Star Parker - A New Birth of Education Freedom

As the nation has focused on the Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, news from the state of Indiana could prove far more important regarding the nation’s future.

The Indiana Supreme Court has just ruled unanimously, 5-0, that Indiana’s school voucher program, signed into law in 2011, the most expansive school voucher program in the nation, does not violate the state’s constitution.

Those who challenged the law argued that the voucher program is unconstitutional because it allows public funds to be used for religious education.

Not so, said the court. The voucher goes to the families, not the schools. It is the parents who decide how to spend it.

Why do I draw connection between the US Supreme Court’s review of same-sex marriage and this voucher decision in Indiana? And why do I suggest that the Indiana decision may be more important to the nation’s future than whatever the Supreme Court decides on same sex marriage?

Same-sex marriage sits before the Supreme Court today because of the dramatic change in public opinion over recent years regarding the legitimacy and morality of same-sex marriage and homosexual relations. General public opinion is far more accepting today of both than it has been in the past.

What has driven this change?

One obvious place to look is the direct generational correlation regarding acceptance of same-sex marriage. Younger Americans are far more accepting of these values than older Americans.

According to the latest survey from the Pew Research Center, approval of same sex marriage among those born between 1928-1945 is 31 percent; 1946-1964, 38 percent; 1965-1980, 49 percent; and after 1980, 70 percent.

So it seems quite reasonable to conclude that the systematic purge over the last half-century of religion and traditional values from our public schools has produced a new generation of Americans with values different from those of their parents and grandparents.

In 1962 the Supreme Court found state-sponsored school prayer unconstitutional. Subsequently, the Supreme Court found unconstitutional posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools (1980), public schools setting aside time for private or voluntary prayer (1985), and “performance of religious activity” at school promotional and graduation ceremonies (1992).

The rationale behind all these decisions was supposedly to preserve and protect religious liberty in our public schools.

But this has not at all what has been happening. The result has not been value free public schools that just teach reading, writing and arithmetic. The result has been to purge traditional religious values from our public schools and replace them with different values – secular humanism.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “all states are somehow involved in sex education for public school children.”

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teacher’s union, thought it relevant to their mission to issue a press statement about the same-sex marriage cases currently before the Supreme Court. According to their statement:

“Proposition 8 and DOMA (both of which support traditional marriage) aren’t just unconstitutional, they contradict American values of fairness, inclusion, and freedom for all.”

So somehow it is fair and constitutional, in the view of the NEA, that our schools not be permitted to teach right and wrong, as Christians have understood them from the Bible for a few thousand years, while it is fair and free to teach secular humanism in their place.

Thanks to former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who signed into law the Indiana voucher program, and a sane and sober court in Indiana, Indiana helps pave the way for a new birth of education freedom in America in which parents can choose where to send their child to school.

No longer will kids be captive to left-wing brainwashing in Indiana public schools. Hopefully soon this will be the case nationwide.

Star Parker

Star Parker is founder and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a 501c3 think tank which explores and promotes market based public policy to fight poverty, as well as author of the newly revised Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can do About It.

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Gov. Jindal Schools the Teachers Union

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) won bipartisan education reform that included vouchers, big changes to tenure, and merit based teaching compensation. While unions claim that such reforms hurt less privileged students, don't vouchers help families with less money? Find out.

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Rhonda - Opting for School Choice is Easy for Rahm Emanuel

School Choice is easy for some. Americans with the financial means are able to send their children to the best schools available and reside in neighborhoods that offer successful public school education. All too often, the very worst schools in America are located in impoverished areas where parents have no choice but to send their children to failing schools.

Politicians, who hold the power to change our educational system in America, are exempted from the catastrophe that they foist on US citizens. They frequently possess the means or connections needed to send their own children to the very best, successful schools. Recently, Rahm Emanuel, Chicago’s new mayor, was asked in an interview where he planned to send his own children to school. His abrupt change in demeanor illustrated his indignation and intolerance for such a pointed question. The mayor stormed out of the interview as if his personal rights somehow had been violated. Predictably, his children will attend the elite private University of Chicago Laboratory School in Hyde Park just as President Obama’s daughters did.

(Rahm Emanuel interview)


While Rahm Emanuel may escape close scrutiny over his misplaced outrage, Gov. Chris Christie has not been so conveniently overlooked. He, likewise, reacted angrily to inquiry about where he planned to send his children to school with a curt “None of your business!” He did go on to explain that he values parochial education and is concerned about the educational needs of all students in New Jersey. Additionally, Christie emphasized that he pays $38,ooo in property taxes that primarily fund public schools.

When the newly elected President moved to Washington D.C., he and his wife CHOSE Sidwell Friends School over D.C.’s notoriously failing schools. His daughters will receive the same privileged education that also benefitted Chelsea Clinton and Amy Carter before them. The Obama family’s statement to the public was simply that

In the end, the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now.

The reality is that, in the end, Barack and Michelle exercised their privileged status that allows them as parents the freedom of school choice. However, school choice is denied most Americans who must attend the school that is forcibly mandated based on a zip code.

School choice includes public charter schools and voucher or scholarship programs. These innovative approaches to education vary from state to state since education is primarily the function of individual states.

Rahm Emanuel and the Obama administration led the charge against school choice in Washington D.C. when Congress sponsored the SOAR Act that reauthorized the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provided school choice scholarships for a small number of children from low-income families. D.C. public schools are ranked 51st in the nation. The results of this scholarship program have been outstanding, as highlighted in the highly awarded documentary, “Waiting for Superman.”

In the Wall Street Journal article, “The Evidence is in: School Vouchers Work”, the following key points were made:

In a study published last year, Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas found that voucher recipients had graduation rates of 91%. That’s significantly higher than the D.C. public school average (56%)

A recent study of Milwaukee’s older and larger voucher program found that 94% of students who stayed in the program throughout high school graduated, versus just 75% of students in Milwaukee’s traditional public schools. And contrary to the claim that vouchers hurt public schools, the report found that students at Milwaukee public schools “are performing at somewhat higher levels as a result of competitive pressure from the school voucher program.” Thus can vouchers benefit even the children that don’t receive them.

Empirical data obtained in states that expand school choice options for parents consistently indicate positive results.

Rahm Emanuel’s response to the reporter who dared ask the mayor about his choice for educating his own children is an appropriate defense for the desperate necessity of granting ALL parents the right of School Choice and Educational Freedom despite their economic status:

No, no, no- you have to understand- I’m making this decision as a father. And that’s a decision we’re gonna make, and anything less than that, would be less than how I think of myself and wanna be as a father.

Dear Mayor, every American deserves this same privilege of making a decision on school choice- and nothing less.

Rhonda

(For more information on School Choice, please see my earlier post “School Choice: Vouchers to Charter Schools”, linked here.)

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Rhonda is a stay home mom of two and was a teacher for ten years. She is a graduate of Clemson University and lives in Georgia. She is dedicated to the conservative, Constitutional principles that have made America a great country.
Visit Rhonda's Blog - One Conservative Voice

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