Diane Ravitch wants you to think about this scenario: Imagine your community with two or three fire departments with different resources and you have to choose which one to call when your house catches fire. Or imagine your community with…
You want Patriotic Education? Look what it’s done for Cuba
If nothing else has frightened you about our national leadership in the last few years, take a visit to Cuba, and then come back and listen to our Leader of the Free World extolling his new program of “Patriotic Education.”…
Churches want to help schools but aren’t sure what’s best this year
The coronavirus is forcing public schools to rethink how they will educate students this fall which, in turn, is forcing churches to rethink how they will minister to neighborhood schools. “We’re having to find ways to think outside the box,”…
Religious coalition opposes more coronavirus relief for private schools
A broad coalition of religious groups, including three Baptist organizations, has asked the U.S. Senate to avoid using public education dollars to help private schools in the next round of coronavirus relief legislation. The Senate GOP’s HEALS Act would provide…
Racism and the evolution of Protestant support for private education
Earlier this summer, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-4 decision that private religious schools should have the same access to public funds as private “nonsectarian” schools. Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion cited the Constitution’s protection of the…
Listen to the teenagers: Things are not right
I work in public education, but I’m not a teacher, administrator, custodian, social worker or a member of the cafeteria staff. I’m something far stranger, or, according to at least one student I met during the course of my work…
Why should private religious schools be exempt from health mandates?
The ink was hardly dry on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s authorization for local health authorities to determine in-person school reopening this fall when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declared that religious schools would be exempt from any such restrictions. In…
Three ways the church can support public schools in the era of COVID-19
As I write this, my colleagues and I have spent the last few days in complete bewilderment at the prospect of starting face-to-face instruction even as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the rise. None of us relish the prospect…
School voucher proponents are using the COVID-19 crisis to push for taxpayer money for religious education
Some politicians are using the pandemic-fueled economic crisis to push dangerous proposals that put our religious liberty at risk. And no, I’m not talking about applying stay-at-home orders to in-person worship services.