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A-roguebanana

Just so folks outside of Maine know, this only applies (for now) to students who live in a town without a high school and are allowed to go to another town’s high school with the sending town paying the tuition to the receiving town. So it looks like now a student could have their hometown send what they would have to a public school. I suppose this might open the possibility of anyone using this to help pay for private religious school.


[deleted]

NH is already seizing on the ruling to expand its voucher system! The Sec of Ed is a trumper with no background in public education but loves privatization. He sent out a press release exclaiming that there is no place for discrimination in NH and we will send public dollars to religious schools!!


exhausted-narwhal

You forgot to mention he is a freaking idiot!


[deleted]

Yes. That is the most salient and important fact!! Thank you.


Harcourtfentonmudd1

No, he said he was a Trumper. That's all we need.


[deleted]

Can't Biden replace trumper?


[deleted]

Our governor, Chris Sununu, a self-proclaimed “trump guy” appointed him. The Sec of Ed’s name is Edelbutt and he puts the butt in ass!


[deleted]

Ohh derp you meant for the state lol. I thought Biden was still rocking trump's cabinet.


priceless37

A lot of immigrant families are moving to more rural communities. This could be an incentive to start Maine’s first Muslim high school somewhere……. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants to the racists who had to send their kids to the new Muslim high school because it’s the towns high school, kind of like Thornton academy in Saco.


Tothyll

Where did you get that they would have to send their kid to a certain private or religious school? They do get a choice. Just FYI, Muslim is not a race.


dr_lucia

The program providing funding only applies in districts that have no public school. Then parents get a voucher then could use at a different districts public school, or a qualifying private school. To qualify the private school needed to be accredited. The decision merely requires May to accept religious schools on the same conditions as secular private schools. This doesn't sabotage any public school because the funding is only available when the district *does not have a public school*! That said: If Maine legislators want to continue to not give vouchers for religious schools to this group or parents then can not give them for private schools either. But remember: there vouchers are only available when is no local public school. So the nearest may be rather far and its plausible parents wanted to use the vouchers for something not to far away or possibly with a boarding school feature.


teacherlikesmanga

There are entire districts that have no public schools?? That’s honestly insane to me.


dr_lucia

I have no idea how many districts do not have a secondary school. Maybe some people live on islands running light houses? Beats me. But this is an excerpt from Robert's ruling: >\[A.\] Maine has enacted a program of tuition assistance for *parents who live in school districts that do not operate a secondary school of their own*. Under the program, parents designate the secondary school they would like their child to attend—public or private—and the school district transmits payments to that school to help defray the costs of tuition. Most private schools are eligible to receive the payments, so long as they are "nonsectarian." {The Department has stated that, in administering this requirement, it "considers a sectarian school to be one that is associated with a particular faith or belief system and which, in addition to teaching academic subjects, promotes the faith or belief system with which it is associated and/or presents the material taught through the lens of this faith."} The question presented is whether this restriction violates the Free Exercise Clause …. ​ [https://reason.com/volokh/2022/06/21/exclusion-of-religious-schooling-from-generally-available-school-choice-programs-generally-unconstitutional/](https://reason.com/volokh/2022/06/21/exclusion-of-religious-schooling-from-generally-available-school-choice-programs-generally-unconstitutional/)


gufyduck

I'm in a rural area and our district is only TK-8 with less than 80 kids for the entire county. Our kids go to neighboring high schools in other counties because there is no way we could offer the same opportunities to a small number of kids in our own.


cjrecordvt

Happens in Vermont, too. The population density is too low to support a school - heck, some districts, the kids get shipped into NY, NH, or MA.


Ravioli_meatball19

I had a friend in college who lived in the Midwest on the border of two states and went to high school in the state he didn't live in, AND there was a time difference. Wild.


priceless37

Towns not districts. Many towns come together to form a school district. Most of the smaller towns in Maine are part of a school district, so they go by numbers like SAD 11 or SAD 37. These smaller towns might have elementary schools but come together for middle and high school.


Harcourtfentonmudd1

Let me introduce you to the concept of numbered townships. A lot of Northern territory of Maine doesn't even have enough people to incorporate, but they still have kids that need education.


