BUSH OFF KEY IN SINGING PRAISES OF PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS

PhxNews ^

[hsmomx3]

VOUCHER "RELIGION TAX," ATHEIST GROUP CHARGES

President George Bush is wrong in supporting a voucher scheme to aid Washington, DC parochial schools and other religion-affiliated schools the country, an Atheist civil rights groups charged today.

On Saturday, Mr. Bush sang the praises of Catholic education in a White House ceremony that included more than 200 Roman Catholic officials, including members of the National Catholic Education Association. Once again, the President singled out religious belief for adulation noting "Catholic schools carry out a great mission, to serve God by building knowledge and character... By teaching the word of God, you prepare your students to follow a path of virtue..." Bush added that he is pressuring Congress to pass a $14 million voucher experiment that would mostly benefit Parochial schools through a Washington, DC voucher scheme.

Ellen Johnson, President of American Atheists, said that Mr. Bush has no business using public funds to support religious schools.

"Bush is singling out the Catholic Parochial school system for special treatment while he is busy gutting the secular public school system," Johnson said. She also questioned whether it was appropriate to "reward" the Roman Catholic Church, which has access to millions of young people after the devastating and embarrassing pedophile scandal.

"The church is being held financially accountable for clerics who terrorized and molested young boys over decades; and now the taxpayers are being asked to bail out Roman Catholic schools through a publicly funded voucher program," said Johnson.

Dave Silverman, Communications Director for American Atheists, charged that Bush made false and misleading statements about the Parochial school system. The president, for instance, praised Catholic schools for their high academic standards.

"Catholic schools can 'pick and choose' students, a luxury the public schools do not have," said Silverman. "The public schools must educate all students."

Silverman noted that while Bush praised the Catholic school system for reaching out to minorities, statistics indicate that many parochial districts have a shoddy record on racial balance. In New Orleans, for instance, only 6% of enrolled students in Catholic schools are African-American.

"We need to spend more money on public education for all," said Silverman. "It's unfair to impose a 'Religion Tax' in order to support the religious school system of the Roman Catholic Church."

American Atheists is a nationwide movement, which defends the civil rights of nonbelievers, works for the separation of church and state, and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

"Catholic schools can 'pick and choose' students, a luxury the public schools do not have," said Silverman. "The public schools must educate all students."

The government schools assiduously try to obtain day-care custody of all, and they claim to educate all. But government schools are noted for fighting any measure which would allow them to prove that in fact they actually do "educate all."

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

We err in describing schools as 'Catholic School'. They should be described as 'private enterprise'. Education costs should be out-sourced from government and privatized if more economical using current government costs as the base.

That a private education enterprise should be discriminated because of Catholic ownership should be challenged. No religious test is applied when government funds are disbursed to law firms, medical practices, or grocery stores.

The test is that the government has no business directing me to send my child to a sectarian school, either. So the selection of school must be voluntary. Once establish that, and the government's attempt to discriminate against a Catholic (or whatever) teacher/administrator because their school will teach "the fourth R"--religion--in addition to the government-mandated "three Rs" can clearly be seen as nothing but interference with the free exercise of religion.

[TradicalRC]

You gotta love the fact that folks who believe in religious education are treated as second class citizens in this country. They have to pay twice: once for the governments atheist schools, and once for private religious schools.

Why is it wrong to take an atheists money to pay for religious schools but perfectly okay to take the Christians' money to pay for atheist schools?

More leftist hypocrisy, I guess...

[buwaya]

Washington DC is the exception to that rule, not being a State.

[buwaya]

It doesn't matter what they are called, the Supreme Court upheld the Cincinnati vouchers to parochial schools in 2002, so this is a dead issue.

[buwaya]

There is a split in demand conditions for parochials - in non-urban areas there generally are waiting lists because of a shortage of facilities, as the Church historically held little property there and has been unable to come up with the capital to build facilities to meet demand; in urban areas many schools lack applicants, particularly ones who can pay even nominal tuition, for schools that were built many decades ago, but the population they served has since departed.

[nina0113]

Two new Catholic high schools are under construction in NoVa, as well as several elementary schools.

There's another one besides the Prince William/Stafford one? WAY cool.

Down in Fredburg, there's a defunct school (Maury) the city has owned for a gazillion years - a couple of years ago, they had a town meeting to entertain proposals for what to do with it. The parish asked people to show up and support the group who wanted to buy it & run it as a Catholic high school, so we went. One of the other proposals was from an arts group who wanted the city to GIVE them the building to use as an Arts Center, GIVE them the money to remodel it into studio spaces, then GIVE them ongoing money to keep it running. There were several other proposals to turn it into various housing/office spaces, but none of them were acceptable either, and the school continues unused.

