Religious Education

podcastED: redefinED interview with Catholic school mom Jennifer Strickland

Lisa Buie April 7, 2021

Lisa Buie

On this episode, redefinED senior writer Buie speaks with Jennifer Strickland, mother to 14-year-old Jack, a freshman at Catholic High School in Pensacola, Florida. Strickland, a former retail manager and independent cosmetics consultant, found herself a single parent when her husband died unexpectedly.

Strickland talks about why she chose a Catholic education for her son and what makes it distinct from district schools. She also discusses the shock she experienced after her husband’s death, the financial hardship she and her son experienced in the years that followed, and her disappointment that state law prevented her from receiving a school choice scholarship for Jack because he had not spent the previous year in a district school.

“It’s like you are almost coerced to keep your child in a public school … Of course, the first thing I thought of was, ‘What am I going to do? He’s already going through a rough time.’ My mind was just reeling. I prayed and prayed and prayed I could keep him where he was.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

· How Jack’s educational journey began

· How Catholic schools provide a unique sense of community

· How Strickland managed to keep her son in his Catholic school during the roughest time in both their lives

· How a repeal of the requirement that denies financially qualified families school choice scholarships would benefit Strickland’s family and others across Florida

April 7, 2021 0 comment

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‘Friends of the Court’ urge hearing of Maine school choice case

Patrick R. Gibbons March 31, 2021

Patrick R. Gibbons

PHOTO: Institute for Justice

The Institute for Justice appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in March, asking the justices to hear the case of three Maine families wishing to send their children to private religious schools.

The issue to decide: Can the state’s school choice program discriminate against private religious schools based on what they teach?

Maine’s town tuition program, created in 1873, requires towns without public schools to send local children to other public school districts or pay for private school tuition. However, Maine’s program prohibits towns from paying tuition at private religious schools.

The plaintiffs in the case, Carson, Gillis and Nelson v. Hasson, argue Maine’s law violates the U.S. Constitution and the recent Espinoza decision. The 1^st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, rejected that argument last year.

Under Espinoza, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not prohibit religious schools from participating in publicly funded programs due to their religious status.

Maine’s law requires participating private schools to be “nonsectarian.” The state courts and 1^st U.S. District Court of Appeals argue this does not violate Espinoza.

The state’s law under § 2951(2) simply states that the school must be “a nonsectarian school in accordance with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

Exactly how the First Amendment defines nonsectarians schools is not clear, but the state of Maine comes up with a rather clever way to defend its discrimination: “While affiliation or association with a church or religious institution is one potential indicator of a sectarian school, it is not dispositive. The Department’s focus is on what the school teaches through its curriculum and related activities, and how the material is presented,” the state’s department of education claimed.

According to the state, prohibiting religious instruction does not violate the U.S. Constitution or the recent Espinoza decision because they are discriminating against religious uses, not religious status.

The 1^st U.S, Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, arguing that Maine’s requirement of “nonsectarian” schools is not a prohibition on the religious status of a school, but a prohibition on religious uses.

Under this interpretation, a religious school could participate in Maine’s town tuition program so long as it didn’t teach religious things.

“The state flatly bans parents from choosing schools that offer religious instruction. That is unconstitutional,” says IJ senior attorney Michael Bindas.

Several groups, including a coalition of 18 states, filed amicus briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

March 31, 2021 0 comment

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podcastED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill interviews Florida Catholic Conference’s Michael Barrett

redefinED staff March 3, 2021

redefinED staff

On this episode, Tuthill speaks with the Conference’s associate for education about the history of Catholic education and the tension between Catholic schools maintaining an open, welcoming environment for all students while adhering to the practices and beliefs of their religious identity.

With nearly 30,000 of Florida’s roughly 80,000 Catholic students receiving some type of state scholarship, education choice plays a significant role in Florida’s Catholic schools. Tuthill and Barrett discuss Senate Bill 48, the landmark choice bill proposed by the Florida Senate that will be discussed during this year’s legislative session, and opportunities the Catholic community has to better serve families should the bill become law.

