I agree with keeping religion teaching out of public school

[AlanFromWichita]

I agree with keeping religion teaching and religious bias out of public schools.

(If this isn’t the right section for this thread, I ask the mods to please move it.)

That is NOT the same as keeping God out of schools. Keeping out religion and keeping out God are two different things. The former is possible; the latter is not.

We always want to blame somebody for what’s wrong. According to prophecy, our society will get much worse before Jesus returns and saves us from ourselves. Why should we expect that it won’t, and then blame society for making schools religion-neutral?

If we want to teach religion in school, just build more religious schools. We say the federal government can’t do anything within a budget, let’s prove that schools can be run better and cheaper than the public schools do now. Arguably, that’s already being proven. Arguably only because the private schools do get the option of selection of the students so you might want to give the public schools a few percent advantage in the comparison. Of course from what little I know about NCLB that is a destructive abomination, too.

This came to mind as I’m on a thread with Huckabee saying the shooting at Sandy Hook was a result of our systematically removing God from schools. I submit that removing God from schools is absolutely impossible. You cannot remove God from the minds of children whose parents actually give enough of a damn to teach their own kids, just because we don’t participate in organized prayer within the school. You cannot Actually Remove God from the school or the building would collapse into a heap of astro-dust. Having a “holiday exhibit” instead of a manger scene doesn’t hurt God a bit – it only hurts the feelings of those who think we should all be mandated to serve the same religion. Well we know what happened when Constantine came to that same conclusion, right?

If we each work on our own prayer lives, we will be empowered and our eyes will be open how to minister to other people without insisting they gaze upon and ponder the religious articles and sayings we think they should.

Alan

 

[bilop]

I agree with keeping religion teaching and religious bias out of public schools.

That is NOT the same as keeping God out of schools. Keeping out religion and keeping out God are two different things. The former is possible; the latter is not.

We always want to blame somebody for what’s wrong. According to prophecy, our society will get much worse before Jesus returns and saves us from ourselves. Why should we expect that it won’t, and then blame society for making schools religion-neutral?

If we want to teach religion in school, just build more religious schools. We say the federal government can’t do anything within a budget, let’s prove that schools can be run better and cheaper than the public schools do now. Arguably, that’s already being proven. Arguably only because the private schools do get the option of selection of the students.

This came to mind as I’m on a thread with Huckabee saying the shooting at Sandy Hook was a result of our systematically removing God from schools. I submit that removing God from schools is absolutely impossible. You cannot remove God from the minds of children whose parents actually give enough of a damn to teach their own kids, just because we don’t participate in organized prayer within the school. You cannot Actually Remove God from the school or the building would collapse into a heap of astro-dust. Having a “holiday exhibit” instead of a manger scene doesn’t hurt God a bit – it only hurts the feelings of those who think we should all be mandated to serve the same religion. Well we know what happened when Constantine came to that same conclusion, right?

Alan

I think the real issue is we shouldn’t have “public” schools. Public funding is fine, but it should be in voucher form, where the parents choose among privately run schools.

Any centrally controlled system is going to push somebody’s agenda. So, now instead of pushing the old mainline Protestant agenda, public schools push the secularist agenda.

Let parents choose if they want their kid to go to a Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, or secular school. Keep the gov’t out of it as much as possible.

God Bless

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I think the real issue is we shouldn’t have “public” schools. Public funding is fine, but it should be in voucher form, where the parents choose among privately run schools.

Any centrally controlled system is going to push somebody’s agenda. So, now instead of pushing the old mainline Protestant agenda, public schools push the secularist agenda.

Let parents choose if they want their kid to go to a Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, or secular school. Keep the gov’t out of it as much as possible.

God Bless

I think there could be much benefit in this approach.

 

[manualman]

I agree that public education should take the form of empowering parents to educate their children in the manner they see fit.

The entire idea that education can occur in a religiously neutral environment is nonsense. Human nature is such that the environment WILL favor a religious worldview. Secularism (the attitude that God is irrelevant at best) IS a religious worldview and it is taught by default in our current public school model. Secularists, of course, believe this is right and just and the only good way to do education…

 

[The_Bucket]

I totally agree Alan. Blaming “secular society” is a freaking cop out. Who are we? We’re part of society. Why aren’t we doing more to educate our children in ways we want to as opposed to handing that responsibility to others.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I agree that public education should take the form of empowering parents to educate their children in the manner they see fit.

