Recently, I watched in dismay as many naive individuals celebrated the Carson v. Makin U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
“The Supreme Court issued a ruling today in Carson v. Makin that requires the state of Maine to fund religious education at private religious schools as part of its tuition assistance program. The program pays for students to attend private school if their town does not have a public high school,” the ACLU stated.
This ruling allows Christian schools to be the beneficiaries of tax credits, voucher programs or education savings programs. Why wouldn’t this be considered a victory, you may ask?
1) Accountability. If the government is funding a private Christian school or a home school, they want accountability for those funds. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “There are differing opinions on how best to hold private school choice programs accountable. Some believe private schools participating in these programs should be held to the same academic accountability standards as public schools because they are all competing for the same students and resources. Others believe that uniform government standards will force all schools, public and private, to teach the same material rather than allow private schools to provide an array of alternative learning environments that offer innovative teaching philosophies and unique school cultures.”
So, what does this really mean? It means this: What the government funds, it runs. If the government is paying, the schools will answer to the government in terms of curriculum, testing and mandates.
2) No more autonomy. Autonomy is, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “the quality or state of being self-governing.” If the private schools or home schools are accepting government funding they are no longer self-governing. Once money exchanges hands, the autonomy is lost. Private Christian schools or home schools that accept government funds would no longer be “private.” They would then become “public” because they are receiving taxpayer funding. What the government funds, it runs.
3) No faith-based curriculum. Government is not going to “approve” any faith-based curriculum. This has already happened in multiple states that have already implemented school choice initiatives. Just because they have the word “Christian” in their name does not mean they will be teaching from a Biblical world view and if the government is funding the school or home school, it will not be allowed. What the government funds, it runs.
4) It is deceptive. Many families believe that this will give them the ability to provide a better education for their children because they will then be able to afford a faith-based education for their children. This is a misconception. First, these initiatives rarely cover the entire cost of the school. Secondly, if the school or home school is accepting government funding, it is most likely teaching the same material that is currently found in public schools. It isn’t “better,” it is more of the same. What the government funds, it runs.
School choice is a money machine. The numbers are mind-boggling. Take a look at one example from Wisconsin. “Overall, the combined costs of the Wisconsin and Racine Parental Choice voucher programs to local property taxpayers, as reflected in revenue limit exemptions tracked over time by DPI, has grown five times larger since the voucher programs began a rapid expansion in 2015–16, from an initial $21.4 million to $121.4 million for the current school year (according to DPI numbers as of Jan. 25, 2021). The cost of the Special Needs Scholarship Program has grown six times larger over the last four years, from an initial $3 million in 2017–18 to $18 million in 2021. All in all, statewide, local taxpayers have gone from spending about $21 million on private school vouchers in 2015–16 to spending about $140 million on private schools in 2020–21. And that’s just the cost for local property taxpayers,” this from the Wisconsin Examiner.
Families need to remember that the answer to a better education for their children is not the government. These initiatives are not about the children. Follow the money. Do families really believe that the government has done a sufficient job educating the youth of our nation? If so, why are families clamoring for educational alternatives? Why then do these same families expect the government to “fix” education by swallowing up private Christian schools and home schools? The irony in this theory is astounding.
It is time for parents to make some hard decisions, step back, and look at this logically. This Supreme Court ruling is only a victory if your desire is to decimate all true faith-based education and true educational freedom. The children aren’t getting “better” educational opportunities, they are just getting more of the same under the guise of “school choice.” My hope is that at some point, families will wake up before it is too late and realize that these initiatives are really nothing more than a calculated effort to destroy true educational choice by making all options government-controlled.
Let it be said again: what the government funds, it runs. Always.
