Lawsuit Demands That Maine Taxpayers Fund Tuition for Private Christian Schools

[phands]

Interesting angle on a frequent question....

Students in Maine are guaranteed free public education until they graduate high school. But in some rural parts of the state, where there are no local schools, students have the option of attending a private school on the state’s dime (as long as they’re accepted).


State law, however, mandates that those schools must be secular. Taxpayer money won’t be used to pay tuition at a religious school. Makes perfect sense.


But now, three sets of families represented by the (Libertarian) Institute for Justice and the (conservative) First Liberty Institute are suing the state because they claim it’s illegal for the state to deny the tuition funding to the Christian schools they want to attend. Their schools meet every condition laid out by the state for a tuition reimbursement… except for the religion part.




“In Maine, parents who live in towns without public high schools have the right to select the public or private school that best suits their children’s educational needs. The town then pays tuition to the school that the parents choose—unless the school is religious,” explained IJ’s lead counsel in the case, Senior Attorney Tim Keller. “By singling out religious schools, and only religious schools, for discrimination, Maine violates the U.S. Constitution.”


That’s… a weird argument to make. Maine is “singling” out religious schools as unacceptable for tuition payments because using tax money to pay for Jesus school would violate the Constitution in an actually egregious way.


It’s telling that the lawyers cite the Supreme Court’s decision in Trinity Lutheran, when they said a church couldn’t be excluded from applying for grant money provided by the state. That decision said the church in question should be eligible for the taxpayer-funded grant because they wanted it for a secular purpose (renovating a playground). If they wanted the money to, say, cover the costs of Sunday School, they may very well have lost that case.
That’s what should happen here. Maine shouldn’t be paying tuition for religious schools, because taxpayers shouldn’t be funding religious indoctrination. The parents are welcome to send their kids to such schools, but the state is under no obligation to help them out. It’s just that simple.


We’ll find out soon enough if a judge agrees with that assessment.




Read more at http://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/...rs-fund-tuition-for-private-christian-schools

 

[Keith&Co.]

If the relidschools get tax money, they have to obey staste standards, right?
Minimum wage? Educational minimums? Teacher certification? State standardized testing? Sex ed?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

If money can go to private schools then so long as they meet the state standards, it shouldn't matter if they're religious or non-religious. If they give a good education but also spend time teaching students how to read the will of Ra in chicken entrails, they're still giving a good education so it's a benefit to society as a whole to have taxpayers fund that.

 

[fast]

If money can go to private schools then so long as they meet the state standards, it shouldn't matter if they're religious or non-religious. If they give a good education but also spend time teaching students how to read the will of Ra in chicken entrails, they're still giving a good education so it's a benefit to society as a whole to have taxpayers fund that.

Not only that, but there is also the issue of whether the stipulation (schools must be secular) should apply in cases where they fail to honor their guarantee (free public education). The option for attending a secular private school for free doesn't honor their guarantee of a free public education.

I understand that the devil's little helpers don't want to pay for a child's education unless its secular, but expect some backlash towards those that endorse a system that makes guarantees it can't live up to. If you can't provide free public education, then don't mandate education. If you're going to mandate education, live up to your guarantee (work arounds unacceptable). If you can't live up to your guarantee, then drop the stipulation in cases where you can't.

I'm pretty much just talking out loud. I have it set up like a bargain of sorts. You can take the soul of poor children who can't afford a private religious based education. In exchange for that, put them in a paid for public school, but if you can't do that, let their souls be. If their getting an education trumps whether it's religious based or not, then maybe exceptions are warrented; after all, what would be done in an area where there are no secular schools public or private and only private religiously-based schools?