by Greg Mayer
In a must-read special report at Politico, Stephanie Simon examines the growth of government-funded instruction in creationism via the voucher school movement.
Voucher schools are private schools for which the government pays full or partial tuition. Most of them are religious (70 %, fide Politico), are not held to educational standards, and have little oversight. Here’s the money quote:
Taxpayers in 14 states will bankroll nearly $1 billion this year in tuition for private schools, including hundreds of religious schools that teach Earth is less than 10,000 years old, Adam and Eve strolled the garden with dinosaurs, and much of modern biology, geology and cosmology is a web of lies.
Now a major push to expand these voucher programs is under way from Alaska to New York, a development that seems certain to sharply increase the investment.
Public debate about science education tends to center on bills like one in Missouri, which would allow public school parents to pull their kids from science class whenever the topic of evolution comes up. But the more striking shift in public policy has flown largely under the radar, as a well-funded political campaign has pushed to open the spigot for tax dollars to flow to private schools. Among them are Bible-based schools that train students to reject and rebut the cornerstones of modern science. [emphasis added]
Jerry recently highlighted a similar report by student pro-science advocate Zack Kopplin on government subsidy of creationism, and how this support is now found in many states. Simon shows how the movement for voucher schools is spreading over the country, spending lots of money (including from—you guessed it—the Koch brothers), and trying to influence both Republicans and Democrats.
One thing that struck me is that the curricula of these schools don’t just teach some sort of alternative set of claims about the world, but teach active hostility to science. An example from Simon’s piece:
Another Calvary Christian Academy, this one in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., describes the goal of its AP Biology course as preparing “students to have faith in Jesus in an age of science by evaluating college-level biology, chemistry and physics from a purely biblical perspective.”
Their AP Biology class is designed not to prepare students for college work, but to resist doing college work!!
It’s also absolutely clear that these schools are misusing the appellation AP—Advanced Placement-—for their courses. Advanced Placement is a set of curricula and exams-for-credit in a wide variety of subjects developed by the College Board. For Biology, the very first item in the AP curriculum is
And that’s exactly right: evolution is the central concept of biology, and the first thing students of biology should learn (see the full curricular outline here)!
That support for voucher schools invokes broader cultural themes than just anti-science is shown in the following passage from Simon’s report:
But Doug Tuthill, who runs one of the largest private school choice programs in the nation, says states have no right to determine what kids should learn, beyond basic math, reading and writing. Other topics, from the age of Earth to the reasons for the Civil War, are just too controversial for a government mandate, he said, even when taxpayer money is at stake.
This is anti-science, anti-government oversight, and even neo-Confederate: “the reasons for the Civil War”! (As made abundantly clear by the secession ordinances, which have been much republished with salutary effect in the last few years as part of the Civil War sesquicentennial observances, and as Apu memorably put it, “Slavery it is, sir.“) These broader cultural themes may explain the support of people like the Koch brothers, who, for all their faults, are not anti-evolution.
The report is accompanied by an astonishing set of images illustrating what passes for science in some of these schools.
A two-option multiple choice question– now that’s rigorous! And the “wrong choice” can be easily dismissed as not even making sense: are creationists being distinguished from clouds, because students in these schools can’t readily distinguish between people and meteorological phenomena? Even fifth graders know what rain is!
In one paragraph, the above slide combines factual errors in geology and archaeology, a complete non sequitur conclusion, and tops it off with an error about the Bible. The writers of this curriculum aren’t even any good at Bible study, which is what they claim as their area of expertise.
I finish with the above because it comes from a school not very far from where I live and work. There are a cluster of tax-supported creationist schools in southeastern Wisconsin, as can be seen in this map from Slate. This image also shows that even so-called mainline churches like the Lutherans can be creationists. To be fair to Lutherans in general, though, I note that there’s a lot of variation among the varied Lutheran denominations; and, as Simon points out, not all religious schools are creationist (I received a fine science education during 12 years at Catholic schools, although this was before the Catholic hierarchy made a political alliance with right wing Protestantism).
