Halo:
Is it true that God cannot be mentioned in public schools at all?.
This is a touchy subject and varies greatly from one district to another, and even from one school to another. In my public school experience, teachers are allowed to talk
about religion as long as they do not appear to be trying to preach. Prayer in class is strictly forbidden. I have seen public high schools where religious clubs are allowed, and even invite faculty to come to their meetings to speak, lead prayers, and so on and nobody complains. I have also seen schools where the student handbook expressly forbids gatherings of teachers and students on or off campus for religious purposes, unless a teacher just happens to attend the same place of worship as a student. In my high school classroom, I usually take my cues from my students (within the boundaries set by my profession) when it comes to discussing religion, because many of my students and their families identifiy themselves as Catholics or some other variety of Christian… Last year, when the new Pope was chosen, I mentioned the fact to my students as they were arriving for class, and was immediately pepered with questions about who can be the Pope, what he does, how he is selected, and so on. I spent some time answering these to the best of my ability. I have to say they were more attentive to that impromptu discussion than they were to many other things we talked about that semester!
Halo:
I wish the voucher system could have been approved. Seems very unfair that we pay such high school mandate taxes and don’t benefit from that and then have to shill out for tuition for Catholic schools and get no tax benefits etc. Even with children in college, when filling out the FAFSA they do not take into consideration the amount of money one has to pay for Catholic schools. I was told that was my choice. The big family cannot seem to win in any direction.
I don’t know if I would want to see public school vouchers go to private (especially Catholic) schools. This is not because of any desire to protect the public system. In fact, I think it would be nice to have the competition. The fact is, I do not trust the secular government to leave the schools alone if they accept its money. Catholic schools are able to operate as they do because they are privately funded. There was a church in the Diocese of Sacramento that fired a teacher recently for her involvement in Planned Parenthood. I doubt the state could refrain from interfering in that sort of thing if the school was funded by taxpayer dollars.
I think it would make more sense if parents recieved tax refunds equal (or at least close) to the amount they pay annually in private tuition for their K-12 student, or at least equal to the amount that the public system would use to educate the child, if he or she were attending the local public school. That way, parents have a little less financial strain, an the government keeps its grubby paws out of religious schools.
