What schools are you paying for?
I’m not really a fan of meddling into other people’s affairs, and especially not when it comes to the media, but I was looking at some of my Twitter friends this morning and seeing what they were up to, when I came upon this article from the Star Tribune, the newspaper of the Twin Cities in Minnesota.
The article is evidently a follow up of an article she wrote previously on this state funded Islamic school in Minneapolis that promotes Islam, pushes school wide prayer, and teaches mostly, if not all of the ethics of Islam. Now, really this is not a big deal, until you get down to one thing: the fact that taxpayers of Minnesota are paying for the school.
It’s a charter school, and fully funded by the state. The article goes on to say that the state has only inspected the school 3 times, twice in 2004 and once in 2007, and the focus of the visits were never to check and see if particular religions were being given special attention.
Uh…Duh!
So, this is America, right? So absolutely they have the freedom to pray and the freedom to teach their religion. No problems there for me. But you can bet if that were a Christian based school, all hell (possibly pun intended) would be breaking loose right now. The ACLU (the Against Christian Liberties Union) would be up-in-arms and taking someone to court within 30 days (to be fair, the article did say the ACLU was “launching an investigation”), and the Department of Education would be doing whatever the D of E does, I suppose.
I mean, students and parents are taken to court regularly in public schools by these organizations because they take a stand and do certain things in the name of Christ. Whether they were right or wrong in each individual case is not the point here. The point is that I don’t want to pay, nor should I be required to pay (and this is something I’ve gotten used to) for religious educational institutions that aren’t remotely teaching what I believe. I do want to pay for institutions that are doing a commendable job teaching what I believe, but I’m not allowed to pay those schools via my taxes, says the governement. If I choose I can give those schools any moneys I wish out of my own personal stash.
Like the Islamic school here in Worcester, Massachusetts that opened up in the last 5 years. On their website, they claim to raise their own funding, and this is totally appropriate. Just like thousands of Christian schools that exist today that are struggling to survive because no one forces anyone to pay for their facilities, curriculum, and equipment.
I suppose the question is, what do you think is appropriate?
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Hi Marty,
Very interesting and something that upsets me greatly. I am right with you, I don’t want to be forced to pay for something that I have no belief in whatsoever and that sends people in the opposite direction of Christ. Paying for it makes me feel guilty by association.
There are many ways in which the whole idea of Charter Schools are confused from the get-go. It’s an attempt to combine the best of public and the best of private education. It ends up with many of the worst traits of both.
As a whole, charter schools are able to give the appearance of efficiency and effectiveness because they are able to shun the low-achievers, the disabled, etc. in ways that public schools can not.
On a more specific level, it is quite absurd that this school is getting public funds… but the whole enterprise is so philsophically unsound that one hardly knows where to begin.