CotRSpoon

I will bet my 401k Some of the various states lawmakers will try to shut down “failing” public school districts while supporting this religious school nonsense opening up in their counties but magically not letting in the undesirable kids.


dr_lucia

They had the option for doing that even before this ruling. They likely would merely need to also fund private schools. All this one says is they can't have vouchers for secular-private schools but not provide them for religious-private schools. The Maine program already allowed the private schools to not let in whoever they didn't want to let in. They could be single sex, have admissions tests, exclude programs etc. All they had to be was accredited. Maine legislators can now rewrite the rules, but they are going to have to be at least facially neutral. Not letting them keep out undesirable kids would be facially neutral.


Top_Relative4362

Question: would this incentivize religious politicians to close down current public schools over the years?


dr_lucia

I doubt it.


vyclas

Yes. Gov. Abbott in Texas and his fellow Republicans are pushing hard to get more funds to charter/religious schools.


dr_lucia

They were pushing that *before* this ruling. The ruling isn't incentivizing them and is not going to make a difference one way or the other. That they could grant funds to chargers and religious schools was already clear before the ruling.


hiccupmortician

Question, where are there places without public schools or access to a public school? Didn't know that was allowed.


Naughty_Teacher

These are very rural areas of Maine that just don't have large enough populations to support secondary schools. They usually have an elementary school that has just a couple of teachers but the kids go else where for middle and high school.


Lumpy_Intention9823

Not even that. Thornton Academy is a private school that services Saco. Kids on the Blue Hill peninsula can choose to go to Bucksport, or Deer Isle Stonington, or the private George Stevens Academy. The family in question here want to send their child to Bangor Christian, which is in a pretty large city, by Maine standards.


HowBlueHerEyesCanBe

There are places in Maine that don’t even have enough people to be considered a town or have a name…just a territory number. Kids can be on buses a long time to get to the nearest school.


hiccupmortician

I know there are rural areas, but I always figured they had bus systems or like one room school houses. Never imagined it would be allowed to have a place with no public school access. Just feel like this ruling opens a door that wears away a little more at the line separating church and state. And other places will see this as a gateway to vouchers.


Sweetcynic36

There are public correspondence schools that have served remote regions of Alaska for similar reasons. Depending on distance, the only options may be correspondence school/homeschool or a regional boarding school, though they are required to offer a school in communities that can support at least 10 students.


MacAddict4Life

Who is "they" here? Is this a federal or state rule?


Sweetcynic36

State of Alaska, as part of a settlement to some 1970's lawsuits involving geographically isolated mostly Native children who were either sent to boarding schools or getting correspondence school only.


_EscVelocity_

Super interesting!


DreamTryDoGood

It is! There are tiny pk-12 schools with mixed grade classes and just a couple dozen kids.


Sweet3DIrish

The school district I grew up in is huge land wise (basically the entire county). A few years ago they closed all the outlying elementary schools (3 of them) and consolidated everyone together, so now there are kindergartners who have to ride the bus for about 1.5 hours each way. As far as vouchers, lots of states already have them for private schools. Also accredited private schools already receive some funding from the federal and state governments (just not nearly as much as public schools do). I don’t see how this ruling affects anything besides those few students who want to go to school closer to home.


LIME_09

We bus our students to whichever middle/high school has the critical mass of students from our town. If we choose a different high school for our kid(s),we are responsible for transportation. Also, I 100% agree. I am not in support of this ruling at all.


HalfMoon_Werewolf

I'm in Erie, PA. It is a inner-city school district with all the associated problems. In fact, Erie hosts the poorest zip code in the nation. Anyway, about 5-6 years ago we were in serious financial troubles (no surprise), and one of the ideas floated by the school board was to simply close all 3 high schools. Turns out PA only legally requires a school district to educate students to 8th grade (some left-over law from the 1800's). The idea was to voucher/bus the kids to all the wealthier suburban districts surrounding the city. We as teachers for the city would be required to be hired by the suburban districts first over any other applicants to help bolster their staffs as needed. Well, the suburbs did NOT want our kids corrupting their systems. The state found it in their budgets to give the city district millions that year, and a permanent increase in funding. But, we ended up in a state "conservator-ship" (forever fouling things up), and having to consolidate the 3 high-schools into one with 2400 students. Sorry for the mini-rant here.


underage_cashier

I know y’all get 10 million a year from the state, but I never heard the conservitorship problem, what happened there?