The entire idea that education can occur in a religiously neutral environment is nonsense. Human nature is such that the environment WILL favor a religious worldview. Secularism (the attitude that God is irrelevant at best) IS a religious worldview and it is taught by default in our current public school model. Secularists, of course, believe this is right and just and the only good way to do education…

You bring up a couple aspects that both challenge my point, and support it.

For one, when I think about public schools teaching in a religiously neutral environment, I look back at my own public high school (went to public grade school) and honestly I think it was pretty close to that. Certainly there were kids and teachers each with their opinions, but really algebra can be taught to a very advanced level without introducing a single religious concept. So although we may be in fellowship with others of varying religions as we learn, the task itself is religion-neutral.

Of course the problem compounds when one tries to define “religion-neutral” when it comes to biology and health – like teaching about contraceptives for example. Why are the schools teaching about it in the first place? Is that a good thing that it is even addressed – in Catholic schools it is addressed. Even history is going to have a skew, so this supports your point about not being possible for religious neutral. Here’s a concept; how about the government not even trying to be all things to all children, like it does now? If our kids went to school six hours a week for the basics and the parents took care of their kids the rest of the time, the parents could introduce any number of topics of their choice, obviously. The problem is, especially with the damage done by feminism and the Rockefellers, children are now as much wards of the state as they are responsibilities of their parents. And then of course the schools like to tell us that parents are the “primary” educators of the children – funny they usually say that right before they either tell us what we “must” do for them, or blame us for some problem.

To your comments about secularism being a religion, I think it can go either way. One of the witnesses at our wedding was a baroness from Denmark. She had actually had lunch with Hitler. We asked her what he was like and she said she didn’t know, because at these state dinners with many governments and customs represented, they use “manners” as their way of interacting, and they do not discuss their different beliefs. So why can’t we instill “good manners” as a way of interacting? Please? Thank you? May I help you? These may stem from good religious practices, but they don’t need religion – even “secularism” – to empower them. I think there is a lot that people can accomplish without having to even reveal their religious beliefs. On the other hand, if “secularism” means we systematically deny God, then yes we are actually teaching a religion because you cannot prove God doesn’t exist without religious arguments.

All that said, I think the people who have the hardest time with “God being kept out of schools,” are people who thinks it is the government’s job to teach religion to at least other people’s kids, if not to their own. And it had better be a religion they approve of.

Alan

 

[anp1215]

I agree with you, OP. I think a lot of people forget that it was a Catholic bishop who fought to have religious instruction removed from public schools. Why? Because the instruction was Protestant. He argued that it was unfair to advocate Protestantism in the schools, because the consciences of the Catholic school children were being violated. And he was right. Public schools should be neutral.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I agree with you, OP. I think a lot of people forget that it was a Catholic bishop who fought to have religious instruction removed from public schools. Why? Because the instruction was Protestant. He argued that it was unfair to advocate Protestantism in the schools, because the consciences of the Catholic school children were being violated. And he was right. Public schools should be neutral.

Thank you. I didn’t know that. :tiphat:

I think I’ll research this a bit – or if you have a link to documentation of this I could use it in another thread.

Alan

 

[anp1215]

Thank you. I didn’t know that. :tiphat:

I think I’ll research this a bit – or if you have a link to documentation of this I could use it in another thread.

Alan

Archbishop John Hughes of New York
Here is an encyclopedic entry from New Advent:
newadvent.org/cathen/07516a.htm

He actually failed, and as a result, organized the Catholic school system in New York.

 

[manualman]

Alan, I certainly agree that religion is not a part of learning reading, grammar, math and physics. But I’d assert that such things comprise less than half the total instructional time typical students spend in school.

History, literature, health, art, music, social studies, even some ways of teaching science begin to encroach on religious issues. Ask ANY educator and they will tell you that far more important than imparting mechanical skills in students is the challenge of getting them to THINK for themselves. That right there goes to our identity as human beings created in the image of God. Asking them to apply creativity, reason, judgement apart from the greater implications of the fact that they CAN do those things and why they can is inherently an incomplete education (from the catholic perspective).

This is why I drive an 18 year old beater and our family vacations occur in a tent trailer. That’s the only way anymore to afford our bloated secular school taxation AND pay for a genuine catholic education for my kids. It’s fundamentally unjust that I have to pay twice to see my kids educated as I see fit instead of educated as the NEA sees fit.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Alan, I certainly agree that religion is not a part of learning reading, grammar, math and physics. But I’d assert that such things comprise less than half the total instructional time typical students spend in school.