“We are not trying to discriminate against anybody. We’re trying to maintain (schools) where we can build and teach and provide an environment that is based on the fundamental aspects of the Catholic faith.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

· The history of Catholic education in America stemming from Protestant discrimination in the first modern public schools

· How education choice provides vibrancy to Catholic schools in Florida even as enrollment declines in other states

· Issues of religious freedom and non-discrimination language that governments are codifying into law

· How Catholic schools handle identity issues on a school-by-school, per-family basis rather than adhering to blanket policies

· Senate Bill 48 and how its potential to help Catholic schools serve more students in better ways

March 3, 2021 0 comment

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A lesson from the Buddha

Matthew Ladner February 8, 2021

Matthew Ladner

The podcast “99% Invisible” featured a fascinating story of an impromptu shrine and the unexpected benefits it’s brought.

Dan Stevenson of Oakland, California, lived in a neighborhood beset with crime and drugs. An open space near his home was being used in 1999 as a site for illegal garbage dumping. Frustrated, Dan decided to clean up the space, purchase a statue of the Buddha, and place it on the site.

Strange things were afoot at the Circle K from that point forward. The trash dumping stopped. People began to leave offerings of various sorts at the statue. After being identified as the person who erected the statue, Dan started finding gifts left for him at his front door.

Daily prayer vigils began, and the space surrounding the statue was spruced up. Most interesting of all, recorded crime in the area dropped by 82%.

Erecting a shrine on public property might offend some sensibilities, but those in the area continue to appreciate it, and you can still visit it today.

University of Notre Dame law professors Margaret F. Brinig and Nicole Stelle Garnett may have found an echo of the Oakland Buddha in their statistical analysis between Catholic schools and neighborhood crime rates. Specifically, they examined data over time from Chicago and found that areas with closed Catholic schools experienced greater crime.

Interestingly, the analysis found no relationship between charter schools and social disorder.

A great deal more research lies ahead, but one of the aims of empowering families in education is to treat religious groups in a neutral fashion rather than actively discriminating against them.

American K-12 policy has addressed the question of religion through a series of follies. Public schools initially were used as an instrument of the Protestant majority to “assimilate” Catholic immigrants. The public schools were religious (Bible readings and all) but only in a fashion generically acceptable to Protestants. If you happened to be a Catholic, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim, Agnostic or Atheist, well too bad.

The Ku Klux Klan muscled through a law requiring public school attendance in Oregon in the 1920s. The Klan aimed to turn Oregon Catholics into “real Americans” (insert author gagging noise about here). The United States Supreme Court struck the law down. The productive course at that point (or any future point) would have been to embrace pluralism in education as is common in Europe.

As Winston Churchill once noted, Americans always can be relied upon to do the right thing but only after all other possibilities have been exhausted. Instead of “to each his own” in a fashion common in Europe, American public schools essentially banished religion from the curriculum in the decades following the Oregon episode.

The U.S. had precisely zero states in 2019 in which 50% or more of eighth-grade students could read at proficiency. I can live without these schools teaching religion, or their secular equivalents. If more kids could read proficiently, we would have hope for a future in which more adult Americans could think.

We may, however, have lost something very important in actively discriminating against religious schools, and it may stretch well beyond test scores. Government neutrality toward religious groups, neither favoring nor discriminating against them, creates a way forward in which the American people can shape the education space according to their needs and values.

We’ve exhausted all the other possibilities. It’s time to get this right.

February 8, 2021 0 comment

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Catholic schools continue to attract families looking for education choice

Special to redefinED February 3, 2021

Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: National Catholic Schools Week, celebrated this year as Celebrate Catholic Schools Week from Jan. 31 to Feb. 6, is an annual celebration of Catholic education in the United States. In today’s post, Michael Barrett, Associate for Education for the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, explains why, in his view, Catholic schools remain an excellent school choice option for families.

For years, the Catholic Church has promoted school choice and has advocated for the right of parents to choose the educational option that best suits the needs of their child. Today, Florida is on the cutting edge when it comes to providing families with real educational options. But among these options, what sets Catholic schools apart?

I would like to highlight two aspects of Catholic education. The first is community.

One of the most striking aspects of an excellent Catholic education is authentic community – not merely a community of students and teachers effectively receiving and imparting knowledge, but a network of families and individuals who know and care for one another deeply.

