Charter schools may be an unacceptable compromise with the state-controlled education system.
The new Democratic Governor of Ohio, Ted Strickland, has the Republican-dominated statehouse in an uproar over his proposal to eliminate funding for new, private “charter schools” in the state budget. The Ohio budget has previously allowed children in poor performing public school districts to apply for state funds to be directed to a private charter school on their behalf. Even Christian schools have been able to compete with public schools for state funds to educate children.
The argument for charter schools is convincing: many charter schools have a proven superiority over public schools intellectually and financially. In short, you get a higher quality education for less state money. Introducing competition into public education can only be good for the children and for the taxpayers.
The argument against charter schools is as follows: granting state funds for private Christian schools is a violation of the separation of church and state. It also takes desperately needed funds away from the public school systems where the funds are needed the most: in poor-performing districts.
In short, the introduction of private charter schools into the public education field of competition is good for the taxpayers and the students, whereas maintaining the monopoly of government-controlled public education over the state treasury is good for the teacher’s unions. We know where Ted Strickland’s loyalties lie.
The problem with the deterioration of public education is not a financial problem. Our nation spends more per child for public education than any other civilized society and we are ranking dead last among industrialized nations in science and math. I live in Zanesville, Ohio, and the cost of Zanesville’s public education system is twice the average cost of a private school in Ohio ($9,200 annually per child in Zanesville versus $4,500 annually per child in an Ohio private school). Even public school superintendents wouldn’t freely give their own money for a Zanesville public school for their own children if they had the choice. The problem with public education is not a lack of funds; it is who is doing the spending of it.
Parents love their children more than child development experts and state bureaucrats and have the God-given responsibility for the education of their own children. Parents would never have taken prayer, the Ten Commandments, and phonics out of school. Parents would never have brought condoms, atheism, acceptance of homosexuality, and “outcome-based education” into school – only bureaucrats could be so impervious to common sense. The cost, efficiency, and quality of the education of future generations will drastically improve if parents are at the helm. If we want to do what is best for the education of Ohio’s children and the rights of their over-taxed parents, we must break the state’s monopoly over public funds for public education. Parents must be free to educate their own children as they wish, without state interference and without state coercion of their wealth for a public education system to which they would not give willingly if they had the choice.
There are two million home-educated children and 5.9 million children educated in private school. Many of them have been dissuaded from the public education system because of the deteriorating intellectual quality. Others fear that evil company will corrupt the good morals of their children, as the Bible warns in I Corinthians 15:33. Others have withdrawn their children from the government-controlled education system because of moral objections to the curriculum and the prevailing moral standards in public schools.
Most parents, I have discovered, are woefully ignorant of the deteriorating moral conditions of public education. Government schools have become more and more captive to the leftist agenda of the socialists, radical homosexuals, feminists, earth-worshipers, and atheists. Public schools have become pulpits of humanism and liberal dogma. Science classes continue to propagate the myth of atheistic macroevolution in spite of the plethora of damning evidence against it. The federal courts have consistently upheld the government’s right to teach children, without parental permission or oversight, to accept homosexuality and practice “safe sex” like “mutual masturbation” and anal sex with a condom.
It was not always this way. Before 1962, prayers were prayed and the Bible regularly read in public schools. Congress approved the first publishing of Bibles in the U.S. in 1782, “a neat edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools.” McGuffey’s Reader, the mainstay of public education from 1836 to 1920, primarily consisted of prayers to God, Scriptural references, and religious instruction to abstain from sin. One of our first educational bureaucrats, Noah Webster, said, “Education is useless without God and the Bible.” This sentiment is almost universal in the first generation of public schools in the United States. The anti-Christian sway of public education has been recent – only in the last thirty years has our nation abandoned the Bible as the basis of morality and adopted a counterfeit standard of atheistic humanism.
