Court's voucher ruling opens door to funding religious extremists (gag alert)

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court made history in upholding the constitutionality of laws that provide public funding for private school vouchers. In a 5-4 ruling, the court determined that vouchers do not violate the original intent of the founders' principle of separation of church and state — one of the legacies that we celebrate this Fourth of July weekend.

The majority ruled that parents of kids receiving vouchers will be free to choose the school that receives the voucher; it expands their individual right to an education. GOP leaders in Washington and Minnesota were delighted with the court's ruling. Others thought the full price of the voucher vote may too high.

The first sign of irrational exuberance came from House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, who has already introduced legislation to provide $40 million in federal revenue to fund vouchers for up to 8,000 kids in the District of Columbia schools. He neglected to mention where he was going to find the tax revenue to pay for this new religious entitlement.

And in Minnesota's Legislature, Rep. Tony Kielkucki, R-Lester Prairie, has already promised to secure funding to underwrite this new civil right — the right to a religious education. But citizens have begun asking questions about the impact of separate religious education on the institutional fabric of our civic life.

History suggests that we should restrain this GOP exuberance. Much of their enthusiasm comes from the hope that changing the institutional configuration of our secular institutions will lend more order, discipline and direction to our culture.

Religious hatred and intolerance inspired the al-Qaida terrorist attacks. Our nation's founders knew that a young nation, filled with immigrants of different nationalities, languages and religions, could easily pull apart. This is why public schools were designed as non-sectarian institutions — to unite "we the people."

Public schools teach the content and rules needed for success in America's culture of religiously diverse communities. The separation of church and state is a cornerstone of our democratic republic.

Recent demographic shifts indicate that we need the unifying force of our schools more than ever. Changes in family structure, technology, immigration and our workplace have made public schools essential to our cultural unity.

Since we are at war with religiously intolerant groups whose piety has become predatory, it would be poor timing to use public funds for religious schools. One can imagine what such religious entitlement might look like in a few years: the American Orthodox School for a Reunited Israel, the American al-Qaida Military Institute, the White Christian School for Justice, the American Moslem School of Jihad.

The federal debt is currently more than $6 trillion dollars, which may slow taxpayer enthusiasm for public funding of religious schools. Congress just increased the federal debt ceiling to $6.4 trillion. The increase was needed because we have added $48 billion to the Defense Department expenditures for the war on (religious) terror, and we will spend another $37 billion on Homeland Security.

The combined effects of the recession and the Sept. 11 attacks, the tax cuts and rebates have turned our federal projected surplus into a projected deficit of $150 billion. In Minnesota, the Department of Finance is warning of a possible $2.5 billion shortfall in the next biennium. Taxpayers may not want to fund private schools with new taxes.

Since Minnesota's Republican Party has a platform that favors cutting both taxes and spending, one can see how tricky this issue will be for voters in the next election. In November, Minnesota citizens will vote for candidates and funding plans for vouchers. Political leaders may suggest taxing worship services, circumcisions, marriages, confessions and even prayer to generate more revenues. Others will urge us to cut spending on environment, transportation or public schools. But the cost to our civic unity and tolerance will be significant.

It seems peculiar that an activist court should endorse funding private religious school as we wage — and finance — a war on terror inspired by religious intolerance. In time of war, we need to pull together. The war on terror and our budget problems should help citizens see the full price for funding private school vouchers.

Mittlefehldt, 55, of Anoka, is one of eight Pioneer Press Community Columnists for 2002. He is a social studies teacher at Anoka High School. E-mail him at pjwd@msn.com.

Thanks for the gag alert! But, I think it should have been a double-fisted gag alert.

Public schools teach the content and rules needed for success in America's culture of religiously diverse communities

And this is supposed to be a defense? This is exactly what is wrong with the public schools! They are supposed to teach readin', writin', and 'rithmetic, period! They were not/should not be the institutions that define what success is. Since the public schools DON'T do the basics noted above, people don't want their kids going there. They do want their children receiving a quality education. But, the public schools are not focused on a quality education, they are focused on a PC-based, watered-down, ultra-leftist indoctrination.

The separation of church and state is a cornerstone of our democratic republic.

NO, JACKA$$, freedom is the cornerstone of our republic. And, I would assume that this puke supports a woman's right to choose to have or not have a child, what's the difference when the SAME MOTHER wants to choose the school that a child goes to? Shows how corrupt this argument is --morally, as well as intellectually.

