BlogWood: MT Archives

Florida 4 year olds to get religion

Florida’s Organized Religion Welfare Act of 2005 pre-K legislation is progressing as planned, with GOP leaders belittling or simply ignoring pleas for quality. Calls for safeguards against state-sponsored proselytizing and recruitment are likewise falling on deaf ears.

When voters passed the mandate for pre-K education in 2002, they wisely demanded a quality program. Unfortunately, it was left to the Legislature to define “quality,” and the working definition includes religious instruction paid for by the state.

In fact, the wording of the legislation as it currently stands is so troubling that Senate President Tom Lee was moved to speak out against the idea of religious schools using state funds to teach religion. Fortunately for Jeb!, though, Lee quickly realized that honest opinions and thoughtful solutions would help no one, and he is now back on board with his fellow theocrats.

Senate President Tom Lee said Monday that religious schools that participate in Florida's new pre-kindergarten program should not be teaching religious doctrine using state money - only to back away from the position hours later.

Lee's original position - the first time in years a top Republican has come down on state-backed religious instruction that way - angered representatives of the hundreds of religious schools and day-care centers the state is counting on to implement the program that voters mandated in 2002.

The bill, as drafted, does not spell out any restrictions on what would be taught during the hours paid for by the state. Lee said Monday afternoon that he thought language to that effect would be appropriate.

"I think that's an issue, if we start paying for this kind of thing in this program," he said.

Later Monday, he said discussions with Senate staffers and top advisers had persuaded him that such a restriction would be difficult to draft and would be tantamount to waving a red flag to the Supreme Court on the issue of whether funding religious institutions is constitutional.

Lee said he still believes schools should not teach religion with public money, but he added: "I don't see how we get to that policy position as a Senate. I guess we're left to a Supreme Court interpretation as to just what constitutes religious education in this voluntary program."

Advocates for religious schools said it is preposterous to think they would take God out of their curriculum just to cash in on state pre-K dollars. They said they would refuse to offer the voluntary pre-K program if that were a condition.

Two-thirds of all private schools are religious, but about three-quarters of schools taking state-backed vouchers are religious.

"My kind of religious organizations wouldn't even give this program a second thought and it would be a failure," said Howard Burke, director of the Florida Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. "If you enroll in a faith-based program, you would be a fool to think that the curriculum would not be Christ-centered."

Well, if pre-K providers are gonna cop an attitude like that, perhaps it’s a good thing that the school day will be limited to 3 hours and that the state funded theologians wont be very well trained - perhaps it will give parents a fighting chance to undo the indoctrination that their kids will have forced down their throats.

The GOP spin is that “faith based” providers are needed because public schools couldn’t possibly handle the expected enrollment.

School district officials statewide say public classrooms couldn't handle at least 90,000 additional 4-year-olds expected to enroll for state- funded prekindergarten starting in August.

That's where private and particularly faith-based providers come in. Using them allows lawmakers to have the program up and running by August 2005 without spending millions constructing new buildings and finding providers.

The question is whether the state cooperating with churches and other religious groups to provide services will pose a legal quandary. Already, courts have ruled a state program allowing some students to attend religious schools on taxpayer dollars violates the state constitution.

Florida leaders are moving ahead.

``We have to rely on the full array of providers out there,'' said Education Commissioner John Winn.

Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, said trying to go around private providers would have meant a ``holy war.''

``People have already built an industry around this kind of program,'' he said.

Larry Keough, education associate at the Florida Catholic Conference, bottom-lined it: ``The state needs faith-based more than the faith-based needs the state.''

Well, Florida’s public schools are notoriously underfunded, and thus might find it difficult to meet demand, but the state could have allocated money for expansion in 2003 or 2004. In fact, the GOP has written language into the bill to ensure that public schools will not be providing stiff competition even if local school boards are so inclined.

To ensure public school districts in urban counties don't create their own large, pre-K programs that would make it hard for private institutions to compete, the legislation says any school district not meeting the class caps ''in each classroom'' is not eligible for state pre-K money. South Florida school districts have met class-size reductions but have complied by lowering the average class size over the entire county rather than in each class.

Sen. Lisa Carlton, an Osprey Republican and prime architect of the bill, said school districts unable to reduce class sizes now shouldn't be offering pre-K.

BILL'S PROVISIONS

The tilt in favor of private schools in the bill, however, goes beyond just the class cap. The bill would allow:

- The use of religion in pre-K education. There are few limits on what kind of curriculum should be offered, other than it should have some focus on early literacy.

- Providers to deny admission to any 4-year-old based on religion. Unlike Bush's initial voucher program passed in 1999, this legislation does not include a requirement that admission be ``religion-neutral.''

- An 18-1 student-to-teacher ratio. Opposed by Bush, this staffing ratio falls more closely into line with varying accrediting standards some private providers use.

- A three-hour average day of instruction in the year-round program, mirroring what many private schools now offer. Public schools offer six hours.

- Private schools to avoid a requirement that all the program's schools have teachers with higher-education degrees by 2010. The degree requirement is now considered an ``aspirational goal.''

- The state's Labor Department, not the Department of Education, to have day-to-day control over the pre-K program.

Churches get a windfall, pedophile priests get a whole new crop of potential victims, the state gets to spend half as much as a true quality program should cost, and parents get 3 hours of free babysitting each day. Everyone’s a winner!