Indiana vouchers prompt thousands to change schools

[defendandprotect]

Indiana vouchers prompt thousands to change schools

By TOM COYNE
Associated Press

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) -- Weeks after Indiana began the nation's broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were only recently on the brink of closing for lack of pupils.

It's a scenario public school advocates have long feared: Students fleeing local districts in large numbers, taking with them vital tax dollars that often end up at parochial schools. Opponents say the practice violates the separation of church and state.

In at least one district, public school principals have been pleading with parents not to move their children.

"The bottom line from our perspective is, when you cut through all the chaff, nobody can deny that public money is going to be taken from public schools, and they're going to end up in private, mostly religious schools," said Nate Schnellenberger, president of the Indiana State Teachers Association.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_INDIANA_SCHOOL_VOUCHERS?SITE=CACRU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT



Not unlike taxpayer money now going to "faith-based" religious organizations, the vouchers
are benefiting Catholic schools. Only 6 of the 240 private schools eligible are secular.

Many of the Catholic schools were under threat of closing - one of the Catholic schools had
702 students at its peak in '53 -- with enrollment having fallen to 135 students most
recently. 213 students are now enrolled.

This is not only true of Indiana - voucher programs in other states are creating a "boom"
in Catholic school sign ups.

About 70% of the vouchers are being used to enroll at Catholic schools.

$1.3 million loss to South Bend districts due to these voucher transfers.

[HockeyMom]

1. Parochial school tuition is cheaper

THAT is why. A voucher won't even come close to the tuition at a private school. Where I live in Florida, the tuition at a local non-sectarian private school runs $18,000 to $24,000 per student a year. Vouchers? I doubt it unless a parent already could afford it.

Charters? Well, there is one Charter in Miami complaining that the reason their school received a failing grade was because they got all the failing students from public schools. Well, hello? If your kid was an A or B student in public school, why would you take them out? UNLESS, you wanted to send them to a RELIGIOUS school.

[rocktivity]

2. More to the point, the private schools can't take up the slack.

What is the overflow supposed to do? Aren't their rights violated, too? This does not promote the general welfare.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[democraticinsurgent]

3. Clearly unconstitutional

By most people's reading of the Indiana constitution prohibiting tax dollars from flowing to any organization that promotes religion. They got around by saying they are giving the $ to the parents and then the parents are choosing the school. Sneaky, but still not lawful.

Except that the courts here--so far--have upheld it. So much for the role of the judiciary to stay out of politics and review laws based upon the constitution.

[theaocp]

4. Earth to the Catholic Church ... Come in, Catholic Church.

As a reformed Catholic myself, let me let you in on a little secret: you're going extinct and this little blip of indoctrinates will not stop the inevitable. Get over yourselves and stop hindering progress in the world. Oh, and it's fucking unconstitutional, too. What a bunch of fuckers.

[madrchsod]

5. we put our son into a catholic school for 3 yrs.

the catch was we did`t have to pay if he became a catholic. people don`t realise that when they send thier children to a catholic school there`s a lot of pressure to join . our son could`t be in any class that taught religion or go to daily prayers. he had to sit in an empty classroom. he finally joined the church after one year.

i wonder if these churches will do the same?

[NNN0LHI]

13. We were Catholic and my mother couldn't get a discount at the local Catholic grade school for us

She has held a grudge about that for over 50 years. She still goes off about it if someone mentions it.

Don

[badtoworse]

6. If the Indiana public schools were so wonderful, why would the students leave?

I see this as an opportunity for working class parents to send their kids to a better school they would otherwise be unable to afford.

I went to a Catholic elementary school and high school and got into a great engineering school. I've enjoyed an interesting and pretty well paid career. Most of my friends from Catholic school did well. In general, my friends from public school did not do as well.

I would not want to see a child denied the same opportunities I had because their parents could not afford to pay school tax AND private tuition on top of that.

I don't see a constitutional issue at all. Once the voucher is issued, the money is controlled by the parents and it's up to them where to send their kids - public or private schools. Other than insuring that the private schools meet standards, what difference should it make to the state whether or not the private school is religious?

