RE: Hostility

[Rick Duncan]

Alan: I appreciate your concerns about employment opportunities in k-12 teaching for your daughter. But I think school choice will provide--not only students and their families--but also teachers with more educational choice.

 

I also have a daughter who has expressed an interest in a career in teaching. But she is interested in more freedom to teach than she would have in government schools. Her religious worldview gives her perspective on science, history, literature, health, family, and on the meaning of the good life. She is free to teach it as she sees it only in a private school, one in which her religious perspectives are not forbidden to be taught. So, for her, maybe 90% of the teaching jobs under the current system are foreclosed.

 

I know lots of Christians who teach in the public schools, and many of them are frustrated because they are constantly affected by the way the EC operates as a "gag rule" restricting what they can teach in public schools. If we had more diversity in schools, teachers, as well as students, would be the beneficiaries. Teachers would have more choices, and thus more academic freedom to teach. And, as Christian teachers increasingly seek jobs in Christian schools, this will open up more opportunities for others to work in public schools or private secular schools, or private religious schools of other faiths. Teachers will gravitate toward schools that allow them to do their best work. For some, that will be public schools. For others, private schools. To me this seems like a win-win scenario for my daughter as well as for yours.

 

Cheers, Rick Duncan

 

"A.E. Brownstein" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

I won't go into all the conventional arguments about why government funding
of religious schools and other social service programs is problematic. I
know Rick and the other list members are familiar with these arguments,
even though they are not persuaded by them.

But to keep the focus on the current thread, I think it would be
problematic if many families choose to take advantage of school choice
programs involving religious schools because that means a significant part
of government funded programs may well be unaccessible to my family because
we are Jewish and will be similarly inaccessible to members of other
minority faiths as well. Suppose half of the families send their children
to publicly funded religious schools -- so that half of all government
funded schools are religious. According to Zelman, voucher schools are not
required to exempt children of other faiths from mandatory religious
programs. My children could not attend schools that require them to
participate in the worship services of a different faith. Children of other
non-Christian faiths will have the same problem. Many proponents of
government funded religious programs argue that religious schools and
social service providers should be able to discriminate on the basis of
religion in hiring. One of the professions my daughter is considering is
elementary school teaching. If religious schools discriminate on the basis
of religion in hiring and half of all publicly funded schools are religious
(and recognizing that Jews comprise about 2% of the American population),
that means she may be ineligible for 49% of government funded teaching jobs
because of her religion. I think that is a serious burden on her religious
liberty.

Will the great majority of religious schools ref! use to exempt children of
other faiths from mandatory religious activities and practice religious
discrimination in hiring? I don't know. That would depend on their
understanding of what their faiths requires. But if, for example, you agree
that being denied a substantial number of government funded jobs because of
one's faith is a burden on religious liberty, then you can probably
understand why I would prefer that my family's religious liberty not be
dependent on the way that people of other faiths understand their religious
obligations. I would rather rely on a constitutional guarantee.

What will the social impact be of so many people attending schools at which
there are few, if any, Jews or Hindus or Moslems etc.? That's the question
Tom and I were discussing. I think an important way that kids (and adults)
learn how to relate to people of different faiths is by doing it. I may be
wrong. But if I'm right, we lose something! of value when that doesn't happen.

Let me be clear here that I am not suggesting that religious schools are
invidious, or that they teach intolerance, or anything of that kind. I
think we risk incurring serious social costs (generally unintended) if
society fragments along religious lines. And on these issues I am pretty
risk adverse.

