Different Public Schools for Different Faiths ?

[RileyG]

How about we stick to teaching the children the basics and leave their religious education and affiliation to their private places of worship?

Yes, I agree. And it's important for children to be exposed to those who are different from them so they and learn compassion and acceptance.

 

[Desk trauma]

This whole idea is just a big abandonment of America as "one nation".

We should all retreat to our little ghettos where everyone is just like us.

It’s been all down hill since we abandoned e pluribus unum.

 

[PloverWing]

Let the parents of school age children in the USA speak. First hand current experience can answer our questions some.

1) Do your kids go to:
a) regular public school?
b) public charter school, what type?
c) private, parochial, or faith based school?
d) home school?

2) What type experience do your kids mostly generally have? Can select more than one.
a) learn the basics including the 3Rs.
b) religious.
c) Marxist or secular humanism indoctrination.
d) none with bad crime or poor building repair environment.

3) Is your local school board left liberal or right conservative?

4) Is your school district mostly urban city, suburban, or rural?

For whatever anecdotes are worth, here's my experience. My children are now in their 20s, but their K-12 experience was pretty recent.

1. My children attended a regular public school.

2a. My children learned the 3Rs, and much more than the 3Rs, including science, advanced mathematics, history, literature, music, and drama. The school offers a healthy selection of AP courses.

2b. My children learned a bit about various world religions in school, but most of their religious education happened at home and at church.

2c. I assume they learned about Marx in their world history classes. No bad indoctrination that I could see. From their family and their church, they were taught about the importance of caring for the poor. (That might be literal "indoctrination", the teaching of Christian doctrine.)

2d. The building needed repairs, but the teachers did an excellent job. I watched dedicated educators do amazing things with a minimum of funding.

3. We've been spared the left-vs-right stuff in our school board. They're mostly focused on providing good educational opportunities for the students. (I'll note that most of our community is supportive of LGBTQ students. There's a GSA at the school, and that's not considered controversial. That might be "liberal" from your point of view. Our school reflects our community.)

4. We are a small town of 23,000, about half an hour from a large city (Philadelphia).

 

[NxNW]

Though the First Amendment says the government cannot establish A religion as was in England, here's an idea to reduce cultural friction between people of various faiths and those of anti faith in the public schools, which can happen in larger school districts with dozens of schools. Have separate schools for Christian, possibly for various denominations within, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, not believers of traditional marriage lifestyle, Atheists, etc. and not restricted to skin color, ethnicity, race, or nationality.

So . . . separate but equal?

Hasn't that been tried? How did that work out?

Do Mormons and Catholics and Baptists all get separate schools, too?

 

[Margaret3110]

Let the parents of school age children in the USA speak. First hand current experience can answer our questions some.

1) Do your kids go to:
a) regular public school?
b) public charter school, what type?
c) private, parochial, or faith based school?
d) home school?

We've done A, B, and C and various times. Currently a charter. Regular public school was not so good.

2) What type experience do your kids mostly generally have? Can select more than one.
a) learn the basics including the 3Rs.
b) religious.
c) Marxist or secular humanism indoctrination.
d) none with bad crime or poor building repair environment.

A. He is learning

3) Is your local school board left liberal or right conservative?

I don't know.

4) Is your school district mostly urban city, suburban, or rural?

Urban

 

[Niels]

It is possible to accommodate students from different backgrounds. Or at least it was. For what it's worth, I went through the public education system without knowing what most of my teachers' religious or political affiliations were. Even in science and history classes. However, that was decades ago. With today's social media and hyper-partisanship I wonder how much more difficult it is.

I support private education because it provides better results, on average, as demonstrated by superior test scores etc. The public education system can leave much to be desired when it comes to teaching the kids. Private schools often have a religious affiliation, and they tend to be more expensive, but on average they're doing something right. If vouchers could be implemented well, and that's a big if, to give students and parents a choice, I that might help mitigate some of the differences we see between well-performing public schools and poorly-performing schools.

The current fixation with things like sexuality and race strikes me as counterproductive. How are the kids' math and language scores? Are they well prepared to enter college or the workforce? Are they aware how the government works? Can they balance a budget and competently perform other basic tasks? They're not supposed to be marrying each other and whatnot while they're still in school. They're supposed to be learning important skills. Teach the kids the skills that they need to be successful adults. That will do a lot more to help them in the long run.

So no, I don't think it's necessary to have separate public schools. What schools need to do is focus on practical skills and student performance, while perhaps providing parents and students with more of a choice.

 

[comana]

Parents go to work, they cannot leave younger kids in the house alone, unless they are remote working or home schooling. So kids mostly go to public schools, depending on local jurisdiction politcs and whether urban, suburban, or rural, that can may be a somewhat good experience, a Marxist indoctrination experience, or also a bad experience from say a city school with crine or in poor repair HVAC, plumbing, or leaky roof.

Right, but at home and church these children are also influenced. They don’t need it at school as well. But should parents want a 24/7 indoctrination of their preference, then private or home school.

Public schools are provided so that all children have opportunity for education. Wanting more than is offered means finding another option for your child’s education.

