And it is really not covered much in the news, at least not in the sense of public money being given to private faith-based schools.
It involves the new Florida Pre-K program, and the fact that about 200,000 students will be involved. I have many qualms about my tax money going to private religious schools.
They can teach them anything in my name, with my money, to vulnerable little 4 or 5 year olds, and I don’t like it. The Floridians who voted for the Pre-K did not mean for it to be funded this way. And the worst part is they know it is being questioned for not being constitutional.
Here is one of the few articles I could find that address the issue.
“As they crafted Florida’s free pre-kindergarten program last year, lawmakers were largely silent on one potential hang-up: Their plan may be unconstitutional.
The problem is that Florida lawmakers rather than relying on public schools as other states have done opted to offer public money for 4-year-olds to attend religious schools.”
“That’s the very issue the Florida Supreme Court will rule on in the coming months in a separate lawsuit. Florida’s constitution says: “No revenue of the state shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.”
SNIP….”Voters in 2002 ordered lawmakers to provide a free and voluntary pre-K plan for the upcoming school year. Other states implementing such a plan have relied heavily on public schools for the program.
But Florida, already facing a multi-billion dollar mandate to limit class sizes, opted to instead pay for 4-year-olds to attend private and faith-based schools.
Such use of taxpayer money is at the center of a Florida Supreme Court hearing Tuesday when the state defends the “opportunity scholarship program,” or OSP. Those vouchers provide public money for students who are at failing public schools to attend private or religious schools.”
An aside: I have not seen the ruling from this month at all, not a word about it.
Only about 700 children receive the vouchers.
That pales next to the state’s prediction that the majority of up to 200,000 4-year-olds are expected to attend faith-based schools as part of the pre-K program…”
I find myself wondering if this issue would receive proper coverage if Jeb were not who is he. I see it is no issue nationally, and most articles in Florida papers fail to address the constitutionality question at all.
This is totally outrageous! I’ve not seen this news before, thank you for posting it. I suppose the powers that be realize you have to indoctrinate them young. Ugh.
I think two courts have already ruled it so. But that is the general atmosphere in Florida, not to make too much of a deal.
It is an issue that could be seized upon by interested candidates on our side, but they are not going to do it. They won’t touch it.
There’s two ads for Christian schools on the sidebar to the linked article. I plucked up the courage to click on them and got a big surprise:
the first one linked to a christian school just a few miles away from me (in Seattle!), which serves any denomination, and to prove it they put a long list of sponsoring churches on their website. The list included the church I am attending tomorrow! It’s an acredited school. Their website also has a list of the colleges their graduates are attending.
The other one was a school in El Paso. It had an equally bland mission statement, but it was only one denomination, so it seemed more closed from the outside world.
I checked the science programs – the Seattle school hinted that it teaches evolution:
The El Paso school hinted that it doesn’t:
Seattle is about as far away from Florida as you can get, and I have no idea what it’s like down there – but I’d guess there is a larger percentage of fundamentalist Christian schools there. We do not have vouchers, and it gets voted down every time it comes up.