Category: Schools / Schooling / Education / Libraries
Erasing the Line that Separates Church and State in Education
I want to thank Zorba for the like. Their link below. Hugs. Scottie
A quote from the article.
“The expansion in voucher programs is part of a broader move in some states toward more government-sponsored religion inside public schools. New laws allow schools to hire chaplains for counseling…. In West Virginia, a new law allows teachers to discuss alternative theories to evolution. Seven states have passed measures mandating elective courses focused on the Bible… In Oklahoma, the state Supreme Court in April considered what would be an unprecedented step toward the mingling of church and state in education, weighing whether the state could directly fund what would be the nation’s first religious charter school.”
Billions In Public Money Now Go To Religious Schools
The attempt to turn the US in to a theocracy in red states run by republicans is being done by a minority of a minority. The reason they have the legislative power they do is they have gerrymandered and used voter suppression to get only their supporters into power. Churches which pay no taxes fund the campaigns of people who will give the churches more power and tax payer money. Churches pay no taxes, the pay no property tax on housing for clergy and many other tax free give a ways. Yet they are constantly demanding a share of the ever shrinking tax payer funds. They don’t add to the treasury but they want some of it. Why because they are greedy, but their numbers are shrinking, less butts in pews means less money in collection plates. That was their real beef with the Covid restrictions, they were losing money. So by forcing kids to see and learn religious stuff they hope to reverse the trend and get more people back to church. Some of them want to force people to attend at least one religious service a week. Democracy and the freedom from religion is being attacked hard, we need to defend them just as hard. Plus private schools get to be choosy in who the accept, so they can’t be openly racist and bigoted, they also get to refuse admission to kids that are difficult to teach or have specials needs. Hugs. Scottie
The Washington Post reports:
Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades.
School vouchers can be used at almost any private school, but the vast majority of the money is being directed to religious schools, according to a Washington Post examination of the nation’s largest voucher programs.
In Florida, several programs combine to make every student in the state eligible for vouchers, with more than 400,000 participating this year. At least 82 percent of students attend religious schools, The Post found. Florida is first in the nation in both the number of enrolled students and total cost of the voucher program — more than $3 billion this year
Read the full article.
The linked piece notes that much of the voucher money is going to families that would pay or already are paying for private or religious schools themselves.
Israel Has LOST – And This PROVES It
CO Republicans And GOP House Candidates Call For Chair To Resign Over “Burn All Pride Flags” Message
This is what drives the increased hate and attacks on the LGBTQ+. This is what republicans consider to be high quality discourse and thought. Attack anyone different and hurt them hard, wipe them out. It is gang thug rule and it is the cults they are in. Either the tRump cult or the Fundamentalist cult. Hugs. Scottie
Denver’s ABC affiliate reports:
The fallout from the Colorado GOP’s anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric earlier this week continued Friday with state Republican leaders calling for party chairman Dave Williams to resign.
The latest denouncement came from the Jefferson County Republicans, who on behalf of “numerous Colorado Republican County Chairs, other county party officers, members of the Colorado State Central Committee in all 64 Counties, and many Republican candidates” called on Colorado GOP chairman Dave Williams to “immediately resign.”
The mounting backlash against Williams follows a blast email from the Colorado GOP that was signed by the chairman, in which the party accused the LGBTQ+ community of being “godless groomers” who want to harm children. On its official profile on X, the Colorado GOP also called for the burning of Pride flags.
The Advocate reports:
Williams sent an email to GOP voters earlier this week that referred to queer people as “barbaric,” “creeps,” “degenerates,” “godless,” “groomers,” “predators,” “radicals,” and “reprobates.”
Valdamar Archuleta, the head of Colorado’s Log Cabin Republicans, has been one of the few GOP members to defend Williams. He said Wednesday that “I do not think Dave hates me because I’m gay. I don’t think that Dave is a homophobic person. He’s trying to get a reaction.”
The Colorado News-Press reports:
Five of the six Republican candidates running for Congress in Colorado’s 4th District are disavowing their state party’s leadership, citing its recent anti-LGBTQ messaging and concerns over campaign impropriety.
