Trumps School Choice Plan: Religious Fundamentalism At Taxpayer Expense

[Heddi]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/03/03/trumps-school-choice-plan-religious-fundamentalism-taxpayer-expense

President Donald Trump is being praised for a change in tone in his recent address to Congress, but his belligerent attitude toward public education hasn’t changed a bit.

While it’s true he stopped short of repeating his claims that public schools are “broken” and a “government monopoly,” what Trump chose to highlight in his remarks about public schools was a story about a student who left them.
....

First, it should be noted this is hardly the first time Merriweather’s story has been used to tout tax-credit scholarship programs.

Merriweather is not simply an industrious student. She’s also a frequent contributor and presenter for Step Up For Students, the state-approved nonprofit in Florida that helps administer the education tax-credit program she benefitted from. According to her profile at the Step Up website, she has been featured prominently in this organization’s communications outreach since 2008. Although she isn’t listed as staff of Step Up, she has been employed as an intern.

...
The private school Merriweather attended and graduated from is the Esprit De Corps Center for Learning in Jacksonville which she has described in testimony she gave last year to a U.S. House Committee as “a church based school, a church that I actually attended.”

According to the Esprit de Corps website, the “vision for the school was birthed from the mind of God in the heart of Dr. Jeannette C. Holmes-Vann, the Pastor and Founder of Hope Chapel Ministries, Inc.” The education philosophy guiding the school is based on “a return to a traditional educational model founded on Christian principles and values. In accordance with this vision, each component of the school was purposefully selected and designed.”

A significant “component” of the Esprit de Corps school is its adherence to a fundamentalist Christian curriculum. Its official listing in a Jacksonville directory of private schools describes its education program as a “spiritual emphasis and biblical [sic] view, which permeates the A-Beka curriculum.”

“A Beka is one of the most widely used K-12 curriculum series for home schooling and private Christian schools,” Rachel Tabachnick explains to me in an email. “This includes many private schools receiving public dollars through voucher and tax-credit programs.”


...
An A Beka history text she reviews teaches that “socialist propaganda” exaggerated the Great Depression “so that Franklin Delano Roosevelt could pass New Deal legislation” and that the Vietnam War “divided the country into the ‘hawks who supported the fight against Communism, and doves, who were soft on Communism.'”

Tabachnick quotes a fourth-grade A Beka text that celebrates President Ronald Reagan’s presidency under a banner of “A Return to Patriotism and Family Values.” In describing President Bill Clinton’s administration, an A Beka high school history text calls First Lady Hilary Clinton’s effort to overhaul health care a “plan for socialized medicine” and describes Vice President Al Gore as “known for his radical environmentalism.”

...

The curriculum used by Esprit de Corps also taught Merriweather and her African American classmates about the innate inferiority of the African continent and its people.

“The textbooks teach the narrative that the people of African nations descended from Noah’s son Ham and that Ham’s descendant Nimrod led the rebellion against God by building the Tower of Babel,” Tabachnick tells me. This Biblically supported lesson is often referred to as “the curse of Ham,” which has historically been a primary justification for slavery among Southern Christians, according to numerous sources.

In the A Beka text “History and Civil Government,” Adam and Eve are referred to as “the parents of humanity” and racial variations in human kind are described as the result of “recessive traits” due to “(1) a rapidly changing environment, (2) a small population, (3) and extensive inbreeding.”

“Current A Beka texts also falsely claim that only ten percent of the population of Africa is literate and that literacy rates may drop further because of communists shutting down mission schools,” Tabachnick tells me.
..
Of the roughly 2,300 private schools in Florida, more than 1,500 accept voucher money, and of these voucher-accepting schools, about 45 percent rely on them for at least half of their students. About 70 percent of these schools are religiously affiliated, “including some where religion is a central focus.”

...........

Why can't religious schools teach real math, science, history, and civics without lies? I mean, sure, have religious schools add a religious angle to the curriculum, but nothing noted above is true. How can that be legal, and, more importantly, how can religious institutions even see it as ETHICAL?

[guillaumeb]

1. Each State has the authority to regulate schooling.

Requirements generally deal with the amount of schooling, qualifications of teachers, and instruction language.

Nothing requires that textbooks be factually correct. Insane? Probably, but States' rights types like this sort of freedom.

[Heddi]

3. But Churches, who hold themselves as the ethical and moral compass of America

shouldn't they just do the right thing regardless of what the legislation requires?

If, as an Atheist, I'm asked repeatedly by self-professed religionists how I can keep from being a mass murderer or rapist without the moral compass that can only be offered through religious belief to guide my life, then how can these religious groups get away with such blatant lies> Where is that God-centered moral and ethical compass to keep THEM on the straight and narrow?

Apparently, if you are a believer, everything is okay. Anything done in the name of God is okay.

Why aren't mainstream non-kooky Christians standing up against this state-and-church sponsored bullshittery? As is often attributed to Atheists, their silence indicates their complacency and agreement with this educational curriculum.

[guillaumeb]

7. I do not know if you would consider our family to be "non-kooky" Christians.

1) we homeschooled our 3 children through the secondary level.

2) Our secondary history text was A Peoples' History of the United States, by Howard Zinn.

3) We also studied all 3 of the Abrahamic religions in comparative religion.

4) Our children went to college via academic scholarship from their respective schools. (A testament of course to their intelligence, not our teaching.)

Part of the freedom mythology in the US is the freedom to teach what is truly nonsense. It might be why so many US students and adults have such minimal scientific knowledge.

Our family protested at one point when certain religious types in our area pushed for censorship at our library. We went to meetings and wrote letters to the paper and politicians. The library stood up to the would-be censors, but regrettably there are many who do not value open exchange of ideas.

[wcmagumba]

2. Lyin for Jesus is A-OK to these schmucks...nt

[Girard442]

4. Why can't they teach without lies?

Because teaching the truth reveals that reality is complicated and messy. That leads to {gasp} thinking. 'Nuff said.

[Heddi]

6. I would think that the LIBERAL CHURCHES that we keep hearing about

as being the TRUE church/religion/etc would take a very vocal stand against these blatant lies.

Eh...not so much, apparently.

[Ilsa]

5. We should start pushing the madrassa scenario.

Tell everyone that school vouchers will be used for madrassas, not just christian schools. See if that changes any attitudes.