I just received an action alert from the Secular Coalition for America, urging us to stop the continuation of federal funding for religious schools through vouchers.  Vouchers are a major problem for church/state separation.  Although not all private schools are religious, the majority of them are affiliated with religious denominations and, as such, include theological instruction.  Many would be hard pressed to name local secular private schools, and may not even be able to name one.  Meanwhile, considering the prevalence of religious schools, it isn’t nearly as difficult to name at least one local private religious school.

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (see graph below), as of 2005 44% of private schools were Roman Catholic and 37% had other “religious orientation or purpose,” for a total of 81% of private schools being religious.  Although the amount of schools with certain religious affiliations such as Roman Catholic has dropped since 1989, the vast majority of private schools are still religious.  The 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey asked private and public school principals about their school goals.  While the top two goals of public school principals were basic literacy (80%) and academic excellence (70%), the top two goals of private school principals were academic excellence (66%) and religious/spiritual life (64%).

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