The conservatives, who are on the primary ballot this month, have called into question Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams and are advocating for new leadership. Only U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who received the endorsement of the party, declined to comment on Williams’ messaging.
Williams has sparked criticism inside and outside of the Colorado Republican Party for an email sent from the state party that claimed people in the LGBTQ community are “evil” and “godless groomers.”
As I reported earlier today, Colorado has seen a spree of stolen Pride flags since the state GOP issued its “burn all Pride flags” message. Williams has called reports of the thefts a hoax.
Last month the Colorado GOP called on Christians to remove their children from public schools because Democrats are using schools to “turn more kids trans.”
Williams is running to replace retiring GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn. Williams, you may recall, lost a lawsuit seeking to have “Let’s Go Brandon” by his name on the ballot during his failed 2022 House bid.
During a December 2023 appearance on extremist Laura Loomer’s podcast, Williams told the Colorado Supreme Court to “go fuck themselves” after they removed Trump from the ballot. It’s what Jesus would want.
My 90 year old Colorado Father in law has always been a republican. He loves his Gay son and his gay sons husband (me), He told us last night, “I’m done with the republican party” after he received this email.
“Only U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who received the endorsement of the party, declined to comment on Williams’ messaging.”
Oklahoma Gov Signs Bill Allowing Students To Leave School Three Periods Per Week For Religious Lessons
These same republicans constantly complain and bitch about public schools teaching things other than standard education. They complain about woke subjects and learning true history for example. Back to the basics is their goal they claim. But letting kids miss classes for religious church lessons is great they claim. Kids don’t need schooling they need bible and more bible. Who needs reading especial about people who are different from the majority when they can learn bible by sitting in church having someone tell them what they think god said or meant. And it must be their god not one of those false ones that the bad people worship. Public school is for the multiple of people who believe different things, in different gods or no god. They have churches for that. Keep god in your church and out of public schools. Hugs. Scottie
Oklahoma City’s NBC affiliate reports:
Governor Stitt signed legislation Wednesday on a framework for public school students to get credits by attending religious instruction during school hours. “What HB 1425 does is that it gives the schools a framework,” said Representative Clay Staires (R-Skiatook), who authored the bill.
Starting in November of this year students from all grade levels would understand their opportunity when leaving their classroom during school and heading to a religious instructional class that has to be off-site. Another rule is that it cannot be led by the school or anyone employed with the school.
Students would be allowed to leave for three class periods a week and 125 class periods a year to attend it. The Satanic Temple announced that if Governor Stitt signed HB 1425 they would offer up their instructional programs.
Read the full article.
Below, Christian nationalist state education Superintendent Ryan Walters says satanism is not a religion and therefore leaving school to attend classes offered by atheist trolling outfit the Satanic Temple will not be permitted.
As for Gov. Kevin Stitt, he last appeared here in March 2024 when he declared that God personally had him elected to stop abortion in Oklahoma.
Stitt, who appeared here in November 2023 when he publicly praised illegal cockfighting, is a self-avowed Christian nationalist.
Last year he declared November to be “family month as ordained by God.” In June 2023, he authorized the nation’s first state-funded religious charter school.
In 2022, he claimed “every square inch of Oklahoma in the name of Jesus.” Upon his inauguration, Stitt’s wife declared that his administration’s main priority would be “bringing people to Jesus.”
Superintendent Ryan Walters says satanism is not a religion and therefore leaving school to attend classes offered by atheist trolling outfit the Satanic Temple will not be permitted.
Fingers crossed for the lawsuit this will bring.
Supreme Court rulings have been clear that you don’t have to prove that your religion is “true” – since that’s impossible, of course.
But we’ve seen how much regard the current corrupt SQOTUS has for precedent or “settled law”.
