Children at St. Lucy’s School in the Bronx attended a summer program in July. St. Lucy’s will offer six publicly funded pre-k classes in the fall. Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times
Posted on 08/07/2014 2:52:54 PM PDT by NYer
Children at St. Lucy’s School in the Bronx attended a summer program in July. St. Lucy’s will offer six publicly funded pre-k classes in the fall. Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times
The biblical story of Noah’s Ark will be taught, without mention of who told Noah to build it. Challah, the Jewish bread eaten on the Sabbath, will be baked, but no blessings said over it. Some crucifixes will be removed, but others left hanging.
These are the kinds of church-state gymnastics that New York City and some religious schools are performing as Mayor Bill de Blasio expands government-funded prekindergarten. Because of inadequate public school capacity, the de Blasio administration has been urging religious schools and community organizations to consider hosting the added programs.
But the push is raising fresh questions for civil libertarians concerned about church-state issues, and for the schools themselves, which want to help the city and qualify for its roughly $10,000-per-student tuition payments while preserving some of the faith-based elements that attract their main clientele.
The concerns crystallized in a one-page document the city issued in May to religious schools weighing whether to host full-day prekindergarten classes. Rather than state simply, as other municipalities have, that all religious instruction is prohibited, the city’s guidelines say that religious texts may be taught if they are “presented objectively as part of a secular program of instruction.” Learning about one’s culture is permitted, city officials say, but religious instruction is not.
This provision has set off debates in the offices of many schools, particularly Orthodox yeshivas, about just what is permissible. Many students in these schools are from deeply religious homes where the line between the cultural and religious is not only blurred, but absent.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Catholic ping!
Ping!
There is no excuse for Religious organizations accepting government funding for anything at all. Government funding must lead to government religion and apostasy.
Imagine not teaching the truth about Noah and no blessing being taught about the challah bread. It’s not only about not teaching about religion: it is about not teaching our children about our culture, our history, the beauty of bible stories and the glory of Jewish struggle and survival.
But, I guess that’s really the point, isn’t it?
Kaiser Wilhelm - bah, he stinks on ice, as we NYers say.
At ten grand per student, why not pay a parent to stay home with the child?
I thought this was settled. The Obama administration has given hundreds of millions to churches over the last few years in preparation for the invasion they set up for this year.
Don’t take Satan’s money.
Don’t let Satan conquer you with money.
This is for “pre” K.
Amen!
I'm aware of that. I meant that since Obama has been giving millions of dollars to churches people should take that to mean it's okay if DeBlasio does it, too.
For now they allow a Godless Noah, unblessed challah, and a few crucifixes. The school will take the government bait cheese and the trap will come down. Gotcha!
They might, if they could get the parent into the union, as they will a large number of the new preschool personnel.
One of those upper-Midwest states tried this with people caring for their own handicapped or elderly family members.
In this case the idea was to tax the "rich" more so that every kid can have access to pre-K, as Comrade DeBlasio constantly reiterated during his campaign last year. And like most leftist programs, it is riddled with consequences that its proponents didn't have the foresight to predict. Here we have the delicious irony of a new leftist concept running afoul of a standard leftist precept (the unshakable barrier between church and state) in its "infancy."
Aside from the inevitable church-state issues, attending pre-K has not been statistically shown to have a positive impact on a child's long-term academic success. But the left doesn't have any aversion to pushing pre-K for that reason. Rather it staunchly pushes the idea because it enables them to start the statist indoctrination process on kids' minds at a younger age.
Are people coming back to God?
Or is deBlasio wheeling and dealing?
I just re=thought this.
Why accept any government money at all? Mother Angelica didn’t — and she could do what she wanted.
Government religion.
I agree.
What? Allow a mother to actually teach her own child? Are you insane? /s
Its a trap.
Use the “reasonable” restrictions to hook the churches on the $$$. Once they’re hooked start implementing lots of unreasonable restrictions under the threat of yanking the funding and putting the now-dependent schools out of business.
Liberals are very good at this. Look at the Michelle Obama lunch restrictions. The schools can always say “no”, they just lose the $$$ they now need if they do so.
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