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Commission on Faith-based Schools

With parental school choice, what are we Democrats afraid of?

Peter H. Hanley March 12, 2014

Education’s parental choice is down to the heart of the matter in Florida. Will it remain a program at the margins? Or will the growing reality of empowering parents actually transform education over the coming years into a system that respond to the needs and desires of society and its families? Into a true public education system?

These scholarship students joined faith leaders in the Florida Capitol last week to support a bill that would strengthen and expand the program. (Photo by Silver Digital Media)

In such a structure, the traditional public schools exist as one delivery method among several – charter schools, private schools, homeschooling, virtual schools, and possibly others to be created. But they are no longer the “public education system” that must be preserved at all costs and to the detriment of the others. Unfortunately, some Democratic lawmakers must still be persuaded.

Look no further than last week’s debate in the House Finance & Taxation Subcommittee, where representatives voted 11-7 along party lines in favor of a bill to strengthen and expand Florida’s tax credit scholarship program. (The program is administered by Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog with the American Center for School Choice.)

This program will continue to save the state money even after its expansion. It has a multi-year record of academic improvement, documented by an independent analysis. Yet it was bombarded with arguments rooted in doubts and fears rather than rationality or concern for children. Can those of us who are Democrats look at a cost-saving program that is successfully serving tens of thousands of low-income families, with tens of thousands more asking for a chance to participate, and really say, “You are asking for too much too soon”?

One of the most often heard views is no further funding should go to tax credit scholarships until “public education is fully funded.” First, this unicorn chase is a beautiful, yet mythical fairy tale. Nothing is “fully funded,” not our police force, our electric grid, our sewer system, our public transportation system, or our national defense. This is an excuse, if accepted, for doing nothing except plowing money endlessly into the status quo. Second, it is akin to telling your younger child, “No more Christmas presents until your big brother’s wish list is completely fulfilled.”

March 12, 2014 0 comment

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Smarick: In new era, faith-based schools need more transparency, accountability

Jon East November 20, 2013

Jon East

Smarick

Few people in the field of education bring the kind of credibility to a debate on faith-based schools that Andy Smarick brings. So his keynote speech Tuesday to the American Center for School Choice’s Commission on Faith-based Schools in New York was all the more riveting for his decision not to preach to the choir. His message – that to reverse the decline, faith-based educators need also to look in the mirror – amounted to a family intervention.

“Without putting too fine of a point on it,” Smarick said, “an H.G. Wells quote seems particularly fitting: ‘Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.’ ”

Smarick criticized faith-based schools – and private schools in general – for not adapting to a new educational environment driven by regulatory accountability and performance measures, and for not being more transparent about their academic performance. He challenged a passage in the commission’s report:

“The following paragraph from your report is particularly instructive: ‘America is losing a valuable national asset — not because it has become obsolescent, not because the demand for it has disappeared, not because the need for it has been satisfied by other entities, but because we have a misguided public policy … ‘

“It is my humble contention that these policies are misguided as much because of our behavior as anyone else’s. I’m sad to say, most believe we currently don’t deserve better policies. Our elected officials are understandably making education decisions based on the conditions of 2013, and we’re acting like it’s 1963.”

The public and charter sectors are transparent in ways that better inform parents and satisfy the demands of those in government who pay the bills, Smarick told the audience. So private schools that want to constitute a viable third sector need to embrace the reality seen in most Western nations:

November 20, 2013 3 comments

Education Research Faith-based Education

Report: Proud history, perilous future for faith-based schools

Ron Matus November 19, 2013

Ron Matus

The new, national Commission on Faith-based Schools holds its first leadership summit in New York City today, aiming to raise awareness about a fact too long overlooked: Faith-based schools in America’s inner cities are in trouble.

To that end, the commission will release its first report to the nation. “Religious Schools in America: A Proud History and Perilous Future” is part myth dispeller, part history lesson, part call to action. It compiles rarely seen data and offers a tight summary of the research regarding outcomes. Its introduction distills what’s at stake:

Faith-based schools are an extension of individual and family religious freedoms in America, tied to an expression of their rights of conscience and rooted deeply in America’s history. These schools—and the rights that they help to protect—are currently under severe financial strains that threaten the existence of many of them. The United States is an aberration among democracies because it does not provide public support for its families to choose a faith-based school when they wish to do so.

U.S. faith-based schools, despite suffering a severe financial disadvantage when compared with public schools and with faith-based schools in other Western democracies, are serving hundreds of thousands of students of color, students from low-income families, students with special needs, and students whose first language is not English.