While this community begins at school, it is not limited to regular school hours or confined to the school building.

Growing up in Brandon, Florida, I remember experiencing this in my own Catholic grade school. I recall a real sense of sharing life with other families from my school. My friends and I not only attended the same school; we sat next to each other at Sunday mass and we carpooled together to school sporting events. Our moms served lunch in the cafeteria and our dads worked the food and drink tents at the annual school fair.

Our families ate dinner together, attended parties together, and supported one another through various triumphs and tragedies. By attending Catholic school, our families became immersed in a particular Catholic school community.

Both Catholics and non-Catholics alike have encountered and have been enriched by this distinctive experience of Catholic school community. And indeed, this is by design.

As Archbishop J. Michael Miller, secretary for the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, has stated, Catholic grade schools should “try to create a community school climate that reproduces, as far as possible, the warm and intimate atmosphere of family life … This means that all involved should develop a real willingness to collaborate among themselves. Teachers … together with parents and trustees, should work together as a team for the school’s common good and their right to be involved in its responsibilities.”

Therefore, Catholic schools are called to be communities, not only for students and teachers, but for the entire family.

Throughout Florida, 239 Catholic schools serve 79,623 students. Just under 40% of these students participate in one of Florida’s K-12 scholarship programs.

A second aspect of Catholic education is that Catholic school communities are grounded in a particular understanding of human nature and of human love. This understanding of human nature informs and influences the relationships that make up the Catholic school community.

The Catholic Church, and therefore Catholic schools, teach that each and every person has great dignity and worth because he or she is made in the image and likeness of God. Furthermore, Catholic school communities understand love to be a “self-gift,” or charity, best exemplified by Christ’s gift of himself to us on the cross.

This, of course, does not mean that Catholic school communities are perfect. Nor does it mean that every student who walks into a Catholic school must be Catholic. It certainly doesn’t mean that every student must walk out of a Catholic school as a Catholic.

However, it does mean that Catholic schools will be Catholic, and that this particular view of human nature and love will be proposed, taught, and thoughtfully discussed – which, in turn, hopefully will influence and guide the entire school community.

When this is done well, Catholic schools offer distinctive communities and learning environments that exist as a wonderful educational option for Florida’s students and their families.

February 3, 2021 0 comment

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redefinED’s best of 2020: Supreme Court in Espinoza ruling opens door to state funding for religious schools

Patrick R. Gibbons December 28, 2020

Patrick R. Gibbons

Kendra Espinoza of Kalispell, Montana, lead plaintiff in the case, with her daughters Naomi and Sarah outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in January.

Editor’s note: During the holiday season, redefinED is reprising the “best of the best” from our 2020 archives. This post originally published June 30.

In a landmark decision today on school choice, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Montana Department of Revenue’s shutdown of a tax-credit scholarship program for low-income students is unconstitutional, potentially opening the door for states to enact such programs for students to attend private faith-based schools.

The court said in its 5-4 decision on Espinoza vs. the Montana Department of Revenue, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, that the Montana Department of Revenue cannot disqualify religious schools simply because of what they are.

“A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious,” the opinion said.

The ruling also stated:

“Drawing on ‘enduring American tradition,’ we have long recognized the rights of parents to direct ‘the religious upbringing’ of their children … Many parents exercise that right by sending their children to religious schools, a choice protected by the Constitution.”

Roberts was joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Dissenting were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer.

“The Supreme Court delivered a major victory to parents who want to choose the best school for their children, including religious schools,” said Institute for Justice senior attorney Erica Smith, who was co-counsel on the case. “This is a landmark case in education that will allow states across the country to enact educational choice programs that give parents maximum educational options.”

Organizations that support education choice praised the decision.

“It’s a good news day for those who love the freedoms we enjoy in this country and seek to advance and preserve those freedoms,” said Leslie Hiner, leader of the Legal Defense & Education Center for the nonprofit advocacy group EdChoice. “Today the Supreme Court has re-affirmed its role as the guardians of our Constitution. The Montana Supreme Court has disregarded the U.S. Constitution, and in particular the First Amendment’s clause protecting our right to the Free Exercise of whatever faith we choose as individuals, when it struck down a modest school choice program that allowed parents to choose any school, religiously-affiliated or not, for their children’s education.”

