(MintPress) – In May, the state of Louisiana joined 14 others in implementing a school voucher-style program that would provide state funding for students in low-income families and low-performing schools to attend a private institution. The programs have helped non-secular schools stay afloat during adverse economic times, but have also been found to be supporting schools that use controversial textbooks and materials to teach history, science and theology-related courses.
Some of the schools that receive public funding to implement Christian teachings as well as creationism are also using textbooks supplied by A Beka Book, Bob Jones University Press and Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), according to Bruce Wilson, who co-produced a documentary about the curriculum in schools that use the materials.
Wilson found that texts from A Beka Book and Bob Jones University Press contained skewed historical recollections and potentially inflammatory statements. A history text from A Beka Book suggested that the Ku Klux Klan served a positive role within the communities it was in.
“… the [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross … In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians,” the text read.
Critics argue that the voucher programs have provided state dollars to curriculums that promote bigotry. A Beka Book’s website contains textbooks for all students, from preschool to high school. The website says the materials promote a “foundation for academic excellence and Christian character training.” Rachel Tabachnick of Talk to Action, a website dedicated to examining the role of religion in society, wrote that public funding is contributing to the power the book companies have over schools’ curriculums.
“Many hundreds, if not thousands, of these schools use Protestant fundamentalist textbooks that teach not only Creationism, but also a religious supremacist worldview, with a shocking spin on politics, history, and human rights,” Tabachnick wrote.
Daily Kos collected quotes and claims made by the textbooks. The texts teach that the theory of evolution has already been disproven and that humans and dinosaurs once co-existed. Below is a sample of more of their findings:
– Only 10 percent of Africans can read or write, because Christian mission schools have been shut down by communists.
– “The greatest struggle of all time, the Battle of Armageddon, will occur in the Middle East when Christ returns to set up his kingdom on earth.”
– It “cannot be shown scientifically that man-made pollutants will one day drastically reduce the depth of the atmosphere’s ozone layer.”
– “God used the ‘Trail of Tears’ to bring many Indians to Christ.”
Politically motivated?
Other states participating in the program include Indiana, Florida and Georgia. Indiana has written the requirements to receive a voucher so vaguely that nearly 60 percent of the students now qualify, according to Alternet. Louisiana Republican governor Bobby Jindal has written the state’s voucher program similarly, as around 380,000 of the Louisiana’s 700,000 school children will be eligible for the vouchers.
The allocation of state funds toward private schools comes during a time when rhetoric toward public schools has become more hostile, as some claim the schools have become “indoctrination” institutions for democrats and liberals. In May, Fox News analyst Todd Starnes said public schools had become “indoctrination centers” that encourage students to support marriage equality.
At the height of his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Rick Santorum said public schools and universities were used by the left to implement their political ideologies on students. He also said the schools receive public money for teaching radical secularism but are not allowed to teach Judeo-Christian principles.
“It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college,” Santorum said in January.
Jindal has been a vocal opponent of the Obama Administration, saying it is the “nexus of Liberalism and Incompetence.”
The push for private school vouchers could prove to be damaging for public school funding, which is dispersed largely by enrollment rates. Public schools in the states are already losing expected funding as many of the states are paying for the voucher program with money that would have traditionally gone to public schools. While revenues for private schools are likely to increase dramatically, class sizes could potentially grow, as well.
Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, La. will see a dramatic spike in enrollment, according to Independent Weekly writer Walter Pierce. Pierce wrote that the school “…has been approved to accept 135 new students. That’s a considerable uptick in enrollment, which at the end of this school year stood at 38 — a more than 300 percent increase. Talk about buttressing the budget; $1 million in tax dollars will be diverted from the public school system to Eternity Christian, a school that, according to its mission statement, offers ‘a quality faith-based curriculum that is soley [sic] based on principles from the Bible …’”
Fox News reports that since 2000, U.S. Catholic school enrollment has decreased by 23 percent. But the decline has slowed dramatically, and many schools say the voucher programs are responsible. In Indiana, religious and private schools saw their numbers increase by 3,900 after many schools were on the brink of closing.
There is currently no Supreme Court of the United States ruling on voucher programs as they pertain only to secular institutions. Also at question is the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which says Congress may not establish a national religion.
In 2002, in the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris case, the Supreme Court ruled that school vouchers could be used to pay for education at a sectarian school without violating the Establishment Clause, but did not say whether funds could exclusively target secular institutions. The Ohio case made note that in order for it not to violate the clause, the voucher money had to be given to the parents, and not directly to the school.