In another time, we used to often hear the adage that politics and religion don’t mix. But that was then.
Since the Reagan era, prevailing GOP strategy has featured a strong outreach to evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics, and that embrace of Christian groups fueled the emergence of a public policy environment that enabled public funds to be transferred to private and religious schools in the form of educational vouchers.
Never mind that most state constitutions like Ohio ban the use of public funds to support religious schools.
But in Texas, which followed Ohio’s lead in offering a robust universal voucher program that allows students to attend private and religious schools at public expense, Lone Star State residents are finding out that maybe it’s not a good idea to mix politics and religion after all.
The new controversy in the land of Greg Abbot and Ted Cruz involves the desire of several Islamic schools to acquire public funds from the state’s voucher program to subsidize tuition for their enrolled students.
But there’s the problem. These schools aren’t, Texas pols might say, of “the Christian persuasion.” And in Texas and elsewhere, that’s an emerging issue.
Recently, the New York Times highlighted the problem with these schools.
The Texas governor said it out loud. We believe in parents wanting school choice for their children, but…
… But don’t send any money to those people and those schools. (Dear Reader: Substitute the word those for the religion or sect that you don’t want public money to be sent to in support of their educational and spiritual programming.)
So much for the idea of universal education vouchers.
What is going on now in Texas is a controversy long predicted by public school advocates here in Ohio who are strongly anti-voucher and oppose the diversion of more than $1 billion annually in public funds to mostly religious schools under the guise of educational choice options for parents.
A view that is growing in the Buckeye State is that since there are few limits on family income to be eligible for the EdChoice program, these vouchers are going to families that already had children enrolled in private and religious schools.
Data from the previous school year showed that 90% of voucher students aren’t from low-income families, which itself is antithetical to the original idea of vouchers as a means to “save” low-income students from “failing public schools.”
Just like the old saw of not mixing politics and religion, the idea of vouchers being designed for low-income students was from another era.
Moreover, the great majority of new voucher students have never attended public school, where the voucher only serves to offset part of the tuition payment already incurred by families whose income was substantial enough to enroll their children prior to vouchers being available.
Since the controversy in Texas served to illustrate a flaw in that state’s voucher policy beyond the idea of sending public funds to support religious schools, it has also helped to illuminate some additional thinking in Ohio about how wrong state policy is with the EdChoice scheme.
In a recent column in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dan Heintz, a teacher and member of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Board of Education, also said something out loud that perhaps Greg Abbot and other strong-minded Texans might want to think about as they fine-tune their new voucher system.
“Allowing a billion dollars a year of taxpayer money to be hijacked by the unconstitutional EdChoice voucher program will be hard for GOP legislative candidates in November. Too many of the voters they rely on have recognized the dirty truth of EdChoice: If your family is not receiving a voucher, your family is paying for a voucher.”
As the voucher wars heat up in this election year, we have several interesting developments to watch. In Texas, we have the incredible situation of Muslim schools suing the state for violating the constitution because of alleged discrimination shown against them in being excluded from the original voucher invitation.
In Ohio, a school board member reminds the public that whether or not you receive a voucher for whatever kind of private or religious school, you are still paying for it.
And through it all is the lingering constitutional issue that the Ohio EdChoice program presents to anyone who has read its Article VI, Section 2:
“The General Assembly shall make such provisions, by taxation, or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state; but no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.”
Whether it is a Christian or a Muslim school located in Texas or Ohio, and whether we have any family members enrolled or not, we are paying for it.
And what was that talk about choice?
As we continue thinking about the voucher wars known in Ohio as EdChoice, forget about the tired arguments about saving children from failing schools.
You can also forget about whether we should be supporting any kind of religious school, whether Christian or Muslim.
Once again, I call on Republican politicians to go back to school and face mandatory enrollment in a “Science of Reading” class.
The prompt for the politicians to read is this clause: “…no religious or other sect, or sects, shall have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.”
Dear Speaker Huffman and Senate Education Chairman Brenner: can we once again assist you in understanding the meaning of no?
This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal. View the original article.