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FRC: Ten Commandments Belong In Schools Because All The “Other Religious Ethical Statements Are Myths”
This is complete nonsense. Our founding fathers were trying to escape the rule of a country run by kings and religion. They could have made Christianity the nations religion but they did not, and did not want that. I recently heard that the reason fundamentalist Christians want the ten commandments which is a Jewish symbol from the Old Testament instead of the beatitudes from the New Testament is they don’t like or follow Jesus but do like the vengeance, violence, and anger of the OT god. These people should be listed as domestic terrorists. They can not be compromised with. They can’t be happy with them being allowed to live as they want, they demand the right to force you to live as they do. They are a minority in a minority that is shrinking. Yet they managed to get their people into positions of power so they are even more dangerous. Hugs. Scottie
Posted to the Family Research Council’s website:
The Louisiana legislature has passed a bill that “requires schools that receive public money to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said on Thursday’s “Washington Watch,” and “the anti-Christian Left is convulsing.”
“We’re focused on the historical aspect of the Ten Commandments, which all of our laws are derived from,” bill sponsor Louisiana Rep. Dodie Horton (R) explained to Perkins.
Skeptics will still ask, but why are the Ten Commandments displayed and not other religious ethical statements, like the writings of Confucius or Native American myths? One answer is America’s historical development. This great nation was not built by Confucians or Muslims, but by people informed by the Bible and the moral teachings found therein.
Therefore, “We want our children to see what God’s standard for our moral conduct is,” urged Horton. “We’re not asking the teachers to teach it, but we want our children to be able to see one — that there is a God, and that he does have a moral standard [by] which they need to conduct themselves.”
Read the full article. In the interview below, Perkins tells Horton that lawsuits against posting the Ten Commandants in Louisiana schools will fail because “we’ve got a new [Supreme] court.” Horton replies, “We do, praise God!”
”This great nation was not built by Confucians…” These bitches really have no idea who this country was built by. See also: Enslaved people.
Religion (of any type) belongs in their churches, synagogues, mosques, etc. It does NOT belong in our schools. The Christo-fascists are trying to force their beliefs onto kids and that’s just totally wrong. And should be illegal. And they are trying to force their religion into laws affecting everyone. Fuck that shit. I agree with so many commenters on here – religion is poison. Fuck their god, Jeezus and everything in their warped view of the world.
“This great nation was not built by Confucians or Muslims”
Christians wouldn’t have built shit without the mathematics the Muslims perfected, and Christians wouldn’t have “discovered” this continent if they didn’t have such a rabid taste for the goods the Confucians were selling them.
Fred Clark wrote about the history of the La. Commandments poster law.
Louisiana Will Post The Twelve Commandments In Schools
‘That’s a problem, because there are a lot of different versions of the Ten Commandments, all of which are phrased and enumerated differently. The version of “The Ten Commandments” mandated by Horton’s bill is not taken from any of those. It is, instead, the version concocted in 1950 by the Fraternal Order of Eagles and Cecil B. DeMille.
Yes, really.’
As you might predict if you didn’t know, the Fraternal Order of Eagles was a racist organization.
“we’ve got a new [Supreme] court.” Horton repliess”
They’re so high on their own farts right now. Never mind that new Supreme Court was put there by a convicted felon.
Also I love it when I get lectured by Christians on why they’re God is real and the rest are fake.
TX Professors Sue To Flunk Women Who Get Abortions
I recommend going to the linked article. It has a lot of information on the lawsuit and how petulant the two men are. Here are some quotes. Much more at the Salon link. Hugs. Scottie
Even though the plaintiffs suing for the right to flunk female students for abortion include boilerplate arguments in which they feign concern that abortion is “killing,” the legal filing makes it clear that what really outrages Bonevac and Hatfield is that Title IX prevents them from controlling the private lives of students. Along with their anger about abortion, they grouse about not being allowed to punish students “for being homosexual or transgender.” They also argue they should be able to penalize teaching assistants for “cross-dressing,” by which they appear to mean allowing trans women to wear skirts.
As Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day wrote, the language of the legal complaint is “downright petulant.” The picture painted is of two men obsessed with controlling student lives based on what they’re packing inside their underwear. It should be common sense that college students should be graded on their performance in class, not whether or not their professor resents their sex life or sexual identity. Alas, because the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Texas banned abortion, it’s created a pretext for every busybody who wants to spend less time grading papers and more time working himself into an angry froth over the imagined sexual exploits of his students.