I agree, and honestly I think that we need to rethink what we’re all about, in this system designed first for industry then for government. Maybe kids don’t really need to go most of their waking hours to school or doing homework so they can score points on a scale that measures how well they score points on the scale?

Maybe they need to learn to write, for example. And get this: I haven’t verified it, but I’ve heard we’re going to quit teaching cursive handwriting now. So what is left that they need? Why do they need history, realistically, any more than an art student has to learn about the asymptotes of a hyperbola. Like you say, the schools and their unions and the NEA all are self-serving, of course. Not citizen-serving.

History, literature, health, art, music, social studies, even some ways of teaching science begin to encroach on religious issues. Ask ANY educator and they will tell you that far more important than imparting mechanical skills in students is the challenge of getting them to THINK for themselves. That right there goes to our identity as human beings created in the image of God. Asking them to apply creativity, reason, judgement apart from the greater implications of the fact that they CAN do those things and why they can is inherently an incomplete education (from the catholic perspective).

Exactly. That’s what my Dear Dad used to say, “they need to teach how to think, not what to think.”

Besides, honestly with the resources we have today, a few good episodes of Up to Speed, on hulu.com, and they will have a better understanding of social studies than many hours of in-class boredom studies. Get with it, schools. They think they have to teach technology to children, in addition to everything else. In reality they need to look at using technology to do the teaching for them, so we can leverage technology to cut costs instead of incurring more – just like every competitive business has to do. The kids come to school already knowing how to use the computer. Quit milking them of the time of their lives. That which doesn’t need personal supervision by teacher, they can do at home. Make it so they only have to go one hour out of five, cutting pollution, traffic, and everything else.

Oh yeah, then there’s day care. Not even the conservatives are ready to tackle that, I’d imagine, if the kids started going to one day a week of school, but at least it’s a model I want to propose. Maybe one day a week in school physically (they would rotate days so if they were sick they could go a later day) and 10-15 hours of work at home, using Internet tools? I’d even make it a public priority to make sure all the kids have Internet access.

This is why I drive an 18 year old beater and our family vacations occur in a tent trailer. That’s the only way anymore to afford our bloated secular school taxation AND pay for a genuine catholic education for my kids. It’s fundamentally unjust that I have to pay twice to see my kids educated as I see fit instead of educated as the NEA sees fit.

(Doesn’t that infringe on freedom of religious expression? Making them double pay for it? )

Alan

 

[benjammin]

Thank you. I didn’t know that. :tiphat:

I think I’ll research this a bit – or if you have a link to documentation of this I could use it in another thread.

Alan

If I remember it was St. John Neumann of Philadelphia wasn’t it. He built a lot of Catholic Schools, but he knew that since a lot of poor immigrants couldn’t afford it, or that in rural areas there werent enough Catholics to have schools, he tried to have the protestant ideals in schools removed. Wasn’t it him. If not, that please correct me.

 

[anp1215]

If I remember it was St. John Neumann of Philadelphia wasn’t it. He built a lot of Catholic Schools, but he knew that since a lot of poor immigrants couldn’t afford it, or that in rural areas there werent enough Catholics to have schools, he tried to have the protestant ideals in schools removed. Wasn’t it him. If not, that please correct me.

I was referencing Archbishop John Hughes of NYC.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

The problem with vouchers is that there will be communities where no one is able to set up a school. And there would be areas where the only option for children is one that is completely antithetical to their family’s values. It is a positive thing that we have public schools set up that provide a neutral education for everyone, but where students are not prohibited from practicing their religion and speaking about it to whoever will listen.

Oh, and as far as it being “unjust” that you have to pay for public schools as well as the one you choose, it isn’t. 1. Most of the money comes from property taxes. Good schools=higher property value. When areas reduce funding for the schools and the quality drops, home values plummet. 2. Its no different than paying taxes that go towards medicaid or food stamps and also having to buy your own insurance and food. Its just one of those things that goes along with living in a society.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

The problem with vouchers is that there will be communities where no one is able to set up a school. And there would be areas where the only option for children is one that is completely antithetical to their family’s values. It is a positive thing that we have public schools set up that provide a neutral education for everyone, but where students are not prohibited from practicing their religion and speaking about it to whoever will listen.