My university, the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, was involved in getting this publicly-funded private school movement started in southeastern Wisconsin a dozen years ago. The University was mandated by the state legislature to “charter” a school that would be tax-supported, but not subject to oversight by the local school district, nor, even much by the University, despite the fact that we had somehow officially given them the right to be a state-funded school. There was only one group wanting to start such a school (I guess they had friends in the legislature), and a university committee was convened that included a biology professor to organize the granting of the charter. Some way into the process I became aware that the principal of the new school was to be a local church pastor who was somewhat notorious for writing loony items on the opinion page in the local paper, including creationist material. I alerted the committee to this, but when the biologist on the committee brought it up, a charter school advocacy “consultant” to the committee firmly stated that such concerns about what the school would be teaching were off limits and not subject to discussion by the committee. The creationist principal did not last long, fortunately, and my understanding of the school is that it does not teach creationism.
h/t Andrew Sullivan, and many readers who contacted Jerry
Voucher schools are nothing but an excuse to teach religion, including creationism, and to funnel tax money away from school to republican cronies. We have a long history of this in Wisconsin.
“long history” , please at most it’s only a 6k yr old history , HA J/K
If it weren’t for the horrific child abuse these students are suffering, I’d be all for Creationists convincing themselves of the evil nature of science.
Well, the child abuse, and the devastating impact on public policy and economic competitiveness and social morality and infectious diseases and….
b&
IMO if items 2 and 3 were fixed, item 1 wouldn’t be much of a problem. I honestly don’t care if some private school wants to break for prayers five times a day or have a mandatory religion class, so long as they teach the standard curricula (English, History, Math, Science, etc…) to state approved standards. In such a case I’d probably even be fine with tax dollars going to it (in part because if they are sticking to the state curricula, that doesn’t leave much time or money to waste on extra religious classes).
I do like how CA has done an end-run around the entire process. The U Cal and Cal State systems automatically admit the top 10% of stundents whose schools meet *University of California* standards. This has had the effect of putting serious pressure on private schools to conform – not out of any legal requirement, but because the parents and students really want that “approved by U Cal” bonus. Religious folk may have been successful in largely gutting the federal “stick” used to ensure standards, but nothing says we can’t use carrots in their place.
But, using the WI voucher system as an example, they.. uh… religiously avoid any standardization or adherence to state requirements and insist on not making the data available and measurable.
The disingenuity of the Voucher lobby is sickening. (Not individual parents, mind you, the LOBBY). The prey on fears and poverty in order to build a constituency that helps them achieve their “real” goal: Defund public education.
Some might bark “Conspiracy Theorist!!” in response to that last statement, but what is it in science that explains all observations to date? “Theory.” We do not have to accept the assertions of intent being proffered by those gutting the public school system.
Much as GWB’s rationale for invading Iraq shifted with the months, the rationale for voucher schools shifts depending on the audience, and the ONLY confirmed, verifiable, unquestionable effect of the system is that funding for public schools has been reduced.
Keep in mind that currently before the Supreme Court is whether businesses can opt out of paying for contraception in Obamacare. I don’t see how this isn’t an equivalent issue for taxpayers — as an atheist I don’t want my tax dollars supporting this religious activity, as it is against my beliefs.
Well the non-cynical answer is that the ACA ruling has nothing to do with opting out of paying state or federal taxes. Hobby Lobby and its bretheren would be on much shakier legal ground if the ACA system operated by taxing people and using the money to pay for its programs. Unfortunately that was too close to single-payer for the GOP, so that system (which the rest of the first world uses) is not the system we use.
The more cynical answer is – its not equivalent because the conservatives on the court favor corporate citizen rights over individual human citizen rights. Of course YOU can’t opt out of paying, because you aren’t a corporation. They get special opt-out privileges.
Eric, I’m not sure why you call that the “more cynical answer”. I’d call it the pretty f…ing obvious answer. (Truth be told, some of my friends claim I’m quite cynical!)