The case started in 2015, when the Montana Legislature enacted a program that provided a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for taxpayers who donated to a Student Scholarship Organization. That meant a Montana resident could donate to a scholar organization, and in turn, would receive a tax credit for the donation.

The Student Scholarship Organization used the donated money to provide scholarships to students to attend private schools, including private schools affiliated with a religion.

Shortly after the program was enacted, the Montana Department of Revenue promulgated an administrative rule (“Rule 1”) prohibiting scholarship recipients from using their scholarships at religious schools, citing a provision of the state constitution that prohibits “direct or indirect” public funding of religiously affiliated educational programs.

Kendra Espinoza and the two other mothers filed a lawsuit in state court challenging the rule. The trial court determined that the scholarship program was constitutional without the rule and granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the Department of Revenue argued that the program is unconstitutional without Rule 1. The Montana Supreme Court agreed with the Department and reversed the lower court.

At issue in the case are Blaine Amendments, also called “No Aid” clauses, which are provisions in 38 state constitutions, including Florida’s, that bar public aid to religious organizations. They get their name from James G. Blaine, a congressional representative and later senator and presidential nominee from Maine who unsuccessfully attempted to amend the U.S. constitution in 1875 to include “anti-aid” language onto the end of the first amendment. Where he failed at the federal level, many states inserted Blaine Amendments into their constitutions. As a result, Blaine Amendments frequently act as state-level barriers against school choice.

“I am thrilled that the courts ruled in favor of the Constitution and maintained a parent’s right to choose where their children go to school,” Espinoza said in a news release issued by the Institute for Justice. “For our family, this means we can continue to receive assistance that is a lifeline to our ability to stay at Stillwater. For so many other families across America, this will potentially mean changing lives and positively altering the future of thousands of children nationwide. What a wonderful victory.”

The win and the promise of continued scholarships is a significant boost to Espinoza, who has had to work multiple jobs, including cleaning houses and doing janitorial work, to afford her daughters’ tuition payments at a private Christian school in Kalispell. Kendra transferred her two daughters to Stillwater Christian School after they struggled in their public school. Montana’s scholarship program has helped Kendra and families across the state keep their children in the school that works best for them.

“It’s been a century-and-a-half since the bigoted Blaine movement took root in state constitutions throughout the country,” IJ Senior Attorney Richard Komer, who argued the case before the Court said in the news release. “Today’s decision shows that it is never too late to correct an injustice, even one with as long and ignoble a pedigree as this one.”

Today’s decision will affect most of the 14 states that have strictly interpreted their state constitution Blaine Amendments to bar scholarships to children at religious schools. For decades, the creation and expansion of school choice programs have been inhibited by legislative concerns that they might conflict with state constitutions. Those concerns are now removed with today’s decision in Espinoza.

December 28, 2020 0 comment

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Scholarships continue to be a lifeline for Catholic school families

Lisa Buie December 8, 2020

Lisa Buie

Eight-year-old Grace Peters, her sister, Stella, 5, and her brother, Colton, 6, attend San Jose Catholic School in Jacksonville on state scholarships.

While Catholic school enrollment in Florida declined for the second straight year, newly released figures showing an increase in the number of families using state scholarships to send their children to these schools may be the reason the schools escaped the precipitous declines plaguing Catholic schools nationwide.

Overall, scholarship use among Catholic school families increased by 2.1%. Preliminary figures on Catholic school enrollment released by the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops shows the number of students receiving the Family Empowerment Scholarship soaring from 1,787 in 2019 to 5,040 in 2020.

Florida Catholic school enrollment yearly comparison and growth over time

Florida Catholic school state scholarship figures 2018-2020

“Families are looking for more flexibility and access to diverse schooling options to keep their children safe and well educated during this pandemic,” said Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up For Students, Florida’s largest K-12 scholarship organization and host of this blog. “That’s why we are seeing a surge in demand for scholarships, such as the Family Empowerment Scholarship.”

Tuthill added: “Education choice programs will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. Families like having access to more learning options for their children.”

