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Louisiana district court judge is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the state’s controversial school voucher program. The program is intended to provide higher-quality education for poor and disadvantaged students from troubled public schools, but it also uses tax-payer money to fund religious education. As ULC pastors, we should be highly circumspect about how tax-payer dollars are being used in Louisiana’s school voucher program, since it threatens to erode the wall separating church and state.
On Wednesday, 28 November, Baton Rouge Judge Tim Kelley began hearing arguments on the state’s new initiative, which is being spearheaded by Republican Governor Bobby Jindal. Jindal and other supporters of the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program have argued that the vouchers will spur school competition, expand parental choice, and save poor children from substandard education in troubled public schools, while critics have pointed out the vouchers would pay for the cost of tuition at religious, Bible-based institutions. They have pointed out the voucher program violates the state constitution by directly funding religious instruction through the state using tax-payer dollars, and that it drains the public school system of much-needed money. Judge Kelley’s deliberations come after Louisiana’s teacher unions and 43 school districts filed lawsuits to block the program.
The way the voucher tax dollars would be used should concern those who become ordained ministers in nondenominational churches like the ULC. Earlier this year, C. Welton Gaddy, the president of a national interfaith organization, wrote a letter to Gov. Jindal condemning the program. “I am not appalled that a Christian school is teaching its students that God created the Earth,” he wrote; “I am appalled that these schools are teaching theology as science, and they’re doing so with government money, my tax dollars.” Citing a Mother Jones article, a Huffington Post article notes that one textbook used by a voucher school argues that modern math is “bollocks” and useless in modern society, while another textbook that would benefit from the program, Life Science, suggests that dinosaurs may have lived alongside human beings: “Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years.” A third book, Teacher’s Resource Guide to Current Events for Christian Schools, includes a lesson which states that gays “have no more claims to special rights than child molesters or rapists.”
There are several reasons why the Universal Life Church opposes the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program. Supporters argue it gives parents greater choice, but it also denies taxpayers the choice over whether their money is being used to fund religious instruction. Additionally, supporters argue that the program gives disadvantaged children the opportunity for a better education, but it actually compromises children’s education by funding schools which teach anti-scientific theology. Last, and perhaps most obvious, the program violates the U.S. Constitution by funding religious instruction through a government initiative. As ordained pastors we should share the concerns of interfaith ministers like Mr. Gaddy.
Gov. Jindal’s school voucher program has good intentions in its attempt to provide a better education for Louisiana’s disadvantaged children, but it misses the mark by attempting to earmark funds for private religious schools. Both children and taxpayers lose out when public money is used to subsidize theology and creationist education. Hopefully Judge Kelly will make the right decision and rule in favor of Louisiana’s students, taxpayers, and public school system.