Both can be true, of course. But the point is that if the health system was supported via federal taxes instead of “we force you to pay money to a corporation,” the courts would probably have already shut down HL because there is a lot of legal precedent for making religious people pay taxes for things that go against their religious beliefs.
In the voucher case, taxpayer dollars are being spent to establish religion, a clear-cut Constitutional violation.
In the Hobby Lobby case, an employer is imposing its religious beliefs upon its employees, a clear-cut case of religious discrimination. Hobby Lobby could, for example, only serve Kosher foods at their premises, but they could not insist that their employees only use a travel per-diem fund on Kosher foods.
b&
Having served on a Christian school board, I can tell you that the primary objective of most private Christian K-12 schools is for the students to attend a Christian college, especially a Bible college, where their indoctrination (brainwashing) can be drilled even deeper. If vouchers are issued wholesale to these institutions, we are going to have a sh*tload of ignorant people in the near future.
I’m afraid you’re right. And the bad thing is that they’re going to be voting . . . on funding the NSF, the EPA, etc. If I think about this too much, I start getting paranoid and begin to suspect that we’re on the cusp of a new Dark Age and that the Enlightenment was a failed experiment . . .
And the words of Barry Goldwater will resonate:
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”
More Goldwater quotes on this and related topicshere.
I didn’t know of that quote. It increases my respect for Goldwater by a couple of orders of magnitude. (There was a lot of room for increase!)
It can’t get much worse. Roughly a quarter of Americans believe the sun circles the earth and a half think the earth is ~6000 years old.
And how many believe the earth is flat?
“…factual errors in geology and archaeology,…”
Jerry, To call the claim that “acheologists have found examples of ancient artwork that contain incredible[sic] accurate drawings of dinosaurs” a factual error borders on accomdationism! Outrageous lie would be a far more accurate description.
Yes, I thought of another characterization that our host probably would not let me post here!
I thought of a characterization of that phrase that our host probably would not let me post here.
Doublethink!
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Can someone explain to me why this is not a violation of the Establishment Clause? Yes I know these are ‘private schools’, but how can they endorse a particular religion while being supplemented by taxpayer dollars? I am straining to see how this is even legal.
My understanding is that they are legal because the parents are the ones selecting the school, not the government. In other words, the government is not endorsing one religion over another or even over no religion at all since the parents are free to use the vouchers at any school of their choice including non-religious ones. Thus, it is the parents who are endorsing a religion by the choice of school, not the government and parents are allowed to do so while the government isn’t.
I see your point, but cannot it be argued that by providing funds, knowing what the schools are doing, is not the government acting as a partner in endorsing a particular religion?
Sure, it can be argued but it’s not particularly convincing. For example, it can be argued that the government is supporting Catholicism by paying for medical treatments in Catholic hospitals but it’s been established that it’s okay for the government to pay for services provided by religious organizations.
You need an argument regarding why the government should treat payment to religious schools providing education differently than other services provided by religious organizations when the service provider is chosen by the recipient of the services or their legal guardian.
Medical treatment is almost entirely secular. And I’m pretty sure that hospitals are unable to use government funding for proselytization or chapels or the like, even if that sort of thing happens in the hospital.
In this case, government money is being used for direct religious indoctrination.
To apply the Lemon Test:
1) There is no secular legislative purpose in teaching the creationism funded by these dollars. 2) The primary effect of these classes is to advance religion. 3) The government is funding, endorsing, and accrediting the educations these students receive, which is about as entangled as one can get.
If even a single prong of the Lemon test fails, the action is unconstitutional. These vouchers fail all three.
Cheers,
b&
I’m all for cutting off Federal monies to hospitals that won’t provide abortions even to protect the life of the mother. I think with a more liberal SCOTUS, this argument could succeed.
I’m absolutely with you on that one.