He is a social studies teacher at Anoka High School

I guess he wasn't smart enough to take a calculus or Diffy-Q course? Or, even a logic course for that matter.

This is the real problem with these leftist and moral relativists...they have equate my son's teacher with Osama Bin Laden's goons. My son goes to a private school. It also has a religious influence. I can assure this MORON that my son is not being taught to "hate the infidel". Besides, my son's teacher is black so there goes his "White Christian School for Justice" comment, as well. In addition, the reason why I send my son to this school is not because they teach him to hate, it is because they ACTUALLY TEACH HIM!

Public schools teach the content and rules needed for success in America's culture of religiously diverse communities.

If this were true it would be great, Except that they don't. What they teach is the least common denominator of leftist political indoctrination. And even that is done with a minimum of efficiency.

At present, the only unifying force in our schools is that they are failing to teach everyone, equally. Yeah! An entire generation of equal opportunity failure. I feel so much better.

Mittlefehldt, 55, of Anoka, is one of eight Pioneer Press Community Columnists for 2002. He is a social studies teacher at Anoka High School.

Well that explains it, he's an imbecile with an agenda. I just wish he would learn to keep his mouth shut about issues he clearly doesn't understand.

"The only "public schools" that were available when this country were founded were usually provided by the local church in the community."

Hm. From John Adams's A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765:

But the wisdom and benevolence of our fathers rested not here. They made an early provision by law, that every town consisting of so many families, should be always furnished with a grammar school. They made it a crime for such a town to be destitute of a grammar schoolmaster for a few months, and subjected it to a heavy penalty. So that the education of all ranks of people was made the care and expense of the public, in a manner that I believe has been unknown to any other people ancient or modern.

So John Adams, in 1765, maintained not only that grammar schools in every sizable community had been established by his time, but that the "care and expense" of such schools were charged to the public.

But yet, see what the results of this were:

The consequences of these establishments we see and feel every day. A native of America who cannot read and write is as rare an appearance as a Jacobite or a Roman Catholic, that is, as rare as a comet or an earthquake. It has been observed, that we are all of us lawyers, divines, politicians, and philosophers. And I have good authorities to say, that all candid foreigners who have passed through this country, and conversed freely with all sorts of people here, will allow, that they have never seen so much knowledge and civility among the common people in any part of the world.How far have we fallen from this standard?! And, if all the most motivated people, and their resources, leave public schools for private ones, then what will happen to the part of the population that doesn't leave? Perhaps something like this:

It is true, there has been among us a party for some years, consisting chiefly not of the descendants of the first settlers of this country, but of high churchmen and high statesmen imported since, who affect to censure this provision for the education of our youth as a needless expense, and an imposition upon the rich in favor of the poor,

Gee, have we heard this last on FR before?

and as an institution productive of idleness and vain speculation among the people, whose time and attention, it is said, ought to be devoted to labor, and not to public affairs, or to examination into the conduct of their superiors. And certain officers of the crown, and certain other missionaries of ignorance, foppery, servility, and slavery, have been most inclined to countenance and increase the same party. Be it remembered, however, that liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood. And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and trustees. And the preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks, is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country. It is even of more consequence to the rich themselves, and to their posterity. The only question is, whether it is a public emolument; and if it is, the rich ought undoubtedly to contribute, in the same proportion as to all other public burdens, — that is, in proportion to their wealth, which is secured by public expenses.

So, says John Adams, the reason you are rich is not only because of your own efforts, but because America affords you the liberty to pursue wealth. Is that not true enough? Try being rich on your own efforts in Russia, or Indonesia, or Iraq, or any country where the main qualifications for gaining wealth is having relatives in government.

And then, says John Adams, that liberty is dependent on having a populace educated well enought that it can enquire into the actions of it's rulers and judge them, and that finally has the wisdom to either replace the rulers, or the form of government itself, until liberty is once again preserved.

And, so, in the end, it is necessary for the preservation of liberty to ensure that all people are educated, and it is therefore justifiable to tax the wealthy to do so.

So I too criticize the state of public education in some areas of this country (I live in the suburbs of Chicago, and our schools are in pretty good shape). But to me, the remedy is not to withdraw from them, but instead to engage them and restore them to what they should be. School boards are elected every year in this country.

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