[ArrogantBustard]

That may be the case in some cities. I don't know... I do know that even the "urban" Catholic schools is Washington, DC, Montgomery Co. and Prince George's Co. have long waiting lists. In the suburbs in Fairfax, Loudon, and Prince William Counties, they're building as fast as the planning commission bozos will let them.

Nina: The 'other' new high school will be in Loudon County.

[nina0113]

I have this fantasy of winning the lottery and calling up the Bishop's office and saying I need to speak to him right now.

And when the receptionist says, "Oh, yes, and who do you think YOU are?" (not that she would ever actually say anything so rude, but, hey, it's MY fantasy), I respond "I'm the woman who just won $300 million in the lottery and I want to build some schools!"

[VermiciousKnid]

I have asked it before, I'll ask it again, and I will keep right on asking it until I get an answer:

Why is it OK to use "taxpayer money" (MY MONEY!!!) to help fund my child's education at Notre Dame University in the form of Pell Grants, etc., but not OK to use "taxpayer money" (STILL MY MONEY!!!) to help fund my child's education at Notre Dame High School?

Regards,

[buwaya]

It is OK to do either, as per the Supreme court.

The rest is merely politics.

[buwaya]

Conditions differ, no doubt.

I understand places like New York and Cincinnati and San Francisco have excess capacity in parochials.

Perhaps the important factor is whether a city had a large urban Catholic population 50 years ago. I don't think Washington was one of these.

[hsmomx3]

I think you should be able to have an exemption on the school taxes you pay. And, if one wants to donate to the schools, they should be able to do so but an exemption is in order.

[attagirl]

Re your post #9--Right you are! Along with faith based initiatives, this is a bad idea. With it will come madrassas and Hogwarts Schools.

[attagirl]

then why do you want to involve Big Brother and all his strings?

[gueroloco]

On the contrary, I am anti-voucher and want government out of the education business. I simply fail to see how an atheist spokesman can call Bush's praising of Catholic schools for having high academic standards "false and misleading". The spokesman apparently thinks that high standards are a "luxury" public schools cannot adopt , implying that parochial schools have some sort of unfair advantage. That parochial schools choose not to set the bar as pathetically low as the public schools is neither false nor misleading. It is a fact. The "luxury" that public schools do enjoy, in almost every case, is a much larger financial resource base(taxes) to draw from. Given this distinct advantage, one is left to wonder, "Why is public education such a miserable failure?'

[attagirl]

"Why is public education such a miserable failure?"

In a nutshell, because it is meant to be. As Charlotte Iserbyt has chronicled, it's a "deliberate dumbing down." Look her up on google. She knows what she's talking about.

Well, it is true, you know, that Catholic schools do not have to educate all who come to its doors.

Having said that, the same creeps who lurk at the NEA and DOE are at the Catholic Education Assn. and (sometimes)the dioceses. So the fact that there are standards at all is testimony to the goodness of those who want to educate rather than indoctrinate and follow fads.

p.s. the fact that there's less money is a real plus too. Education is not what's expensive--it's indoctrination which is.

[Snuffington]

Who the heck cares that the guys who wrote the First Amendment were so supportive of religion that they hired a Christian chaplain for Congress? Some judges decided the First Amendment means religion and state are like oil and water. We peasants ought not disagree.

[The_Eaglet]

Re your post #9--Right you are! Along with faith based initiatives, this is a bad idea.

I agree about faith-based initiatives, which is more socialism, and even more of a usurpation because the Congressional act that funds it violates the first Amendment which says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

This does not prohibit state and local governments from such involvement, but it's off-limits for the feds.

[gueroloco]

Of course it is true that Catholic schools do not have to educate all who come to their doors. Neither do Baptist,Episcopalian, Jewish, or non-denominational private schools. I'm certainly aware that public schools must admit all- my beef with them (other than indoctrination and revisionism) is that they mollycoddle the lazy and reinforce an entitlement mentality. They eschew accountability/responsibility, and do not even attempt to give a meaningful education. I know many public school teachers, and I'm not slamming them- it's the education bureaucracy and the NEA that are running things into the ground. I only hope the NEA/DOE types you claim lurk at Catholic schools never gain a foothold. I strongly feel that without alternatives to publik edukasun, our nation would be a banana republic.