…except that I’d be for the nationalization of all hospitals, but that’s a different thread….
b&
That’s the whole point of the pretense of ID, to claim that they are teaching science, just an alternative theory. Why else do they need “creationist scientists”? They know that they have to be deceptive in order to get around the constitution.
“creationist scientists” almost defines the term oxymoron.
I think you are correct that religious hospitals are not allowed to use funding for medical treatment for other purposes. That would be fraud and illegal even if they weren’t religious institutions. Likewise, it would be reasonable to have such limitations on education funding.
However, just as hospitals are allowed to include chapels and chaplains as part of the services they provide in addition to medical treatments, so should schools be allowed to provide religious education in addition to the education they provide that is purchased with vouchers.
I’m not so sure about your 3-pronged lemon test. Creationism could be included in the services offered as long as it isn’t funded by the vouchers. If the service isn’t being funded by tax dollars, then it’s purpose (furthering religious aims) is irrelevant.
To say that the government is “funding, endorsing, and accrediting the educations” seems similar to a claim that the government is “funding, endorsing, and accrediting the medical treatments” constitutes entanglement with religion.
I just don’t see how you can throw out vouchers as not meeting constitutional requirements without having to apply a similar standard to all other dealings the government has with religious organizations – of which there are plenty.
My understanding(IANAL)is that as long as the services purchased are provided, tax $ can be spent with religious providers.
In the end, of course, it will be up to the court system to determine if vouchers are constitutional but the quick and easy answer you espouse does not seem to be in agreement with current court decisions.
If the voucher money wasn’t being spent on religious indoctrination and there was instead a clear separation of funding and function, you’d have a point.
But that’s the whole point of the post: students are being religiously indoctrinated with voucher money.
b&
@Ben
As long as the education the government has funded is being provided and the parents are not being forced to send their child to a religious school, I don’t think that providing additional education/indoctrination is a constitutional issue.
Beth, the government would not be permitted to give money to parents to enroll them in Sunday School. The parents are free to send their children to Sunday School, but they can’t use government money to do so.
That these same parents are sending them to Sunday School every day of the week and using some of the money to teach them the three Rs doesn’t change the situation. They’re still free to indoctrinate their children, but they aren’t constitutionally permitted to use tax money when the do so.
b&
Ben, there is probably not clear separation of funding and function for hospitals (i.e., showing chapel upkeep is paid for via fees rather than USG funds), so why should it be demanded in the case of schools? Much as I dislike vouchers, I think Beth has a point in saying that if you demand private religious schools jump through hoops that have never been demanded of other private religious organizations receiving USG funds, it looks legally arbitrary and unsupportable in terms of precedent. Now you might in the future get 2-3 more extremely liberal judges on the SCOTUS and change the entire system (by, for example, requiring separate funding for the secular and religious functions of the organization). But until then, I don’t think the insistence that schools need to do it is going to be very compelling to a judge.
Actually, in every instance I’m aware of, strict separation of funding is always required. That’s not to say that there isn’t fraud, or that accounting tricks aren’t used for fungible hanky-panky, but any instances of such can and will get the institution in hot water if it’s discovered. An hospital that, for example, paid its chaplain’s salary from government funds would be in deep shit, indeed.
Cheers,
b&
Thank you for your explanation, that clarifies the position of the other side for me, or at least the one they use to argue before SCOTUS (sounding all reasonable). It doesn’t hold water with me, but it would with Scalia, Roberts and Scalito.
Yes, thank you Ben and Beth for that discussion. It helped me to see the different sides of the problem. If this had a chance of being found unconstitutional I suppose these schools would have been challenged long ago.
@Mark – Thanks for the discussion. It’s been interesting. My understanding is that voucher programs, so far, have been found constitution under the federal government, but decisions both ways have occurred at the state level. Since state constitutions vary, I interpret it as meaning voucher programs can be funded in ways that are considered constitutional. The fact that the money goes to a religious school does not inherently mean that it is an unconstitutional program.