This also injects an element of competition into the process. If the public schools were better, maybe more parents would want their kids to be educated there.

[Fumesucker]

7. Because the public schools aren't indoctrinating their kids in religion?

There are a few Catholic schools in my area and roughly ten brazillon nondenominational "Christian Academies" that are virulently right wing..

I know a few people who have their kids in these schools and it's almost always for reasons of religious bigotry on their part, they don't want their kids associating with kids of other or (gasp!) no religions.

[badtoworse]

8. Any data on how well the kids do?

Do they graduate? Do they get into good colleges? That's all I care about and I believe it's the biggest concern of most parents.

[Fumesucker]

10. I'm only relaying what I've been told, pure anecdata..

I certainly don't think much of the science programs in the Christian Academies, they can't teach biology, astronomy, geology or any other science that might contradict the "6,000 year old Earth" meme without lying about what science says.

Talking with one of these kids a few years back, a bright tenth or eleventh grader who was really interested in science, I happened to mention Neanderthal man, the kid had never heard of Neanderthals..

When your education has to fit around an irrational worldview that denies reality it's not hard to see how your education might be somewhat less than classically liberal.

[IndyPragmatist]

9. Some have done it for religion, but most are doing it to send their child to a better school

The good schools aren't seeing hardly any drop offs. My mother's side of the family is almost all in education. One is currently a superintendent at an Indy area district. In her district, they are hardly seeing any people leaving. She actually thinks, for her district, that the biggest reason for children switching schools under the voucher program is bullying. She isn't quite sure how to look at this, nor am I. One one hand, these kids are getting away from bullies that could emotionally or physically scar them for life. But it also is allowing them to run away from their problems. Luckily, I never had to deal with any bullying as I was always bigger than most of my classmates, but I think that someone gains a hell of a lot when they finally stand up to a bully.

But back to the vouchers. Most parents just want their kids out of a poor district. Not every teacher is great. Sadly, there are some (very few) terrible teachers out there. There are many studies that show how a student barely grows intellectually under a bad teacher for a year. If this is allowing kids to avoid the rare bad teacher, then I like it.

One thing I would have like to have seen is the school losing a student getting some sort of compensation. Maybe give 80% of the voucher value to the parents, and give the other 20% to the school that lost the student. This way, the program isn't decimating the schools that are already in bad shape.

[Fumesucker]

11. It depends where you live to some extent..

I'm in a very red portion of a very red state, there are fundie churches on every other street corner and a surprising number of them have their own school associated with the church.

As someone once quipped, America is never more segregated than on Sunday morning, well with all the Christian Academies that's boiled over into the school day now, another function of these schools is keeping the kids away from "undesirables", which usually works out to be kids with an excess of melanin in their skin.

[defendandprotect]

22. Rather this seems to be due to underfunding of the schools in poor and minority communities ....

an attempt to punish minorities and disavow Brown vs Board of Education --

a return to segregation in the schools --

No taxpayer money should be going to keep Catholic schools afloat --

if Catholics themselves can't support their own schools, they they should fold.


Same with the "faith-based" organizations -- most of them are also Catholic --

and COINCIDENTALLY that money came along from W Bush just when the RCC needed it

the most -- as they were selling off their real estate, schools, churches to pay

their pedophile priest lawsuits --

And, needless to say, as their members were out in the streets protesting against

the church and trying to gain control over their funds and the higher ups in the

church who were keeping these filthy priests on duty -- and near children!


Along came W Bush and his wars -- and POOF! -- the Church had money -- paid off their

lawsuits and the crowds went home -- very conveniently!


Not much protest by the Pope, either, about Bush wars!

[defendandprotect]

19. You see no Church/State issues ... ? You see no deception ... ?

Let's see -- suppose the money was going to Muslim schools -- ?

Or how about the Rev. Moon -- ? You still wouldn't care, huh?



Meanwhile, you might also note that we're losing public education in America --

largely due to the work Obama/Arne/Rahm have done in pushing vouchers/charter schools -- !!

[badtoworse]

21. Once the parents have the vouchers, it's their call.

If they want Muslims or Rev. Moon educating their kids, that's their business; not mine or the state's.