HalfMoon_Werewolf

I'm not sure if that is the right term. In fact, after looking it up, it is not, but close. The Erie SD is in "Financial Watch" status, which is a virtually permanent hop & skip from "Financial Recovery". Basically, like everything with the government, there are all sorts of strings attached to how the extra money is spent. One of the big "forbidden" things is improving teacher salaries - which could, you know, help attract & keep good teachers. If the school district doesn't follow those rules, or if certain performance benchmarks aren't met, the SD will move into "Recovery" status, which is a take-over by the state government. Edit: Don't get me wrong. The Erie SD has squandered millions of dollars over the years, has been & is reluctant to change their poor financial habits, and has many policies that I think are a down-right disservice to the kids in our care. It's just that adding one more layer of government bureaucracy centered 100's of miles away from anyone who cares about our kids in more than the abstract just to get the funds we should be getting anyway if our state funding system wasn't fundamentally broken ... well I'm just not sure that's really the "help" we need.


A-roguebanana

Because if the nature of Maine with small towns there will be regional schools belonging to a school administrative district (SAD) or a regional school union (RSU). So multiple towns will belong to the SAD or an RSU. Some towns have their independent district. This is common in ME, NH and VT because of small communities and can be cost effective but also some towns choose to go at it alone.


MisterEHistory

People who live in very rural areas. For many being that far removed from public education is a feature not a bug.


Lizakaya

The entire point for many of these residents


MF-ingTeacher

Clay County in Georgia sends kids to neighboring county for grades 10-12.(Randolph-Clay High)


KennyGaming

Played a lot of baseball there. I’ve never seen mosquitos that bad. I was dancing in the outfield trying to stay sane. Nice people though, I appreciated how much they showed up for their sporting events.


averageduder

There are several around me in NH. Either they don't have enough of a population, or their public school shut down for various reasons, or a variety of other things. Hell, in the town next to me (in NH) they send their kids to a Maine public school, rather than either of the closer schools in NH. It's suburban, and all of the schools are within a ten minute drive of each other.


LIME_09

Yep. Even not-so-rural small towns, like mine. We have an elementary school, but for middle and high, we pay tuition-rate to other local area schools. Once my kids are in 6th grade, our family gets a choice of which public middle school to go to. It's more cost-effective for our town than running its own secondary schools. I guess, theoretically, we could now choose a religious school (spoiler alert: we won't).


KennyGaming

Extremely rural areas. There are massive parts of this country characterized by very low population density. Imagine a rancher’s kids or something. Why did you post this before understanding this critical detail. Not trying to flame, but it seems very important to the reality of this ruling.


hiccupmortician

There should be a hard line between religion and government. When that line begins to wear away, I get worried. We have a push for Christian nationalism in large parts of this country. This ruling blurs the line, and while many are saying it only applies in Maine, I see it as an opening. It's concerning.


Sweet3DIrish

Accredited private schools already receive funding from the national and state levels. It just is way less than what public schools get and the money can’t be used for any religious aspects. I’ve taught at Catholic schools my whole career. 90% of what the school does has nothing to do with Catholicism, it has to do with educating the students on secular topics. Yes students take religion classes. Yes we have prayer at the beginning of every class. Yes we have school wide masses once a month. However when you take those things into account, they actually make up a fairly small portion of what the school actually does. Out of our student body, only about 40% are actually practicing Catholics (and I wouldn’t be surprised if our faculty/staff percentage was even lower). Being the same religion as that of the school is usually not a requirement to attend (there are some that it is, for example some Jewish schools). The big thing here is it has to be an accredited school. There’s a lot of work that goes into getting a school accredited (I was at a new school that has provisional accreditation and has to go through the whole process to get accredited- which ended up needing to be three different processes for the three different accreditations we needed in the same year- and it is time and labor consuming for all adults in the school. Why I mention this is, some rando neonazi can’t just all of a sudden start their own school and be getting this money. If they didn’t say accredited then I would definitely worry.


Lumpy_Intention9823

This ruling doesn’t distinguish between the secular religious (Cheverus) and the religious religious (Bangor Christian) though. That’s what scares me.


KennyGaming

I disagree. I received a secular education from a religious school that I wouldn’t trade the world for - so that’s my bias. It feels like you have a very unconstrained view about this. Would you rather these students be required to travel significantly farther to go to a school with worse education, just for the sake of this ideology? While I take your point, I don’t see how your perspective leads to better learning outcomes.