Finally, faith-based schools are producing above-average academic results with fewer resources, in both traditional academic subjects and also in the development of the virtues of character, respect for differences, and citizenship.

Also today, the commission will unveil a new website stocked with data about religious schools. Compiled by researcher Vicki E. Alger, “Assembling the Evidence” includes a stack of charts, maps with state-by-state breakdowns, and a library with more than 4,000 reports, surveys, and research studies.

Report here. Website here. As always, full disclosure: The commission was founded by the American Center for School Choice, which co-hosts this blog.

November 19, 2013 0 comment

Blog Administration Catholic Schools Faith-based Education

Faith leaders must mobilize to stem crisis with faith-based schools

Ron Matus November 12, 2013

Ron Matus

Hanley (left) and Aguirre

Bad public policy has exacerbated the crisis with faith-based schools in America’s inner-cities, and it’s likely to get worse unless religious leaders, parents and the schools themselves get better at raising awareness about the value of such schools and advocating for expanded school choice, two school choice leaders said Tuesday.

“Faith-based education is under attack on so many levels from the government and others with an anti-faith agenda,” said Robert Aguirre, who chairs the new, national Commission on Faith-based Schools. “It is easy to see the result and the implication of such a crisis. It is much harder to explain the lack of a national outcry.”

“If the organizations who operate faith-based schools don’t get to work to organize their parents/families,” Aguirre continued, “things will get much worse, much quicker, over the next 25 years than they have over the past 25!”

Aguirre’s comments came during a live, written chat on redefinED that also featured Peter Hanley, executive director of the American Center for School Choice. The center, which co-hosts the blog, formed the commission last year to raise awareness about the plight of faith-based schools and spur action towards their revival. The commission’s first leadership summit is set for next week in New York City.

Wrote Hanley during the chat: “The Commission was formed to challenge the complacency that closing religious schools, especially in urban areas where there is little educational choice and where these schools have served communities for years, is just a result of natural evolution rather than bad public policy. We want to create a national consensus that these schools are a national asset that millions of American families value and should be able to access as part of our educational system.”

Aguirre and Hanley also:

Stressed the need to accentuate the moral case for school choice over the financial benefits.
Said we should stop regarding public and private schools as part of an either/or system.
Called it “especially disappointing” the Obama Administration has not been more supportive of faith-based schools, given their track record with traditionally underperforming students.

You can read the entirety of the chat through the transcript below.

November 12, 2013 0 comment

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Next week: A chat about faith-based schools

Ron Matus November 6, 2013

Ron Matus

Peter Hanley (at left) and Robert Aguirre

The U.S. is home to 21,000 faith-based schools. They serve 4.3 million students. They’ve long been an integral part of the American mosaic. Yet today, many of them are under intense financial strain, particularly in urban areas where, for generations, they’ve admirably served low-income students. At a time when American public education could use help from every quarter, the plight of faith-based schools remains sadly overlooked.

To raise awareness and spur action, the American Center for School Choice (which co-hosts this blog) created the national Commission on Faith-based Schools. It’s holding its first school leadership summit Nov. 19. To tell us more about these efforts – and to answer your questions – two center leaders will join us for a chat next week: Peter Hanley, the center’s executive director; and Robert Aguirre, a member of the board of directors and the commission chair.

The chats are live, interactive and in writing. We describe them as a press conference with a typewriter, with the floor open to anyone who wants to ask a question.

To participate, come back to the blog on Tuesday, Nov. 12. We’ll start promptly at 11 a.m., so click in to the live chat program – which you’ll find here on the blog – a few minutes before then. In the meantime, if you have questions for Hanley or Guerra, you can pose them in advance (which, depending on turnout, may make it more likely that they’ll be able to answer it.) You can leave them in the comments section, email them to rmatus@sufs.org, tweet them to @redefinEDonline, and/or post them on our facebook page.

November 6, 2013 0 comment

Blog Administration Catholic Schools Courts Faith-based Education Religious Education

10 myths about faith-based schools

redefinED staff November 1, 2013

redefinED staff

We’ve heard the myths before. Parents can’t receive public support for their children to attend a faith-based school because that would violate constitutional restrictions. Faith-based schools are selective and homogenous. Faith-based schools shred the social fabric and civic unity. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the myths persist. And, in doing so, they continue to hamper efforts to bring faith-based schools fully into the panoply of choices from which all parent should be able to choose – and which compose public education in the 21^st Century.