My interest is in quality education for our kids. If crappy public schools lose out to quality private schools, I'm fine with that.

[defendandprotect]

23. Really -- Maybe they should give us our taxpayer $$ back and see if we'll give it to MIC ... ????

Obviously, this is one more rightwing scam not only to resegregate the schools,

but to profit the Catholic Church --

How many Catholic members of Congress now ... more than 400 I think at last count!


Basically, people like Koch Bros. who are on this mission, would have seen the entire

public education system as a threat to them and fellow elites --

but as people left cities for surburbs, they found excellent public schools which they

supported -- and few Catholics supported the Catholic schools. Except after the coup

on Vatican II and the rw push to create and attract very right wing Catholics.

Opus Dei was brought back in -- "Liberation Theology" and anyone teaching it purged

from the church -- and the Vatican is now taking the RCC to Evangelicalism --- !!

Since when do Americans want to subsidize any religiom, leave along fanatical religion?


There certainly have now also been attempts to destroy excellent suburban public schools --

keeping costs of sports programs, etal very high and keeping the burden of the school

budgets on homeowners.

[badtoworse]

25. It seems unlikely to me that the Indiana schools in question are excellent

If they were, the students wouldn't be leaving in droves. Our kids deserve the best education they can get and if that is not in public school, then they should have a better option. To me, that seems elementary. It appears to me that you are letting your contempt of the Catholic Church cloud your judgement

[defendandprotect]

26. To the contrary, I didn't say they were -- I said they are likely deprived of funding ....

HOWEVER, even excellent suburban schools are under attack --

You might also be interested to know that even decades ago as much as 50%

of Federal Funding for our public schools was actually secret funding for CIA!

Therefore, we really don't know what has really going on in many cases with

funding of our schools -- and especially now with Federal funding of schools

being cut -- and states suffering financial distress because of the cutting of

taxes on wealthy/corporations --

What we do know is that corporations and rw politicians have been manipulating

government and funds for their own agenda --


Rather, I think your misplaced respect for the Catholic Church is clouding your

judgment -- it's a male-supremacist organization -- is that really what you want

to put up as an example for our children?

[defendandprotect]

27. Answer question re taxpayer $$ ... Should we all have option of supporting Pentagon, or not?

And, what if these were Rev. Moon schools?

[badtoworse]

28. There is no practical alternative to a government military.

For that reason, there can't be an option about supporting the pentagon. That is not true of other government services. As an example, the Post Office has been competing with Fedex and UPS for decades (and not doing all that well I might add). No one is forced to use the Post Office. Bonneville Power and TVA are other examples - they compete (effectively) with private power producers, but their customers are free to purchase power from other suppliers.

[defendandprotect]

29. Of course there is an alternative to supporting the MIC -- i.e., NOT supporting it -- !!!

If any taxpayer is free to decide where funds from the general public end up,

so are all of us free to decide such matters.

We have a public school system -- the choice these taxpayers are being given is

to support not only a private simulation of public education -- but a religious

one, at that!

[SoCalDem]

12. Parochial schools have:

structured discipline
UNIFORMS
enforced conduct codes


and yet when these things are even mentioned in a public school context, people's heads explode

private/parochial schools can also "discard-at-will"..teachers and students.

they also get to make their own rules, and can discriminate

[NNN0LHI]

14. I have never seen school uniforms discussed here at DU

I bet that is a touchy subject, eh?

Maybe some sucker, er, I mean nice DUer will start a thread about it?

I know it won't be me.

:)

Don

[ProdigalJunkMail]

15. for you...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1852779


sP

[NNN0LHI]

16. Gee thanks, you had to get my name involved in that one

:scared:

[ProdigalJunkMail]

17. you can't get off THAT easy :-)

so far it seems pretty tame...all two responses!

sP

[NNN0LHI]

18. I ain't touching that thread with a ten foot pole

:hide:

[moparlunatic]

20. So we are all

"Pro Choice" except when it comes to where we choose to send our kids to school, how progressive.:eyes:

[defendandprotect]

24. ... and they've gotten taxpayer $$ to remove asbestos from their schools,among other benefits ....