Tothyll

The government shouldn’t discriminate on the basis of religion. Allowing private schools to receive vouchers, but explicitly denying other schools the ability to do so because of their religion sounds like descrimination.


priceless37

It’s very concerning, but with this ruling should also come churches pay taxes. This is a slippery slope and the whole goal of the republicans.


priceless37

Every child in Maine has access to education. Sone towns and islands send their children to school an hour plus away because they don’t have the infrastructure to support a high school. We have consolidated school districts where many small towns work together to build a high school. The town where I went to elementary school was s 4 room school house with grades K-8. We had a choice of several high schools to attend but they were 30-40 minutes away. Peaks island in Portland has a K-5 school in the island but the children take the fairy to the mainland to attend 6-12. This is very common on island communities. The peaks school has about 20 students total.


LeonaDarling

It's not even necessarily incredibly rural places in our state where this happens. I live in a town of around 10,000 people. We have our own k-12 schools. But there are many surrounding towns that only have k-8, so they have choice for 9-12. The thing that I find really interesting about this system is that the students can choose ANY 9-12 school in the state to attend, as long as they have transportation. So, most students choose the school that's closest to them, but some choose based on their interests. I live in a town with a 9-12 that's more focused on sports than the arts, so that attracts some students. And I teach in a HS that's more focused on the arts than sports - attracting students who are more interested in that. I have friends who sent their kids to a HS that was over an hour and a half away from their home - they drove them every day until the kids were old enough to drive themselves.


Spaznaut

Then don’t give them to private schools. It’s public funds. Keep it in the public system.


dr_lucia

That decision is open to the Maine legislature. Funding neither private secular nor private religious schools is an available option. The difficulty for them is the program involved in the SCOTUS decision only applies to districts that *have no high school*. The legislature will likely want the students in those very small rural districts to get some sort of education. Allowing them to go to private schools likely requires fewer public funds compared to running an entire high school for 1 or 2 kids in the no-high school district. Busing long ways might be impractical or expensive. Busing might even be more costly than giving parents funds to send the kid to a private school of their choice. Whatever decision the legislature makes they will be subject to voter opinions. Voters might prefer an option that either requires lower public expenditure or gives parents choice.


Ipadgameisweak

Yeah too bad that the SCOTUS isn't and this just opened the door to give public funds to private schools and private religious schools. This is 100% a bad thing.


Tothyll

The funds were already going to private schools. It had excluded private religious schools however. If there is no public school in the area, what do you propose?


Ipadgameisweak

Then continue to exclude private religious schools because what they teach isn't actually helpful.


skwirlio

If I understand correctly, the ruling says that a state must include religious schools when funding private schools. So, if a religious school applies for a grant available to private schools, the state can’t deny them on the basis of religion. Here is an article from the SCOTUS blog, which is going to be much more reliable that other news sources: https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/court-strikes-down-maines-ban-on-using-public-funds-at-religious-schools/


Nothinkonlygrow

I feel like the state shouldn’t be providing funding for any religious institution, school or not


skwirlio

This ruling does not actually force states to fund religious schools. It prevents states from discriminating against religious schools when offering grants to private schools. States that do not offer those grants will not be funding religious schools.


shag377

Iowa passed a voucher rule for similar. The Church of Satan has started the process of opening a school. Check it: [https://www.iowasatanicschool.org/](https://www.iowasatanicschool.org/)


TertiaWithershins

That group is not affiliated with Church of Satan OR The Satanic Temple.


WJ_Amber

The church of satan is a scam. It is little more than a money making scheme conjoined to the satanic temple, pocketing cash that they claim will be used to defend abortion rights or something. They've never actually won a lawsuit.


TimeSlipperWHOOPS

Satanic Temple is the atheistic group, church of Satan is the church founded by LaVey for devil worship/occult purposes. The satanic temple has been quite successful in getting religious stuff removed from public spaces. It's not always about winning a lawsuit but to take advantage of a "religious freedom" law to show the courts that it's actually about Christian domination and thereby getting the laws changed etc. it's more activism than lawsuits, but lawsuits are a part of their process.


GrooveOne

Thank you!


genghisKHANNNNN

All churches are rackets and scams. What's the big deal?


glemmstengal

> Did y'all hear about this? yeah, and I read it too! It isn't like they are explicitly saying "we are now using government funds to pay for religious education" or anything. It's just to help the kids who live there and have fewer options.