Even though Bonevac and Hatfield work in Austin, Texas, they filed their lawsuit 486 miles away in Amarillo, Texas. The reason for this is not mysterious: Donald Trump-appointed judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. The right-wing judge has a long and frankly unhinged history of screeching at top volume about the evils of “sexual revolutionaries.” (Yes, that does sound like a compliment, but he doesn’t mean it as such.) It takes very little to draw Kacsmaryk’s sexualized condemnation. Premarital sex, for instance, makes one a “sexual revolutionary.” Using contraception within marriage also makes one an irredeemable pervert. In his legal writings, Kacsmaryk is very clear that sex is only for procreation within marriage, and anything outside of that should draw legal sanction. He has not weighed in on whether there should be restrictions on what sexual positions are legally permissible within the procreation-only marital sex, but give him time.
Salon reports:
“Pregnancy is not a disease, and elective abortions are not ‘health care,’” University of Texas at Austin professor Daniel Bonevac sneers in a federal court filing with professor John Hatfield. Instead, Bonevac writes, because pregnancy is the result of “voluntary and consensual sexual intercourse,” students should not be allowed time off to get abortions.
If the students disobey and miss class for abortion care, the filing continues, the professors should be allowed to flunk students.
Even though Bonevac and Hatfield work in Austin, Texas, they filed their lawsuit 486 miles away in Amarillo, Texas. The reason for this is not mysterious: Donald Trump-appointed judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. The right-wing judge has a long and frankly unhinged history of screeching at top volume about the evils of “sexual revolutionaries.”
Read the full article. No paywall.
Bonevac [screenshot above] can be seen in the October 2016 video below expressing his devotion to Trump.
Judge Kacsmaryk, a former lawyer for an anti-LGBTQ hate group, was exposed last year for failing to disclose millions in stock holdings.
Kacsmaryk was previously exposed for failing to disclose virulently anti-LGBTQ interviews and acting to hide his authorship of an anti-abortion article ahead of his Senate confirmation hearing.
More recently, he upheld a ban on drag shows at a Texas university. Kacsmaryk’s ruling to ban abortion pills is pending before the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on the issue in March.
Florida leads the nation in destroying public education
I thank Ten Bears for the link. His link below. I think the article speaks for itself and I do not need to add anything. Hugs. Scottie
Gov. Ron DeSantis speaking at an elementary school in Florida, where teachers’ salaries are now the lowest in the nation.
Six states have now passed universal school choice programs, but Florida has been singularly effective at accomplishing what Republicans have had near the top of their agenda for decades: destroying public education.
As The Hill reports, public schools in Florida are shutting down in multiple districts due to a rapid loss of students. Meanwhile, private school enrollment is up by more than 50,000 students, and charter schools have picked up 68,000. Homeschooling has increased by 58.6%, which would likely be even higher if parents weren’t competing for a limited number of available homeschool vouchers. Despite those vouchers expanding by 40,000 a year, they still can’t keep up with demand.
No other state has seen anything even close to this vast shift away from public education.
So why are Florida Republicans so successful in reducing public school enrollment? Because they did their homework. They spent decades draining public school funding, making them poorly staffed, poorly run, and an overall miserable place to get an education. Then they created a voucher system that offers parents unmatched goodies for joining in the enterprise of keeping children ignorant while making right-wing “education” providers rich.
The reason that Republicans want to destroy public education has never been much of a mystery. As Barbara Miner at Rethinking Schools puts it:
Education is a multibillion-dollar market, and the private sector is eager to get its hands on those dollars.
Conservatives are devoted to the free market and believe that private is inherently superior to public.
Shrinking public education furthers the Republican Party goal of drastically reducing the public sector.
Privatization undermines teacher unions, a key base of support for the Democratic Party.
Privatization rhetoric can be used to woo African American and Latino voters to the Republican Party.
If that’s not enough, most private schools are Christian, so many of them propagate a conservative view of history and science that Republicans fully favor. Of the parents who have pulled their kids from public schools for homeschooling, 91% describe themselves as Christians, and many popular homeschool curricula radically whitewash history, deny climate change and evolution, and are simply awful.
