Separation of church and state...

Re: Separation of church and state...

• juniper19 member

  September 2012

  Because the Supreme Court said it is OK:

  https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=91506

  ETA: I agree with you, though.  (And so do 4 Supreme Court justices).
  

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• halliekathleen

  September 2012

  juniper19:

  Because the Supreme Court said it is OK:https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=91506 ETA: I agree with you, though.nbsp; And so do 4 Supreme Court justices.

  
  
  
  Oh! Well that explains it! Haha.
  
  It just doesn't make sense but I guess it's good for the catholic schools that are struggling because that money keeps them open. My husband used to work at an inner city catholic school that operated on mostly vouchers. If they lost their voucher students they would have had to shut down.

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• blush64 member

  September 2012

  I briefly read the article and although it said parent's could send their child to a private school instead of the underperforming public school. That includes religious schools but it isn't aimed at bring kids to religion. Why suggest only Catholic schools? The article said private including religious schools. Where I live there are also Jewish, Muslim and other Christian private schools.

  EDIT I see they mention in the article Catholic schools but seriously, couldn't they go to other religious schools. Just curious. Because if not, that wouldn't be fair

  EDIT Ok, read it better. Some do attend other religious schools but most Catholic. It just seemed odd at first glance to only ask why they were paying for Catholic schools.
  

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• halliekathleen

  September 2012

  The vouchers only pay a certain amount, so if a family chooses a school that costs over the amount they have to pay the difference. Private schools not affiliated with a church usually cost more where I live it is around 8K to 20K a year so although it is an option it is not really an affordable option for most people.

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• halliekathleen

  September 2012

  Spooko:

  I'm not super knowledgeable about this, so bear with me. In what way does it cause a problem if the parents are the one making the choice. It isn't like they're mandating anything. And I have to imagine that if there were other schools available besides Catholic ones this assistance would still apply, no? So it isn't singling out Catholicism, either.

  
  
  No it is not singling out Catholicism but I am only familiar with the curriculum of Catholic schools which I know involves going to Mass and attending daily religion classes. I guess I have more of an issue with the fact that the government is paying for students to learn and practice a particular religion not just Catholic.
  
  Edit: My phone has chosen not to use parenthesis and it is annoying!

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• numeria11 member

  September 2012

  halliekathleen:

  Spooko:

  I'm not super knowledgeable about this, so bear with me. In what way does it cause a problem if the parents are the one making the choice. It isn't like they're mandating anything. And I have to imagine that if there were other schools available besides Catholic ones this assistance would still apply, no? So it isn't singling out Catholicism, either.

  No it is not singling out Catholicism but I am only familiar with the curriculum of Catholic schools which I know involves going to Mass and attending daily religion classes. I guess I have more of an issue with the fact that the government is paying for students to learn and practice a particular religion not just Catholic. Edit: My phone has chosen not to use parenthesis and it is annoying!

  Generally the bigger issue most people have with a voucher system is that you are taking money that was supposed to be going into already troubled schools and putting it into other areas (ie private schools) meaning that underperforming schools now have less money to make the changes they need to to get the scores around.  Sort of a vicious circle thing. 

  Honestly it doesn't really bug me that they are learing about religion since as we said it can go to any religous school or potentially (I assume) something like a Charter school as well that would be non-religious.  Again the whole seperation of church and state thing is that we won't choose a particular religion or fund it just it, it's not saying that we can't treat them all equally, which in theory this law does.  It's not the fault of the law that there may only be for example 2 Jewish schools and 20 Catholic schools as long as they are all given equal opportunity to use the money.  It bugs me more that you are taking tax dollars out of school systems that desperately are underfunded to deal with the level of issues they see already. 

  

  
  

   

   

   

  

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