You are right. The fact that there are areas where students are highly concentrated, and highly sparse, create a number of issues for schools to factor in. IMO the more spread out students are, the more you save by using today’s technology in their favor. There are so many great lectures on all topics for free using Internet, there has to be a way we can at once reduce the number of mediocre teachers we need, and allow the students to have access to the best, most effective lectures. There are different styles of teachers that can work with many different styles of learning the kids bring to the table.

When I was young you had to take whatever teacher you had in grade school, for all subjects. And they were lousy in some. But not anymore? Why should I listen to a teacher whose students are totally bored with him, instead of a video that explains it in a memorable and understandable way? Why should we not make the best available lessons for the remote teachers. Local teachers could help the students decide on what their learning style is to pick the right learning tools for their personal needs (Facebook could figure this out why can’t the NEA) and monitor and guide them using private and public messages in various formats that we already have the technology for.

Sorry for the rant.

Oh, and as far as it being “unjust” that you have to pay for public schools as well as the one you choose, it isn’t. 1. Most of the money comes from property taxes. Good schools=higher property value. When areas reduce funding for the schools and the quality drops, home values plummet. 2. Its no different than paying taxes that go towards medicaid or food stamps and also having to buy your own insurance and food. Its just one of those things that goes along with living in a society.

I agree that what is “unjust” is strictly a matter of opinion. But I do not agree that paying taxes for education of other people’s kids is inherently implied by living in a society. The society makes a choice, through its laws, that it’s going to happen. The problem is, many of us have seen it this way our whole lives, and are filled with lots of junk about testing standards and sacred cows that are the curricula, the processes, even the people. So we think we have to bow down to Big Education. There is no reason we couldn’t just as well decide a person can “opt out” of paying property taxes, or at least apply them as credit toward their own children’s education. But the problem is that doesn’t empower the government and the educational bureaucracy so it makes you think that there is no way around it.

Sorry again for the rant. I hope it was on topic.

Alan

 

[DebChris]

When I was in school, I learned about Zen Buddhism and Shintoism. Of course, it was a military dependent school and those religions were part of the culture of the country where my father was stationed.
The truth is that many Americans do not know what can and cannot be taught when it comes to religion in school. Students come from many different faith backgrounds. They may be Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, or Atheist. Teachers may not advocate one religion over another. They may, however, teach about the various religions.
Christianity plays a large part in Western History. Students learning about the Middle Ages will learn about the Crusades, the Reformation, and the wars that devastated Europe as well as the Renaissance and the role the Church played in preserving Ancient writing.

The major religions of the world teach the golden rule.
teachingvalues.com/goldenrule.html

 

[manualman]

The problem with vouchers is that there will be communities where no one is able to set up a school. And there would be areas where the only option for children is one that is completely antithetical to their family’s values. It is a positive thing that we have public schools set up that provide a neutral education for everyone, but where students are not prohibited from practicing their religion and speaking about it to whoever will listen.

Oh, and as far as it being “unjust” that you have to pay for public schools as well as the one you choose, it isn’t. 1. Most of the money comes from property taxes. Good schools=higher property value. When areas reduce funding for the schools and the quality drops, home values plummet. 2. Its no different than paying taxes that go towards medicaid or food stamps and also having to buy your own insurance and food. Its just one of those things that goes along with living in a society.

This would be a valid comparison if public schools were only “free” for those meeting low income targets and middle and upper class people had to pay tuition. But that isn’t the scenario, is it? Instead, the atheist next door to me who makes $250,000 a year gets to send his kids to school in an environment totally compatible with his (non)religious worldview. Meanwhile, if I want my kids to be educated in an environment compatible with MY views, I must pay my property taxes just like he does, and also pay the full tuition cost of a private school even though I make way less than half what my neighbor does. This is absolutely NOTHING like food stamps or Medicaid, don’t you agree?

In fact, a modest voucher program would be much MORE like the food stamp and medicaid scenario than our current system. If private school parents were allowed to receive a $2,000 refund for each child enrolled in a private school, EVERYBODY would benefit. The public school system would shrink in enrollment slightly, but they would end up having MORE revenue to spend per student since they currently spend $10k to $17k per kid per year. Close a few schools, redistribute the remaining kids and have plenty of cash to fund the schools. Parents would benefit because the financial penalty for private schooling would be reduced. More kids would get a better education because private schools almost always whoop the public system for educational outcomes. And the total taxpayer bill wouldn’t increase because the increase in money going to private school parents is offset by the reduction in kids educated at exorbitant cost in the public schools. Everybody wins except those who WANT to force secularist education on everybody.