It is frequently repeated that teaching religion in schools violates the constitutional wall of separation between church and state. When Thomas Jefferson penned those infamous words “separation of church and state,” he did so in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in response to their concern that the Federal government would sponsor a particular denomination as the English government had done with the Anglican church and as the states had done with their preferred Christian denomination. Jefferson assured them that the federal government would not hinder the free practice of their religion. The same time that Jefferson wrote those words, however, he was superintendent of the school district of Columbia, and can you guess what the only required textbook was for all classes? The Holy Bible!
Thomas Jefferson said, “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” In his endorsement of a separation of church and state, he never intended to imply that the public schools should not endorse and teach Christianity, but that the state would not hinder the free practice of religion. The separation of church and state, as it is commonly taught, is a myth that has been fostered to preserve the government’s monopoly over the corrupt public education establishment, at the expense of our children’s minds and souls, and at the expense of the taxpayers’ wealth.
The Scripture asks, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” It is not a rhetorical question: if we discover that the foundation of our children’s public school are destroyed by termites or by rot, we must board up and abandon the dangerous building and build again upon a steadfast foundation. The government-controlled public education system is a tower built upon sand, intellectually and morally. Parents must assume their proper role as superintendents of our own children’s education and build that education upon the proper foundation. Charter schools still allow the state to be in charge, and although this is a good step in the right direction because it allows some parents to direct the education of their own children and it allows some of these children to enjoy a Christian education, it is still an incomplete remedy in that it denies this choice to all taxpaying parents. If we want our children to flourish intellectually and morally for much less expense, we must have a separation of church and state and parents must assume their God-given role of superintendent of education of their own children.
docjohnston@adelphia.net
http://www.RightRemedy.org
Read more articles by Patrick Johnston
The base issue is that the public school system is a failure! One of the reasons is the moral decay introduced into the system by excessively liberal teachers and administrators. Another reason is that making bad schools generates more jobs. Then stir in a system where anyone can go to school regardless of origin or citizenship and the formula for failure is almost complete. All that is needed to complete the failure is a system that does not let students and families pick the school of their choice making the failed public system the only choice. Add insult to injury to those brave enough to home school or spend money to save children from this education abuse you force them to pick up the ever growing cost of the failed system!
The last time that I read the constitution (last week) I could not find anything saying or intimating church and state seperation. The only thing I could find was the indication that a government supported religion could not be established.
Comment by Mickey G | May 15, 2007
Good points Mickey.
Comment by Fistandantalus | May 15, 2007
Your per pupil cost for private schools is inaccurate. Also if your comment of Separation of School and State were put to the wire, private/parochial schools would lose much of their ‘state funding’ - Yes, there is state funding also going to private/parochial schools (above and beyond tuition) and those which do not receive state funding cost between 10,000 – 16,000+ per year, per student. The majority of parents could not afford education if they had to pay the total amount, without any state funding.
The state funding for education is going up but also are many costs. And the fact that school levies are failing at a very high rate adds to the problem immensely.
Many expenses have increased in the operating costs of education which have nothing to do with inflation or flaws in district spending. The state of Ohio has to take into account the following: For example, 1) Special Education - our special education programs have grown dramatically in past years, 2) Technology - technology changes every year and students must be educated and ready to work in our world of technology, 3) State requirements - instruction & testing to meet higher standards and state report cards are mandatory and not completely funded by the state, 4) NCLB - the national No Child Left Behind Act (federal law) is being funded at only 50% by Federal funding leaving the remainder of funding to state and local shares. Other rising costs which have a major impact on operating expenses include fuel, gas & electric, supplies, services, etc. Some of these rise at a greater % than that of inflation, with which most want to compare all numbers.
Your have to realize we have public schools for a reason – to offer education for all children, regardless of race, family income, religion, etc. School funding is very complicated and it does need to researched to be understood. Research of state funding of private/parochial schools in Ohio and public school funding need to be researched to understand all school funding. The facts, the complexity, and the inaccurate information distributed by some can be answered by research. It does take a lot of time to do so, but it will keep others from distributing inaccurate information.
Comment by skgalb | May 15, 2007