 

[sprknjc]

I'm not sure how useful anecdotes are in this case. You should be looking at nationwide studies done by researchers and statisticians.

Thanks so far for those sharing annecdotes for those of us of this forum who are interested can see. Anecdotes are useful from diverse parts of America. Researchers may not always have the full story.

 

[Larniavc]

Thanks so far for those sharing annecdotes for those of us of this forum who are interested can see. Anecdotes are useful from diverse parts of America. Researchers may not always have the full story.

How so? Researchers ask those very people who have the qualitative information within the anecdote and turn that into usable data.

The person who ‘misses’ information and does not have the full story is the one who relies on anecdotes.

Do you see now?

 

[Larniavc]

The current fixation with things like sexuality and race strikes me as counterproductive

Correct. If Conservatives wouldn’t treat it like the new AIDS there would be no problem.

 

[sprknjc]

How so? Researchers ask those very people who have the qualitative information within the anecdote and turn that into usable data.

The person who ‘misses’ information and does not have the full story is the one who relies on anecdotes.

Do you see now?

Researchers don't share all of the individual anecdotes they may collect one by one. Advantage of forums.

 

[Larniavc]

Researchers don't share all of the individual anecdotes they may collect one by one. Advantage of forums.

Yes they do. Why would you take the time to record people’s responses if you’re not going to analyse them?

 

[Reasonably Sane]

Isn't that blasphemy?

Exodus 20:7 and Deuteronomy 5:11 read:

I'm not taking Jesus name in vain. I'm not trying to make money with it. But it makes the point really well.

 

[Niels]

Correct. If Conservatives wouldn’t treat it like the new AIDS there would be no problem.

At least as important is that the leftists (to my mind leftists aren't liberals) don't push those things. They can indoctrinate their kids at home as they see fit, but the students are there to learn academics and basic skills. Not to be the political pawns of adults. Better schools, whether religious or secular, focus on academic performance.

 

[Tuur]

2 Corinthians 6:14 about being yoked with unbelievers.

Then, by your argument, all of us who are Christians should abandon this forum, for here are unbelievers as well as believers. Did you then become yoked with unbelievers when you agreed to the terms of use of this forum? How about when you go to a store? Dine at a restaurant? Go vote? Your only solution, by your argument, is for Christians to completely withdraw from contact with everyone who isn't.

 

[sprknjc]

Then, by your argument, all of us who are Christians should abandon this forum, for here are unbelievers as well as believers. Did you then become yoked with unbelievers when you agreed to the terms of use of this forum? How about when you go to a store? Dine at a restaurant? Go vote? Your only solution, by your argument, is for Christians to completely withdraw from contact with everyone who isn't.

Definition of yoked - If two or more people or things are yoked together, they are forced to be closely linked with each other.

That would be kids by law or school authority forced to go to public school together, working as a duo on a term project with one having a strong attraction to the other not in a good way. Not the casual encounter by choice, even helping an elderly person getting something off a top shelf at the supermarket or shaing information to help each other on this forum. You can read much more into the word yoked than Jesus or God intended or not, which verse needs to be read with other verses in the Bible to fully understand. Also Christians are in this world, love the sinner, not of this world, hate the sin. Plus Bible originally written in Hebrew. Greek, and Aramaic, which a little meaning lost in translation to English. Maybe a Bible scholar or a seminary student here can help you more which I am not.

 

[essentialsaltes]

That would be kids by law or school authority forced to go to public school together,

The nation has already dealt with this issue. Public schools 'yoke' all of 'we the people' together.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Eliminate public schools? What? How will the poor pay for their children's education?

They won't. That's the point. The crusade against public, secular education is to keep a permanent underclass in place and impose "christian government".

Statistics prove that the further a child progresses towards graduating high school, the less likely they will be arrested and end up in prison. You have that one backwards.

You may as well advocate to convert the closed public schools into prisons.

Work farms. Cheap labor for the ruling class.

 

[A2SG]

I disagree. My son, who is autistic with learning disabilities, is at a charter school and it's been amazing for him. We could never afford a private school and public was traumatic.

I'm glad your child is getting the education he needs. My child (well, an adult now) is also autistic (high functioning) and went to public school. The school, at every level, was great and worked with us to ensure the best possible education. But, in my experience, charter schools can, and often do, limit who they accept as students, and students with special needs of any kind are often the first to be excluded. Brings down the test scores, don'tchaknow. Public schools, which have to accept any and all students, including those with special needs, don't have that easy out, which is why they often don't fare as well when comparing standardized tests.

But I still stand by my statement: public funds should go to public schools. Full stop.

-- A2SG, I'm sure private schools can offer whatever form of financial aid they like....

 

[A2SG]

It's not just economy. It's also about having well-educated voters. If we had a king, maybe it would be sufficient for the king to be well-educated and wise. But since we have a democracy, where voters choose representatives to make policy, it's important for the voters to have a solid knowledge of history, science, government, and so forth. I, selfishly, want my fellow voters to be well educated when they go to the polls.

Problems come when they aren't. For example, see the current GOP front runner.

-- A2SG, in my oh so very humble opinion, of course....