Far too many of these schools also use textbooks that routinely espouse anti-science and white-centric ideology. For instance, as the Orlando Sentinel reported, some Florida voucher schools teach students that dinosaurs and humans lived together, that God’s intervention prevented Catholics from dominating North America, that slaves who knew Jesus Christ\u00a0were better off than free men who did not,\u00a0and that most Black and white\u00a0Southerners lived in harmony until power-hungry\u00a0agitators stirred up conflict.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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On March 30, 2021, in Oakland, California. (Photo: Jessica Christian\/AP)<\/span><\/p>\n Voucher advocates now argue not only that they have a right to participate in these voucher programs, but also that states cannot regulate what they teach with the money.\u00a0If this idea prevails in the courts, states may lose all control over their programs. For example, in Vermont, some rural communities paid tuition for \u201cpublic academies\u201d for generations. Thirty years ago, the legislature converted those schools to private-nonprofit \u201cindependent schools,\u201d effectively changing an old tradition into a typical\u00a0private school voucher scheme \u2014 one now subject to Espinoza.\u00a0<\/p>\n National right-wing legal advocacy groups noticed and filed several suits on behalf of religious school students in Vermont.\u00a0In January, one federal appellate court ordered three Vermont public school districts to pay tuition vouchers to a Catholic school whose website states that faith \u201cis weaved into every aspect of life\u201d at the school, and that it aims to \u201cform its students in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.\u201d Other decisions are still pending.\u00a0<\/p>\n America’s teacher shortage: <\/strong>How to attract more, better educators into classrooms<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n The newest and most radical claim, however, is that Espinoza\u2019s rationale applies to charter schools, which are\u00a0operated by independent\u00a0groups using\u00a0public funds and in theory are public schools. Some choice advocates, including in a recent Manhattan Institute report, argue states must allow private religious schools to operate as public charter schools. These religious schools need not even change their curriculum. They just need to send the bill to state government, instead of to parishioners and parents who had already opted out of public education and a public mission.\u00a0<\/p>\n Proponents of taxpayer funding of religious institutions ignore the fact that a \u201cpublic religious charter school\u201d is an oxymoron. The First Amendment prohibits states from establishing religion. And \u201cpublic education\u201d is by definition inclusive. Public schools don\u2019t get to exclude people because they practice a different religion or don\u2019t practice one at all. Nor do they get to propagate religion as science. You don\u2019t need a law degree to understand that the Constitution prohibits state-funded, licensed\u00a0and regulated schools from doing these things.<\/p>\n Religious charter schools, however, would threaten more than just basic democratic principles. They would take a wrecking ball to public school funding. States would suddenly become financially responsible for millions of students who previously chose to forgo public education. In places already struggling to maintain public infrastructure, public budgets would now be on the hook for religious infrastructure.<\/p>\n Fight for equity:\u00a0<\/strong>3 million kids missing from school because of COVID-19: Shaquille O\u2019Neal and Rey Salda\u00f1a<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n This choice movement may wrap itself in the rhetoric of meeting individual students\u2019 needs and giving them the same opportunities as wealthy students, but unregulated vouchers and public religious charter schools would subvert the overall public will to the whims of an ideological minority.<\/p>\n The saving grace is that an overwhelming majority of families and taxpayers have no interest in this bizarre education world. And if courts and advocates push them there, only one rational choice remains: End charter schools and publicly financed private school tuition altogether. That is a policy choice courts cannot second-guess on specious grounds. So the school choice lobby should be careful for what it wishes.<\/p>\nFirst amendment roadblock<\/h2>\n