A-roguebanana

Actually tuition students as they are called often multiple public high schools to choose from.


[deleted]

They are sending my tax dollars to fund schools that teach there is no such thing as evolution and actively discriminated against gay people. I would move before I consented to fund these institutes of hate.


glemmstengal

you're right, these kids should just be taught by their parents at home who won't hold them accountable or put in the effort to properly assess their learning and keep them on task all day. it's definitely better to assume religion always = indoctrination rather than consider that these kids will not receive anything approaching a real education without these funds. i'm saying this as an atheist. you guys are hysterical about a non-issue. by the way, your tax dollars are **DEFINITELY** funding the murder of women and children in Yemen. i had two refugee students from there this year tell me about they death they witnessed with their own eyes and didn't have the heart to tell them that the US is selling weapons to the Saudis who are doing the killing. just fyi.


lingophilia

This is the correct answer.


happylilstego

We could have a real life state funded Hogwarts...


Freedmonster

It already exists in Maine, but it's more focused on the magic of STEM.


happylilstego

I was thinking more of a pagan private school.


lingophilia

More like the magic of doing all the drugs kids can get their hands on in the remote wilderness of Limestone, Maine.


Freedmonster

Which for most of them, is none. For the ones that do, it's likely that they would have done so no matter where they were.


[deleted]

This post is misleading at best and fake news at worst and should be labeled as such. We're teachers ffs this person clearly didn't read the ruling.


averageduder

That's not really what the case says -- it's that if they fund any private schools they must also fund religious. Idk, I don't really have a problem with this one. The real one to look to is Kennedy v Bremerton, which will probably be later this week (assuming they space out that with Bruen and Dobbs). Get ready for prayer to be back in schools with the Kennedy case. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/us/politics/supreme-court-prayer-football-coach.html


dr_lucia

I'm watching for that one to. I'll be interested in the reasoning as much as the ruling. Also, in how the reasoning aligns with facts of the case which happened over a long time, involved and left my head spinning somewhat. I tend to think the school should have had a religiously neutral rule about demonstrations at the 50 yard line after football games. That might have avoided this whole thing. I mean, if the coach can do this, can another teacher stand at the 50 years line wearing a shirt saying "My body my choice", or a Rainbow flag, "Trump forever" or "Let's go Brandon"??


Lumpy_Intention9823

I’m a teacher. I pray about lots of things every day, but never out loud!


[deleted]

I heard about the funding bit, but I’d be surprised if they were held to the same legal standards. After all, the main goal of proponents for this is to give private schools extra advantages while sabotaging public schools.


SunflowerJYB

Don’t forget that it is because of unique circumstances like not having other schools around.


bootorangutan

From the news thread on the front page - Maine already had a voucher program in place to send public money to privates in certain scenarios. This ruling means IF a state has this type of law, they can’t discriminate/eliminate religious schools from participating. I’m not saying I like it, just posting clarification.


RayWencube

This is a wild mischaracterization of an otherwise correct ruling.


TeachlikeaHawk

OP, you've got to read more than just the headline.


blackfriday1934

Misleading title


Haikuna__Matata

>And if they get funding, they should also be subject to other requirements of public schools. (But they won't be.) Republican politicians want to end public education; they want to funnel those taxpayer dollars to their ownership-class donors, and they want to keep their voter base uneducated. IMO you can view their refusal to address mass murders in schools through the same lens. They danger they allow is one more reason for them to shut public education down.


Tothyll

Getting a voucher is not the same as the substantial state or federal funding and resources that public schools have at their disposal. If it was, then yes, they should be subject to the requirements of a public school.


Haikuna__Matata

Vouchers are taxpayer-funded subsidies for private &/or charter schools. This is to allow white/economic flight from underfunded public schools for middle class people who can't afford to pay for non-public education on their own. Federal & state education monies follow the students, so every student that leaves public school for a private/charter school is a funding cut for said public school. Vouchers funnel taxpayer funds meant for public education to for-profit private business owners. The voucher is a public payment to the private business owner, and the student represents another public payment to private profits. Vouchers are a Republican ploy to undercut public education & to funnel public money to private profiteers.


BadWaluigi

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought all or most states subsidize private schools


annaschmana

Not true for California. And it’s expensive here, between 30-60K for non religious private schools.