A significant amount of the growth in scholarships, Tuthill speculated, is due to parents of kindergarteners seeking a safer environment for their children during the pandemic while trying to maintain a high-quality education. The pandemic’s impact on family finances also may have played a role in scholarship growth, he said.

“I suspect there has been a lot of pressure on families who were private pay,” he said.

Count Joe Peters and his wife, Sarah, among those who felt that pressure. Peters, a 36-year-old father of four children ranging in age from 8 years to 18 months, lost his income when the pandemic wiped out the event planning and management business he co-owns. Though the family was able to make ends meet for a few months with income from events held before pandemic-forced cancellations, the threat of having to take their children out of San Jose Catholic School in Jacksonville, which they knew and loved, caused many sleepless nights.

“That was a trying time,” said Peters, who attended San Jose and graduated from Bishop Kenney Catholic High School in Jacksonville. The situation became so dire that the family considered moving to his father-in-law’s Alabama hometown so the kids could attend district schools there and still be near relatives.

“Just the thought of telling our kids they wouldn’t be able to return to a place they loved so much was heartbreaking,” Sarah Peters said. The idea of her young children having to move to a new town, adjust to new teachers and make new friends while everyone’s faces were covered with masks was “frightening to me,” she said.

Then a family member told the family about the Family Empowerment Scholarship program. They applied, and their children were awarded full scholarships for the 2020-21 school year.

“It brought tears to our eyes,” Joe Peters recalled. “That was such a relief knowing that our kids would not be put through any kind of drastic change during this global pandemic.”

Catholic school leaders such as Michael Barrett, associate for education for the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, credit state scholarship programs for allowing Catholic schools to remain open, providing a high-quality, faith-based education for families dealing with pandemic-induced anxiety.

“The Family Empowerment Scholarship is a program true to its name,” Barrett said. “Even pre-pandemic, the rising costs of private school tuition coupled with increased costs of living often made it difficult for middle-income families to provide a Catholic education for multiple children.”

Barrett said his organization hopes state lawmakers will expand the Family Empowerment Scholarship to more students by eliminating the requirement that students in first through 12^th grades first attend a district school to qualify for the program. (Because the Peters’ youngest child was entering kindergarten, the two older children were also eligible for Family Empowerment Scholarships, according to state rules.)

“Parents are the primary educators of their children and should have the opportunity to educate their children as they see fit,” he said.

Joe and Sarah Peters’ said they are relieved that at their three children to continue attending the school the family has always known and loved.

“We like the values that are being taught here,” Joe Peters said. “We know the community, and the community knows us.”

Peters also found his own lifeline at San Jose as a long-term substitute Spanish teacher and cross country/track coach.

“I am talking to you from my desk at school,” he said. “I am beyond grateful.”

December 8, 2020 0 comment

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podcastED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill interviews leaders of Miami Catholic Virtual School

redefinED staff September 30, 2020

redefinED staff

On this episode, Tuthill talks with Archdiocese of Miami Catholic Virtual School principal Rebeca Bautista, left, and coordinator of special programs Marcey Ayers. The online school is the only Catholic virtual school in the country run by an Archdiocese – a Catholic version of the well-known Florida Virtual School, which provides a robust curriculum to public, private, charter and homeschool families and school districts nationwide.

The three discuss why the school was created and how it enhances existing curriculum options for Catholic families nationwide –as far flung as Alaska. While Bautista and Ayers say flexibility has been the key driver of their success, they agree more flexibility is needed, perhaps through an expansion of education scholarship accounts that would allow families greater customization of their children’s education.

“Before (the pandemic) there was a misconception of what virtual education was, that it was easier or not legitimate … Now parents and schools are realizing virtual education can help students and schools grow …. It’s going to bring virtual to the forefront.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

How “partner schools” can augment their existing offerings with Archdiocese of Miami Catholic Virtual School’s platform and curriculum

How teaching in a competency-based system has allowed the school to better meet student needs

Catholic schools on the creative forefront of “unbundling” education

Legislation changes necessary to bring more customization and flexibility to families

LINKS MENTIONED:

RedefinED: Catholic Virtual School Offers Options to Families Seeking Online Faith-Based Education

September 30, 2020 0 comment