Oh, it’s been challenged. A voucher program launched in Cleveland, OH, in 1995 was challenged on grounds that it violated church/state separation. The claims were upheld in federal district court and in the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court, (where the fact that nearly all vouchers were used at Catholic schools was cited), but was reversed 5-4 in the landmark Zelman v Simmons-Harris case in 2002. This set the stage for all future voucher systems. Rehnquist’s majority opinion stressed what Beth said above, that the endorsement of a religious message was attributed to the parents, and the government’s role ended with the disbursement of benefits.
Yes, but as Stevens noted in his dissent, “If there were an excuse for giving short shrift to the Establishment Clause, it would probably apply here. But there is no excuse.” The strong dissenting opinions of Stevens, Breyer, Souter, and Ginsberg, cite the 1947 Everson v Board of Ed Ewing, in which the majority opinion stated “No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion.” So maybe there is some hope for a different result if the court revisits this issue in the future.
Someday, perhaps, when the makeup of the Court changes. As it is, the Court is moving in the opposite direction, as I believe the result in the Hobby Lobby case will show.
I’m not sure I understand why the government should provide funding for any private school, charter or otherwise. If you don’t want to send your kids the the ungoddly public schools, pay for their tuition some place else yourself.
That is a legislative decision. Unless there is a claimed Constitutional violation, i.e., government establishment of religion, there is no reason for court involvement at all. Schools are a state by state decision, (heck, Mississippi didn’t even have compulsory education until 1917), and a state legislature could close all public schools and voucher everbody – until there is a Constitutional question.
This is terrific news!!
…if you are not an American and vehemently anti-American and are hoping for the US to be greatly diminished as an economic and international power…
Yup. Before there was universal education the conservatives tried to keep the population weakened by ignorance to keep them down. Although they lost the battle to keep poor kids out of school they came up with a better strategy.
If ignorance can be cured with information then information can be cured by filling the kids heads ahead of time with bullshit.
Either way they grow up to vote Republican and the US slides ever deeper into the mire.
If I didn’t know better ‘d think that the Republicans we’re being funded by the Chinese.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find the Chinese government funding Republicans.
In regard to whether the civil war was all about slavery, I would like to suggest that the issue is a little more complex. See this Wikipedia article on Lincoln’s first inaugural address:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%27s_first_inaugural_address
See especially the Summary section and the items on Slavery, the Fugitive slave act, and Protection of slavery. Also note that Lincoln supported the Corwin amendment (a would be 13th amendment) that would have enshrined slavery explicitly in the Constitution. Supported much more than the actual 13th amendment – despite the movie.
But to the South it was all about slavery. Most of the secessionist states’ declarations make that clear. Lincoln was trying to avoid a civil war and was bending over backwards to accommodate the South, at first.
I second this. There’s no credible account of the whole run-up to secession that doesn’t center on southern states’ protection of slave “property” and an expectation that slavery be extended into new territory. It’s insane to imagine that the writers of the various state secession statements expected ever to give it up. Lincoln’s statements simply showed the fear and contempt of the slave-drivers for ANY brake on their ambitions.
The Civil War was about slavery, and slavery was the basis of a regional economy, or who gets, keeps, and controls the most stuff, and how that is accomplished. This is a 5 minute read that describes the institution that replaced pre-Thirteen thru Fifteen Amendment slavery, and who was complicit in it (spoiler alert: the land of the free and the home of the brave was complicit):
http://weeklysift.com/2014/03/31/slavery-lasted-until-pearl-harbor/
Good for the BRICS peoples! Lots of burger-flippers, pool boys and lap-dancers when they visit Mega-Disneyland (formerly known as USA)
OMFSM!
We’d probably get more mileage out of our effort if we devoted it to helping Scientologists start their own schools. Vouchers for private religious schools would rapidly evaporate.
I would suggest Muslim schools would work even better for that purpose.
I believe that in some Southern states legislators could not accept that if they had a voucher scheme in place there was no legal way they could stop such a scheme being used by an Islamic school. To put it colloquially, they went out of their tiny little minds.