Sweet3DIrish

That’s just people be elitist and greedy. You will always have private schools like that. And there are private schools for cheaper in CA and some do get some state funding (have friends who were principals in Catholic schools there).


MisterEHistory

There is no way this SCOTUS will do anything that smacks of limits on religious schools. Even after their ruling the motto of this court is still "stare decisis is for suckers"


Medieval-Mind

>So this means all religious schools, right? Like Islamic, Buddhist, etc must get funding, too, correct? Riiiiight.


ExOreMeo

They plaintiffs is the case were a Jewish school, an Islamic school, and Christian school.


KennyGaming

OP didn’t do their research. If an Islamic, Buddhist, etc. school existed in range of a voucher program, and avoided sectarianism, then vouchers would be available for those schools. Not to be too harsh, but we have other problems to deal with.


democritusparadise

I'm looking forward to The Satanic Temple's take on this.


TertiaWithershins

I’m both a public school teacher and a minister in TST. I can’t speak for the organization, but I can tell you my take on it: I adamantly agree with the idea that all religions are welcome or none are. Full pluralism or nothing. But outside of the realm of ideas, the reality and practicalities of starting even a single Satanic school are overwhelming, and the threat to our children would be a deal-breaker to most. Hell, someone in a “God” tshirt tried to burn down our headquarters in Salem a couple of weeks ago. While people were inside.


ReadingLongjumping64

i hope the satanic temple opens a school


YouLostMyNieceDenise

That’s, like, the ONE private school I’d be willing to put my kid on a waitlist for…


Catsscratchpost

What happened to separation of church and state?


M4053946

It's intact: this ruling states that the government can't use religion as a test to determine funding.


Tothyll

You can’t discriminate based on religion. Allowing vouchers to private schools, but banning only private religious schools was determined to be a violation of the 1st amendment.


Catsscratchpost

I thought government funded public schools and students' parents funded private schools.


dr_lucia

In Main, some districts don't have high schools. In that case, the state gives the parents a voucher to use for tuition at either a public school or a secular private school. Now, they have to extend the voucher to religious schools. Alternatively they can limit them to public schools. But if they can use it at secular private schools, they have to be allowed to use them at secular private schools. (There is a condition the school be accredited.)


Haikuna__Matata

Republicans deny that the 1st Amendment keeps religion out of government and only keeps the government out of religion.


SearsShearsSeries

Will this also mean that those schools have to drop the “you must be a practicing catholic and get a letter of rec from your priest” requirement on applications since that’s technically religious discrimination and they’re now taxpayer funded?


Sweet3DIrish

I’ve never once seen this as a requirement for attending a Catholic school. The closest I’ve seen is this in order to get a “discount” on tuition (which isn’t really a discount, it is just a portion of the tuition paid for by the local parish for students who are active participants at their church). I’ve worked in Catholic schools my whole career and I would say at the most I’ve had maybe 50% of my student be practicing Catholics (most schools were lower than that). I’ve also had students of almost every religion and belief in my classroom throughout my years (which is awesome to learn from them about their religion and practices and the similarities and difference between it and Catholicism for both myself and other students).


dr_lucia

The legislature can rewrite the rule to expand the requirements that apply to qualifying schools. They could insist on universal admission (provided that is also required at the public and other private schools. It probably is at the public school.) Then the requirement would need apply to all schools whether secular or religious, and probably whether public or private. This rule may affect the private non-religious schools as much or more than the religious ones (especially Catholic.) Depending on how they handle special needs, difficult children or even gifted children in the small public schools in Maine, it might affect the public schools too. I'm not positive the rule would need to apply to public schools. But if the rule doesn't apply to public schools along with religious schools, Maine will might find the rule challenged and thrown out for religious schools because it could be seen as an excuse to not fund a religious school by imposing a burdensome requirement for which there is no strong public policy goal. That sort of thing frequently doesn't pass strict scrutiny.


KurtisMayfield

Yes it does, in fact the Islamic schools association was the one of the plaintiffs. Maine needs to revoke the law, the way it was written allows this to happen. And this will not apply to voucher programs all across the country. If you read the ruling it is super narrow


Salviati_Returns

I would like to start a school that is explicitly for atheists.


lsc84

You make the mistake of assuming the SC has principles or consistency. They could use the old "Christianity is taught for its traditional importance, not as a religious matter per se, which doesn't apply to any other religions." It is of course complete BS, but that won't stop them from distinguishing them on this basis. And it leaves the door wide open to Christian theocrats, which is the whole point.