In its first report to the nation, “Religious Schools in America: A Proud History and Perilous Future,” the Commission on Faith-based Schools lists 10 of these myths – along with the facts that dispel them. The commission is a product of the American Center for School Choice, which co-hosts this blog. Its aim: To cast a brighter spotlight on the value and plight of faith-based schools, which are declining in urban areas where they have long been part of the solution in educating low-income children. The commission is holding a leadership summit in New York City on Nov. 19, where the report will be released. We’ll bring you more information in future posts. In the meantime, we thought the 10 myths worth sharing on their own.

Myth: Providing public support to families to choose a faith-based school violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Fact: The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that providing publicly supported scholarships directly to parents, either through tax credit scholarships or vouchers, is constitutional and 17 states now have such programs in operation.

Myth: Religion has never been a significant part of American education.

Fact: Religion was the foundation of education in America from Colonial days into the early 20th century, with states passing laws requiring Bible reading in public schools as late as 1930. Public schools based on religion are not constitutional, but many American families still want to access a faith-based school for their children’s education.

Myth: Few countries provide support for parents to choose a faith-based school as part of their public education systems.

Fact: Actually, in the Western Hemisphere, only Cuba and the United States do not routinely provide public support for parents to make that choice. Most democracies have incorporated faith-based schools among the choices that are open to parents when selecting a school for their children.

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November 1, 2013 0 comment

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National conference will focus on faith-based schools

Peter H. Hanley May 1, 2013

Peter H. Hanley

Image from www.privateschoolreview.com

As the fight to restore the ability of families to choose the school that best meets their children’s needs proceeds across the country, the future of urban faith-based schools that have served communities for decades remains in serious doubt. Often these schools have been the only choice available to families in tough neighborhoods, but because of changing economics and demographics they have been closing at alarming rates for decades. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor described them “as a road of opportunity for kids with no other alternative.”

Unless this downward trend is reversed, the battle for parental choice may eventually be won, only to find the actual choices available have been substantially and possibly irreversibly diminished. On June 6 in Austin, Texas the national Commission on Faith-based Schools of the American Center for School Choice will host its first conference, “Religious Schools in America: A Proud History and Perilous Future,” to bring together an ecumenical group of leaders interested in preserving faith-based schools, as well as policymakers and media.

At the conference, the commission will release a report on its view of the state of faith-based schools in the U.S., the important role they continue to have in American education, and how they can serve all families that wish to choose them in the future. It will unveil a new web site that will have state-by-state data on faith-based schools and the students they serve. And most important, the commission will lead attendees as they strategize and plan on how to build on recent promising progress in several states and the courts to create momentum for sustaining and growing these schools.

Conference sessions will be highly interactive and encourage dialogue among all attendees. They will discuss progress on tax credit scholarship and voucher programs, and in the courts, and what actions made that possible. The intent is to help attendees understand in more depth how these programs work to benefit schools, as well as how they can be enacted and expanded in their communities.

This is a unique opportunity to build support for these schools on a broad interfaith basis.

May 1, 2013 0 comment

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School choice can help Muslims bridge two worlds – Kathy Jamil, podcastED

Ron Matus February 19, 2013

Ron Matus

Kathy Jamil, the principal of an Islamic school in Buffalo, N.Y., has a suggestion for anyone who balks at the inclusion of Muslim schools in school choice programs.

KathyJamil

Please, come visit.

“This is something that I wish I could just get on a soapbox and just shout at the top of my lungs,” Jamil told redefinED in the podcast attached below. Before passing judgment on Muslim schools, she said, “We hope that those who have fears … would take the opportunity to get to know them.”

Anti-Muslim bigotry is a small but steady undercurrent in school choice debates. In the past year alone, it surfaced in Alabama, Tennessee, Kansas and a handful of other states. In the most-publicized example, a state lawmaker in Louisiana said she regretted supporting that state’s new voucher program because it could wind up promoting Islam.

Jamil is chair of the Islamic Schools League of America, an associate of the American Center for School Choice (which co-hosts this blog) and a member of the new national Commission on Faith-based Schools. Given the atmosphere, she believes school choice in America is particularly important for Muslim families.

“You find that Muslim children oftentimes – and their families for that matter – feel intimidated or afraid to openly practice their faith. So we find that some students in the public school setting will not tell their classmates or their friends, or be openly Muslim if you will,” she said. “This is challenging for any child, because now you have to play these two roles. You’ve got this duality going on, where at home or in your faith tradition, community center – wherever it is that you feel safe in terms of practicing your faith – you can act Muslim. But in the public school sector, you’ve got to avoid being Muslim at any level. This duality is very difficult for children. It’s very unhealthy.”

“We need to help children reconcile how they can practice their faith and how they can further solidify their commitment as citizens of America,” Jamil continued. School choice helps them “bridge those two worlds.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

February 19, 2013 0 comment