Alan Brownstein
UC Davis






At 11:42 AM 8/25/2005 -0700, you wrote:
>Alan: Why would it be a problem if many families freely choose to take
>advantage of a school choice program? Wouldn't that suggest that private
>education is a good thing, if so many loving parents choose it as best for
>their own children?
>
>Right now, I think somewhere between 10-15% of children are educated
>outside public schools. Those are the lucky ones--the families that can
>afford private school tuition or the financial and unpaid-labor costs of
>home school.! Affluent Christians are not unique in preferring religious
>schools for their children. At least, I see no reason to think so.
>
>As public schools become more socially progressive--e.g., Hot & Sexy
>mandatory assemblies; celebrating "Gay Pride" week and then suspending
>dissenters who wear t-shirts expressing opposition to homosexual
>conduct--the move out could become a stampede. The Bible warns readers to
>beware of those who call evil good and good evil.
>
>Indeed, even without vouchers, I think we will see more and more
>Christians leaving the government schools. This can have political
>consequences--there may be a tipping point when enough families are out of
>government schools--25%? 30%--and no longer view school taxes as a good
>value for their children. Why support education benefits ithat are
>designed to exclude your own children. Indeed, the taxes Christians pay to
>! ;support puiblic schools impoverish them and make it more difficult for
>them to pay tuition at the schools of their choice.
>
>I believe that it will not be long before many pastors of evangelical
>churches will be in the pulpit teaching the flock to avoid public school
>at all costs. The schools of Alan's youth are not the schools of today. I
>graguated in 1969 from a public high school in a working class city. I
>could send my children to a public school of the late 50s or early 60s.
>But no way I would do it today!
>
>Rick
>
> Alan calls it)
> >based on any empirical evidence? For example:
> >
> >1. Is there any evidence that religious-school students socialize with
> >others less well than do public-school students? I'm not aware of such
> >evidence. (And we do know that in inner cities, Catholic schools are often
> >more racially diverse than are ! public schools -- and often religiously
> >diverse as well.)
> >
> >2. Any evidence that home-schooled children relate less well to others, when
>! >they eventually enter school systems, than do public-school students?
> >
> >3. Any evidence of greater interreligious tension, interracial tension,
> >etc., in European nations that provide substantial state aid to religious
> >schools than in America?
> >
> >4. Any sense of how many families will actually choose private education,
> >and how many will stay in public schools, under school choice programs? The
> >Zelman case tells us that even in Cleveland, where the credibility of the
> >public system could have been seen as especially low, many eligible families
> >chose charter and magnet schools in the public system rather than
> >private-school vouchers.
> >
> >My sense is that t! here isn't empirical evidence to support these warnings.
> >But I'd be interested to know of any.
> >
> >Tom Berg
> >University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minneapolis)
> >
> >
> > _____
> >
> >From: Newsom Mich! ael [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >Sent: Wed 8/24/2005 6:28 PM
> >To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
> >Subject: RE: Hostility
> >
> >
> >
> >See my comments interlineated below.
> >
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Berg, Thomas C.
> >Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 3:18 PM
> >To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
> >Subject: RE: Hostility
> >
> >
> >
> >Well, of course the pro-! voucher side, correspondingly, generally accepts the
> >need for a "common ground" and for some "state imposition." The vast
> >majority of voucher supporters are willing to have some state oversight of
> >the educational quality and, within limits, the educational content in their
> >schools. The vast majority want their religious schools to teach basic
> >values of human dignity, human rights, and tolerance and respect for others
> >-- values that they see as required by their faiths. Of course many of them
> >have different ideas about the scope of human rights or tolerance than some
> >other citizens do. But that doesn't mean they oppose the general ideas of
> >rights, tolerance, or "common ground" -- any more than the fact that
> >public-school supporters favor public schools in which values are taught
> >means that they oppose "mediating institutions" as sources of values. All> >of these arguments, however heated, are at the margins. Both sides, not
> >just the public-school supporters, are willing to draw lines.
> >
> >
> >
> >I am less sanguine than you are about the inclination of some people to
> >support the teaching of tolerance and respect for others. The rhetoric of
> >many people, including some voucher supporters, points to an America
> >characterized by separate clu! sters or groupings of people distrustful or
> >contemptuous of other people. One is forced to conclude that some people
> >find nothing wrong with religious apartheid. (See David M. Smolin,
> >Regulating Religious and Cultural Conflict in a Postmodern America: A
> >Response to Professor Perry, 76 Iowa L. Rev. 1067 (1991).) I think that
> >religious apartheid is a terrible idea, and it does little to engender the
> >kind of cohesiveness that the co! untry needs.
> >
> >
> >
> >I don't understand how arguing for school vouchers -- which is what I've
> >been doing, rather than arguing for religion in public schools -- "overlooks
> >the role of mediating institutions" in forming children. Rather, the
> >argument for vouchers emphasizes that role, since the universe of mediating
> >institutions concerning children obviously includes not just families and
> >churches, but also private schools.