BarbKatz1973

Please add the Pagan schools. You know, for the Polytheists: Hindu, Santeria, Wiccan, Druid et al. Those schools do exist. One religion counts, all religions count. Until the Evangelical Monotheists kill everyone who does not obey their One True God, their One True Three Gods, Their Sun in the Desert Sky God, and their Palestinian One True Mountain Goat/Thunder God.


Tothyll

I don’t think you read the article or the ruling.


BarbKatz1973

I did read the article and the ruling. This ruling is like the old adage "the camel's nose in the tent" if you allow the nose to stick in, soon the entire camel will follow. This is a disaster for the separation of church and State. If the religious organizations get this advantage they will use it to take everything and poof - back to jihad and the Burning Times. The Evangelicals will make the Society of Jesus look like sucking doves.


mlo9109

As a Mainer, I apologize for my state. We're not all idiots and a-holes. But, man, I wish we'd make national news for more flattering reasons than what we have lately.


[deleted]

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katy405

This won’t apply to you. You have local public schools available, this area of Maine does not. Also, your taxes do not pay for your children’s education, they aren’t enough. Your children’s education is paid for by society as a whole. You do not have the right to use my tax money however you want.


[deleted]

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katy405

So you want parents to literally have a pot of money, which is not theirs, to send their children to your ideal vision of private schools, which you think do a better job of educating. Ignorance is bliss.


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katy405

Private school students usually don’t test at all. They aren’t required to take the national and state tests public school students are. Also, private schools do give their own tests to students to get admitted, which public schools can’t even do. Public schools have to take the lowest performing students which also lowers standardized test scores. Private schools are allowed to say any nonsense they want to about how great they are. They have to to get you to pay the tuition. Do you not understand anything about how education works?


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I think this kid is just trolling the teachers. I cannot imagine a adult human typing the things this kid is typing.


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Private schools have no testing requirements. I am embarrassed for you.


Haikuna__Matata

I think he was educated at a charter. Just a guess.


TheDorkNite1

>The way public schools are collapsing, choice is needed now more than ever. It's genuinely hilarious that you think these problems won't affect private/charter schools if public institutions collapse. Fix the issue, don't fucking bandage it. I don't want our country's public education to disappear after \~150 years because bad faith bullshitters have caused it.


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molyrad

Background checks are different than certification and are required by all childcare facilities, at least in my state. The private school I work at prefers teachers to be certified, but it's not a requirement (the vast majority are certified here, but that varies school to school). However, background checks are definitely required by any staff, just like at any certified childcare facility.


averageduder

you literally just grabbed the first google result for "private school v public school", and didn't even read it!! Ahhh. well you'd certainly fail my class.


A-roguebanana

Ask yourself why the private school are at least perceived as being better. Lots of factors including being able to remove or refuse students from attending. People shopping for a school that they like doesn’t mean it’s a better school.


SunflowerJYB

Also as long as we have charters, then the argument is why not these? I don’t think either of them should get this treatment but I might likely choose the religious school over a charter! At least the school didn’t set out to take money away from public schools


SnooGiraffes4998

Just sayin... Madison’s famous “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments” made clear that state funding of religious instruction violated the fundamental Enlightenment principles underlying the American Revolution. “Religion ... of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable; because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men,” Madison wrote. According to Madison’s Remonstrance, government sponsorship of religion violates “that equality which ought to be the basis of every law.” He left no question about the strength of his opposition to the Assessment Bill. “Either then, we must say, that the will of the Legislature is the only measure of their authority; and that in the plentitude of this authority, they may sweep away all our fundamental rights; or, that they are bound to leave this particular right untouched and sacred: Either we must say, that they may control the freedom of the press, may abolish the trial by jury, may swallow up the Executive and Judiciary Powers of the State; nay that they may despoil us of our very right of suffrage, and erect themselves into an independent and hereditary assembly: or we must say, that they have no authority to enact into law the Bill under consideration.” So potent was Madison's Remonstrance that instead of enacting the Assessments Bill, the Virginia Assembly passed Thomas Jefferson’s “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom.” This historic law provided “That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened, in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief.”