Here’s my local math example scenario:

100,000 kids in the public district, which spends $14k average on each.
About 6,000 kids privately educated within the district. Total current public spending is 100k * $14k = $1.4 Billion dollars

Now open a modest voucher program that refunds $2,000 per private school child. Expect private school enrollment to double (probably not more than that since tuition is more like $4k a year for catholic schools and well above that in other private schools). The new bill? (94,000 * $14k) + (12,000 * $2k) = $1.34 Billion.
OK, the first year might eat up that $60,000,000 in savings due to a couple school closings and reorganization. But for every year after that I’m saving $60M! Or, more likely, they’ll spend it on something else, and get the benefit of more $ per student to fund their education. Even the NEA gets a raise out of the deal! So who looses?

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Here’s my local math example scenario:

100,000 kids in the public district, which spends $14k average on each.
About 6,000 kids privately educated within the district. Total current public spending is 100k * $14k = $1.4 Billion dollars

Now open a modest voucher program that refunds $2,000 per private school child. Expect private school enrollment to double (probably not more than that since tuition is more like $4k a year for catholic schools and well above that in other private schools). The new bill? (94,000 * $14k) + (12,000 * $2k) = $1.34 Billion.
OK, the first year might eat up that $60,000,000 in savings due to a couple school closings and reorganization. But for every year after that I’m saving $60M! Or, more likely, they’ll spend it on something else, and get the benefit of more $ per student to fund their education. Even the NEA gets a raise out of the deal!

Let’s also keep in mind that in your scenario, or at least you didn’t specify otherwise, private parents are STILL paying the part of their taxes toward the public schools, so there is no “loss of revenue.” So this is not an “opt out” situation. It’s just a situation where the government gets to magically pay for certain kids with $2,000 voucher instead of $14,000 cost. So there is no loss of revenue, and costs are directly reduced by $12,000 per kid. So there is no other way to look at it than as a WIN for the public. Notice that even though private school parents would look at this as a huge win, they are still out of pocket whatever the private school charges less the voucher. Our Catholic schools are costing 4-5K per child, so in your scenario I would STILL be paying $2,000 to $3,000 MORE for my childrens’ cheaper education than the rich neighbor spends.

Or look at it this way. Every time we take a child out of public school and into private under this system, that gives us enough money to pay for food stamps for a hungry family. Say $600/month to the family plus maybe $400/month as a modest estimate of the whopping overhead, would be the $12,000 they’d save for each child given a voucher. So we can send more public kids to school for less money, and feed hungry families. So this isn’t something like welfare or food stamps; this is something that could fund welfare and food stamps.

Of course you’re right. No true bureaucrat will put up with a shrinking domain, so they’d end up finding something else to spend the money they saved, times 2.

So who looses?

The power and control trip that certain bureaucrats and politicians love to ride.

Expansion of government power is pretty bipartisan these days, so this will never actually happen unless there is a brand new spending program that goes along with it.

Alan

 

[manualman]

I thought of a better food analogy for BEL than food stamps. Imagine the USA had a public nutrition program in which the feds issued us all ration cards good for 2 pounds of pork products per week, per person forever and paid for it via taxes. If you’re Jewish or muslim, too bad; you still must pay the taxes that support the program, even if you don’t use the meat. Ridiculous.

That’s how the current public education system treats religious people. (Well, almost. We aren’t forbidden to use public education, it just is an obstacle to raising believing catholic kids. Like we need more obstacles…).

 

[AlanFromWichita]

I thought of a better food analogy for BEL than food stamps. Imagine the USA had a public nutrition program in which the feds issued us all ration cards good for 2 pounds of pork products per week, per person forever and paid for it via taxes. If you’re Jewish or muslim, too bad; you still must pay the taxes that support the program, even if you don’t use the meat. Ridiculous.

That’s how the current public education system treats religious people. (Well, almost. We aren’t forbidden to use public education, it just is an obstacle to raising believing catholic kids. Like we need more obstacles…).

And of course if you don’t use the meat, then the feds will spend more money on a PR campaign to “inform” you of the benefits you’re not getting, and encourage you to get with the program. One thing redistributionists can’t stand, is somebody reducing the size of the financial weapon they weild, by not getting “benefits.” So if you don’t pick up your meat you are on a list. Better to pick it up and quietly dispose of it. That way the costs are all being realized and the politicians stay fat and happy.

Alan