Funding for Alabama public schools will be a major topic in the upcoming state legislative session. Newspapers already report that more than 1,000 teachers may lose their jobs in the year ahead because of budget shortfalls. The program to move Alabama teacher salaries to the national average has already been put on hold.
But Montgomery will not be the only place funding for Alabama public schools will be discussed in coming weeks and months. Politicians in Washington, D.C., also will be debating school funding for Alabama and elsewhere as they consider the educational reform package submitted by President George W. Bush.
It is not our desire to debate the merits of President Bush’s proposal. Voices more informed than ours will discuss the pros and cons, the social implications and other facets of the program. However, there is one part of the proposal which raises questions for those concerned about religious liberty and its corollary — church-state separation.
In situations where public schools fail to meet certain academic achievement standards, President Bush proposes giving the parents of children in those schools $1,500 toward the purchase of educational services in private or parochial schools. The program is designed to give parents what President Bush calls “meaningful options” in the education of their children.
Certainly, all parents have the right and responsibility to make choices they deem best for their children. Many parents choose private and parochial schools, even without vouchers provided by government. Other parents choose public schools. No one questions the right or the wisdom of such choices.
Our concern comes when a parent chooses a parochial school for his or her child and the bill is paid by public tax money. Such a practice raises serious questions about religious liberty and the separation of church and state.
Eighty percent of students enrolled in parochial schools in the United States attend Roman Catholic-sponsored schools. Roman Catholics are clear in their statements, both written and verbal, that their schools are an essential part of the religious mission of that church. Students study the teachings of the Catholic church. The experience there is pervasively Catholic. That is why the schools exist. Students are expected to learn more than the reading, writing and arithmetic.
Seventh-day Adventists have an extensive parochial school system for elementary-age students. Again, the program exists to advance the teachings of the Adventist church as well as provide what the public considers “traditional education.”
In parts of the nation, the Lutheran church sponsors strong parochial school systems. Evangelicals, including Baptists, increasingly are involved in the educational enterprise for elementary, junior high and high school age students. In every case, the schools are essential parts of the religious mission of the churches. Students learn the Bible. Usually they study the beliefs of the sponsoring church and participate in worship services.
None of this is bad. The question is about whether public money should be used to pay for it — to advance the religious mission of a church. Historically, Baptists have said no.
In the founding process of this nation, Patrick Henry and others argued that every citizen should be taxed a certain amount and the citizen allowed to designate that money to the church of choice. If one had no church of choice, a charity could be selected. That idea was rejected. The founding fathers concluded than no citizen should be taxed and the money given to a church. To do so had the power of the state being used to force people to engage in religious activity — giving to a church.
Baptists were among the loudest voices arguing that the state should stay out of religious matters. Baptists said it was a violation of church and state separation to use the power of the state to force people to engage in religious activity. Participation in religious activity was a matter between the individual soul and God, they argued.
The voucher plan, as we understand it, resorts to the power of the state to collect taxes which, in turn, may be used by churches to advance their religious mission through parochial schools. That raises serious questions about the separation of church and state.
One principle of religious liberty is that no public money will go for religious purposes. The reasoning behind the principle is that no one should be required to support financially a religious practice with which one differs. Although tax money originates with individual citizens, it is public money. It belongs to all.
Vouchers take money from the public treasury. The amount provided a parent has no relationship to what the parent might have paid in taxes. Thus, if the voucher provides money for a church to accomplish its religious mission through a parochial school, those who differ with the practices of that religious group may be helping to support it through tax dollars. Such a situation would be a violation of religious liberty as Baptists have understood the concept.
Some champions of vouchers argue that concerns about religious liberty and the separation of church and state are mooted by the money going to the parents who spend it on educational choices they deem best. If the voucher concept is approved by Congress, this question is certain to end up in the United States Supreme Court.
One thing is certain — However the debate is resolved, it will have a major impact on Alabama’s public schools and it is the public schools that provide education for 90 percent of the state’s children.
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