> >
> >
> >
> >There a! re good reasons to worry about putting too much weight on private
> >schools, for the reasons that I mentioned earlier, among others.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > The premise underlying vouchers is that the government can achieve its
> >goals of education and basic socialization as much through private
> >institutions as throug! h public ones, and indeed should treat the two equally
> >in funding so as to avoid discouraging pursuit of the private option.
> >Moreover, if the family would choose a private instead of a public school,
> >doesn't respect for the family itself as a mediating institution point
> >toward presumptively respecting, rather than discouraging, that choice?
> >
> >
> >
> >Again, we should be concerned about the possibilities of religious
> >apartheid.
> >
> >
> >
> >As to ways of decreasing economic pressure and increasing family time, I
> >specifically said that lower taxes and! fewer working women were not the
> only
> >means of doing so. I simply said that, realistically speaking, they were
> >among the means most likely to be on table in our society. To offer as an
> >alternative to these "a radical readjustment of our economi! c rules" proves
> >my point, it seems to me. As a Democrat (albeit a conflicted one), I want
> >there to be more equitable rewards for work, and women to continue to
> >participate fully in economic life. My question had to do with how
> >realistic it is to think that the powerful dynamics that have led to
> >increased reliance on schools for moral teaching can be reversed without
> >incurring costs that defenders of public schools are unwilling to pay.
> >
> >
> >
> >We appear to agree on this much: there is a Catch-22 at work here. As I
> >said, Americans know the unfairness of winner-take-all rules, and yet don't
> >seem all that eager to get rid of them. One does not h! ave to be a
> >conspiracy theorist to recognize and believe that the Catch-22 is no
> >accident. We need to deconstruct your "powerful dynamics" and decide
> >whether religious ap! artheid is to be our future. (And if religious
> >apartheid becomes established in this country, the reintroduction of overt,
> >de jure racial apartheid, given our awful history on race, cannot be too far
> >behind.)
> >
> >
> >
> >Finally, I don't see how single-parent families cut against my concerns; it
> >seems to me that they are more subject to the concerns. Casting absolutely
> >no aspersion on single parents, it nevertheless remains the case that they
> >as a class have to work almost by definition and therefore are likely as a
> >class to have to rely more on other institutions (often the schools) for the
> >training of their children. In fact, I would assume that increases in
> >single parenting in recent decades are another powerful ! reason why some of
> >the moral training has shifted, on net, from families to schools. If there
> >is s! uch a connection, I then wonder further if "reducing the percentage of
> >single-parent families" is a crusade that many public-school proponents will
> >want to join.
> >
> >
> >
> >If we recognize the Catch-22 for what it is, we can perhaps begin to come up
> >with some creative solutions to the mediating institutions problem for both
> >single parent and two-parent families. The point is to respect the zone of
> >private autonomy while at the same time minimizing the risk of religious
> >(and racial) apartheid. Reliance on private schools, therefore, is
> >misguided because they can too easily become instruments of religious
> >apartheid. The fact that powerful interests may be arrayed against this
> >undertaking, it does not follow that the undertaking should be abandoned.
> >It only means that it will be harder! to get ourselves out from under the
! > >baleful alliance between rightwing religious and economic interests.
> >
> >
> >
> >P.S. I, too, am a conflicted Democrat. But my problem is that the
> >Congressional wing of the party is overloaded with wimps and ditherers, who,
> >not surprisingly, cannot seem to find a voice, and who repeatedly get rolled
> >by the Republicans. It would seem that the Democrats cannot continue to
> >waffle on the unfairness of the winner-take-all rules and expect to regain
> >national or federal power anytime soon. But on the other hand, one could
> >read the history of American presidential elections beginning in 1860 and
> >conclude, not unreasonably, that Democrats win the White House (taking it
> >away from the Republicans) not because of anything that the Democrats stand
> >for, but because the Republicans overplayed their hand and messed things up
> >too ! badly. So I, too, am conflicted. Histo! ry tells me one thing - waffle
> >and just be "there" to pick up the pieces when Americans get too annoyed
> >with the Republicans, and my sense of fairness tells me something else.
> >(The virtual lock that the Democrats had on the Congress from 1932 to 1994
> >is another story for another time. It is a story that has a lot to do with
> >the American South and the Civil War.) Oh well.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Tom Berg
> >
> >University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _____
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
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>
>
>Rick Duncan
>Wel! pton Professor of Law
>University of Nebraska College of Law
>Lincoln, NE 68583-0902
>
>"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or
>Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle
>
>"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or
>numbered." --The Prisoner
>
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_______________________________________________
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Rick Duncan
Welpton Professor of Law
University of Nebraska College of Law
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902

"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered." --The Prisoner

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