Wow that dinosaur cave art one really takes the cake! 🐲
What? You haven’t seen the cave paintings in Lascaux, France depicting Barney Rubble and Pebbles?
Wow, that emoji is incredible accurate!
Greg,,
Thank you for highlighting this issue. We at Florida Citizens for Science have been fighting the voucher scam from the outset.
We thought the voucher bill had died in chambers but it has come back coupled to another bill. You can read all the details on our website.
Jonathan Smith
President
Florida Citizens for Science
I want defense spending vouchers I can use to support diplomacy.
Greg, I hear ya… as resident of “Greater Milwaukee,” I have been exposed to the full voucher fiasco for nigh on 22 years now. The growth of the program is disheartening, and its expansion statewide, with the election of Governor Scott Walker, coincides with this national push to gut public education funding while diverting tax dollars to sectarian schools. It’s all done under the guise of “choice” and “saving a generation” from the hideously bad public system, which by and large is sound, but which Walker also gutted by eliminating $100 million in funding AND stripping public teachers of the right to collectively bargain.
Don’t worry, with enough time we’ll get back to the way God intended us to be here in America: All Christian, kids working in sweatshops, and legal slavery. Praise Jesus.
If by ‘Wisconsin Lutheran’ they mean the Wisconsin Synod branch of the Lutherans, this is a very fundamentalist branch of the Lutherans. The are creationist, and the individuals that I know are very anti=Catholic (the whole Whore of Babylon thing). They are also like other fundamentalist branches in that they often cite chapter and verse to support whatever position they believe in, but as usual these verses are taken out of context.
I had one of my 5th grade daughters go over the “Accelerated” Christian Education 5th grade multiple choice questions. Her response to the test, “They have to keep the Christians nice and stupid so they don’t figure out God’s a fraud.”
And this from someone who never says anything mean!
Wow, your daughter is very perceptive. I hadn’t thought of that aspect but it makes perfect sense. Keep ’em stupid and filling the collection plate!
It’s never wise to educate the masses beyond the bare minimum to keep them working.
This information is truly frightening and disheartening: we are engaged in an ongoing war between ignorance and the resultant superstition and rationally-acquired, verifiable knowledge. No matter how many battles are won for the separation of church and state, the religionists will always keep trying to worm their delusions in somehow, and they’re getting better at it. It’s like dealing with the Taliban: they’ll never stop doing what they do; wanting what they want, because the believe that they are operating under the direct guidance of God. We could still loose this war- vote Democratic in 2014! I don’t agree with many things they do, and it’s obvious that they’re almost as corrupt as the Repubs, but it’s them, or theocracy.
With the recent gerrymandering, primary races are often where the decision (about representation) actually gets made. Please also participate in your primaries, and regardless of party, pick the candidate who is going to (best) support sound science education and public school funding. Heck, if you like all the candidates in your party and you have the legal right to do so, “vote for sanity” in the other party’s primary to help make sure that most idiotic candidates hav no chance of going to the hill.
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.
Reblogged this on Middletown Voice.
Resistance to science of this magnitude has always bothered me (As it should…). I was fortunate enough to be brought up in a household that taught me to question everything, had the pleasure of attending a Methodist high school that did not allow the grumblings of the scientific illiterate to interfere with the curriculum, and now am at a university where I get marks for following scientific blogs (Kudos to the LST110 lecturers, student number 14009961 here); and thus I feel desperately sorry for the children that end up in these so-called “faith schools”.
Education should be about learning to be capable of independent thought and applying one’s own mind to evidence to form a personal opinion, yet these schools achieve nothing of the sort. The very idea of being force-fed an ideology as viciously as they are is absolutely terrifying, and bears an uncanny resemblance to the likes of Nazi-Germany. A government that supports these types of institutions, even if it is “just” through funding, is as guilty as the institution itself for committing these crimes against humanity. Such schools are a blemish on the fabric of society for committing child abuse of the highest order.