Few states have matched Florida when it comes to undermining public schools to make the alternatives look better.
In 2007, Florida’s investment in public education was about average. The state had one of the worst high school graduation rates in the nation and poor student performance in science, but those numbers were improving. But they didn’t keep improving.
Florida began cutting its investment in public education, becoming one of the most drastically underfunded states over the last decade. Florida now has the lowest teacher salaries in the nation, and is ranked No. 48 in spending per student.
The state did institute a funding program that rewards businesses with tax breaks for educational investments—so long as those investments go to voucher programs. As a result, the program simultaneously feeds private schools by directly putting money in their pockets and starves public schools through loss of tax funding.
While Florida Republicans have been unwilling to invest in teachers or students, they have been more than willing to spend time and money on policing school libraries and making Christian nationalism a core tenet of the curriculum.
Florida has imposed new history standards that require teachers to tell students that Black people benefited from slavery and that Black people are responsible for the Tulsa massacre. Some entire subjects have even been banned from Florida classrooms.
Additionally, teachers have been banned from using preferred names and pronouns. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pioneered “don’t say gay” laws and spent money settling lawsuits rather than educating students.
The combination of low teacher pay, poor student investment, harsh state oversight, and a restrictive curriculum that cripples students’ ability to learn has all but destroyed Florida’s public schools. It’s not hard to understand why parents and students would want something better. They deserve something better.
This is exactly how Florida created unprecedented demand for alternatives.
As a bonus for parents who choose to homeschool their children, the state is willing to cover Disney passes and giant televisions. No questions asked. So it’s absolutely no surprise that Florida’s available homeschool vouchers were all snatched up for this school year and are expected to double next year.
But Florida isn’t the only state that has caught onto the make-it-terrible-and-they-will-leave system of driving kids to private schools. Tennessee now comes in just ahead of Florida on spending per student, and ranks No. 44 on teacher pay. Tennessee’s Republican legislature is considering the unprecedented step of turning down federal funding for education in hope of evading federal requirements on education. Not even Florida went that far.
Fortunately for Tennessee children, the legislature broke into factions and failed to pass Gov. Bill Lee’s voucher plan this year. But it will surely try again next year.
And Tennessee can always look to Florida as its model.
Over the last few days I have been busy trying to read news and set up new browsers. Here are some links to Joe My God stories that stood out for their pushing Christian hate on everyone. Plus some other hates from the tRump cult.
Per reports, Little’s salary is more than $200,000. In 2021, a Long Beach lifeguard tower decked out for Pride was destroyed in arson, much to the delight of commenters on the YouTube clip below.
And now for the tRump cult out cries about that guilty verdict.
I love how every accusation they make about Biden and the democrats / left turns out to be a confession by the republicans. For example they claim that Biden has weaponized the Department Of Justice and is controlling the AG Merrick Garland. But the republicans and trump have been calling for the locking up of his pollical opponent since his first run in 2016. He and his supporters have long called for locking up Biden. These people don’t want to run a country, they want to rule the country and everyone in it. They want to raid the treasury and hammer anyone who tries to stop them. Simply put they wrongly claim no one has ever been charged with this same crime, but it has been charged over 9,000 times. But they are now a cult and if the dear leader says it it must be so, reality be damned. Hugs. Scottie
The Washington Post has a fact check:
Trump called it ridiculous, unconstitutional and un-American “that the highly Conflicted, Radical Left Judge is not requiring a unanimous decision on the fake charges against me.” At first glance, it might appear that the former president doesn’t understand one of the basic tenets of the legal system: that guilty verdicts in criminal cases have to be unanimous.
The jury must be unanimous when it comes to determining whether Trump is guilty or not guilty of each specific falsifying business records count, and whether he did so in an effort to unlawfully impact an election, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said.
He added, however, that the panel did not have to be unanimous about which of those three types of crimes could serve as the underlying violation that brings the state election charge into play. In Trump’s case, prosecutors have offered three types of crimes that would make the state election-meddling charge come into play: federal election law crimes, tax crimes or false business records.
And now for a few just off the wall … weird world. Hugs. Scottie
