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%).

With such a large majority of private schools being religious, it follows that the majority of school vouchers would lead to taxpayers funding religious schools as opposed to private secular institutions.  Since a top goal of the majority of religious private schools is religious education, it follows that such taxpayer funding would inevitably fund religious education, which is blatantly unconstitutional.  Atheists certainly don’t want their money paying for education in a religion they don’t follow, and neither do members of differing religions or denominations of the school receiving the voucher funding.

In such a school, there is simply no way to assure that taxpayer money will not be paying for religious education without the government requiring that religion not be taught at all.  Even as an atheist, I recognize that such a requirement would be just as unconstitutional, and I would never propose such.  The Establishment Clause protects both the government from religious interference, as well as religion from government interference.  The only way I can see that would have vouchers fall within constitutional bounds would be to require vouchers only be used for the small minority of secular private schools, something those who demand “choice” would never allow.

There just doesn’t seem to be any good way to keep vouchers yet also protect our First Amendment rights, so I agreed with the Secular Coalition for America when they say to get rid of them altogether.

March 3, 2009

Dear Supporter,

The Senate will soon vote on an amendment to continue funding of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program for an additional year. This voucher program in the District of Columbia is supposed to give parents a “choice” of schools for their kids as an alternative to public schools, but in practice, the only choice the program provides parents is to send their children to private religious schools. Since Congress appropriates money directly to the D.C. government for this program, this means that your tax dollars are helping to fund the religious education of children in D.C.

TAKE ACTION NOW.

This program, a favorite of the Religious Right, was enacted as a “test” program in 2003 and set to expire after 2008.  The program has already been extended once without sufficient scrutiny.  Those Senators eager to continue spending federal dollars on religious education and religious proselytizing are trying to do it again.  They are attempting to circumvent the public scrutiny of Congressional hearings and reports on the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program that is required by current legislation.

Worse yet, this amendment is a deliberate effort to circumvent the public scrutiny of Congressional hearings and reports on the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program to which this program would otherwise be required to be subject to this year.

The Secular Coalition for America opposes the use of government funds for religious purposes, including vouchers for religious schools. We agree with the founders of the United States that no individual taxpayer should be required to pay for someone else’s religion.

Help us end funding for this program by writing to your Senators now.

TAKE ACTION NOW.

Best wishes,
Secular Coalition for America