this to provide education in remote areas. I am not sure the program itself is a good way of doing business.
If the goal is to provide an education it seems to me public schools are the best way to go. Failing that, I suppose other institutions that provide the schooling ought to be considered.
The Maine law would prohibit public funds from going to a Catholic school, or even a school owned by a subsidiary of a church. It would not prevent those funds from being funneled to some white supremist vegetarian school. That seems strange.
Public schools often started as adjuncts of churches. If we wanted to ask the founding fathers, they would have no problem with Maine’s setup.
I find it less than ideal, but permissible.
And here’s the SDMB thread, all 266 posts:
This is what I find odd about the case. Nobody disputes that Maine is free to operate non-religious public schools—in fact if they operate public schools, they must be non-religious. Nobody disputes that Maine can tell the families in these districts that you must go (on the state’s dime, feel free to pay yourself elsewhere) to this particular non-religious school or these particular non-religious schools. But simply because Maine structured this program like they did, and gave parents a wider choice of non-religious schools, now it becomes unconstitutional because there was no choice given for religious schools.
That seems like an absurd result, even if you can make a decent legal argument for it.
The real problem here seems to be that the state is outsourcing its responsibility to provide a public education to non-governmental institutions.
An individual religious school getting funding here and there may not be too much of a problem, but only if there there is always a practical non-religious alternative choice.
I am a concerned that depending on how the Supreme court rules on this, it may lead to other states using this as a loophole to effectively force religious education on children of their state. Say for example the Kansas decides that it is going to entirely defund the public education system and rely totally on independent contractors, but limit the voucher price per student such that it is only profitable for schools that charge a significant tuition or for subsidized non-profits, As a result, for a Jewish family with a limited income, the only choices would be to either a multiple hour commute or a religious school that teaches their children that their parents are going to hell.
I went to a religious high school and I see a huge problem in deciding this case. My school taught all of the subjects like any public school but in addition we had to take a religion class every year. We had mass before graduation and many classes taught by priests, deacons and nuns but educationwise it was as good (if not better) than local public schools. A student in that school like that should have no problem getting aid.
Counter that with religious schools that teach creationism in science, the Bible as history, etc. and I definitely think they should be denied any and all public funds. And there are many non-religious charter schools that receive public funds that probably shouldn’t but do anyways despite having the sole-purpose of pushing the political agenda of the owners. And would home-schoolers fit in here somewhere?
So do we take a cookie-cutter approach or do we base it on what is actually being taught re: the state standards in all of the classes and who would make the determination if they meet the standards or not.
I don’t know that it is an immutable trait of human existence that education of young people simply must be done through a public education system. Many arguments could be made for and against government control of schools, and states are free to use any or all methods of doing so, anywhere from full government education to vouchers and full choice for parents.
My objection is that religion is treated on a continuum from “absolutely not permitted” to “absolutely must be permitted” based solely on how a state chooses to structure the education system. I get the separation of church and state, but at the end of the day, what is the difference between paying $X to hire a state employee to teach kids a Bible class and paying $X to send the kids to someone else to teach them a Bible class? The state is supporting the exact same thing either way.
Yes, and neither of those should be allowed. If a school wishes to teach a Bible class, then they should come up with non-governmental sources of funding for that class. As I understand it, though, that’s not the issue here: The issue is whether that same school can receive governmental funding for secular classes such as math or English.
My understanding of the facts is that in most places in Maine, the public schools are operated like they are everywhere else. However, there are a very few places that are either too remote or too sparsely populated to justify having a public school system. In those areas, the state gives a voucher to parents to pay for their children to attend school anywhere in the country. They can choose a school that will accept the voucher as payment, or go to an expensive school and use the voucher to supplement the tuition. The only relevant exception is that the voucher may not be used to attend a religious school.
And my understanding is that the state doesn’t just exclude those schools that teach that Jesus rode on dinosaurs and was a real American. The state excludes schools like @Saint_Cad mentioned above; those that have a quality curriculum but supplement it with religious instruction. The Plaintiffs complained that this is a violation of religious liberty.
My observation was that it seems silly to say that Maine doesn’t have to give a religious option to the vast majority of parents who live in districts with public schools, and in these limited areas, it could have made arrangements to send the kids to other public schools in the state, again with no religious option. But because Maine did what it did, then now, and only now, must it provide a religious option as well.
I have a suspicion about which sort of school you attended - and while it may have been true at your school, I’d be really surprised if most schools of that type really siloed the religious education so that it never crept into any other classes and aspects of religious teachings didn’t ever come up in a literature class or a student could manage to get through four years of history class without having any idea of what the religion currently teaches about various historical issues. It is very possible to meet all the state standards , not teach creationism or the Bible as history and still have religion come up outside of religion class.
In Catholic schools, there’s typically a prayer at the beginning of each class, but beyond that, the English taught in an English class, or the history taught in a history class, and certainly the math and science, will be no different from what you’d find in a secular school. The instructors’ personal views will doubtless bleed through, but good teachers try to minimize that no matter what school they’re at, and in any event, there are also Catholic teachers at non-Catholic schools, and non-Catholic teachers at Catholic schools.