[Winstonm]

The state of Florida is now financing a "culturally diversified" school - or is it a religious school?

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Margaret Schorr, a marketing and public-relations consultant, wanted her 5-year-old daughter Hannah to learn Hebrew, but she wasn't willing to pay the $8,000 to $13,000 annual tuition that Jewish day schools in South Florida typically charge for kindergarten.

For attorney David Barnett, price wasn't the issue -- he wanted his daughter in a more diverse environment.

Both families are set to take advantage of a groundbreaking option: the nation's first Jewish-oriented charter school.

When the school year starts on Aug. 20, Schorr's daughter and Barnett's daughter will be among the 430 or so students attending the new Ben Gamla Charter School in this city. The taxpayer-funded institution says that it will offer two hours of instruction a day in Jewish-related topics, but not religion.

Some critics, on the other hand, worry that the school's main contribution will be to serve as a road map for religious communities seeking to lower the wall separating church and state.

"In other countries, we Jews were forced to support religious institutions of the dominant religions," said Rabbi Allan Tuffs of Temple Beth El, a Reform congregation in Hollywood. "The Jewish community has succeeded in America largely thanks to the principle of separation of church and state.

"But with charter schools like Ben Gamla, we are opening the door for public money to be used to support all sorts of religious ideologies across America," he warned. "What will we say to the imam down the street who says he wants to teach Arabic within an Islamic cultural setting? Or the fundamentalist Christian group that wants to start a school to teach Christian culture?"

And how do you separate when the culture IS the religion, as in fundamental Islam? A dangerous precedent, it seems to me.

[TimG]

Winstonm, on Aug 4 2007, 11:30 AM, said:

And how do you separate when the culture IS the religion, as in fundamental Islam? A dangerous precedent, it seems to me.

Who is it that makes the determination that a culture is a religion?

I admittedly don't know much about charter schools, but isn't one principle behind a charter school that the governance of the school is not done by the state? Before the issue of whether the school is religious is tackled, it would seem prudent to determine whether the school is a department of the state. If it is not a department of the state, it doesn't matter whether the school is a religious school.

[Winstonm]

TimG, on Aug 4 2007, 12:02 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Aug 4 2007, 11:30 AM, said:

And how do you separate when the culture IS the religion, as in fundamental Islam?  A dangerous precedent, it seems to me.

Who is it that makes the determination that a culture is a religion?

I admittedly don't know much about charter schools, but isn't one principle behind a charter school that the governance of the school is not done by the state? Before the issue of whether the school is religious is tackled, it would seem prudent to determine whether the school is a department of the state. If it is not a department of the state, it doesn't matter whether the school is a religious school.

The issue is that the school is funded by Florida state taxes; how close is this to the line of separation of church and state, precedent-wise. In other words, how do you make a separation when culture and religion are so closely tied, as in Indonesia-type Muslimism governance?

[TimG]

Winstonm, on Aug 4 2007, 01:35 PM, said:

The issue is that the school is funded by Florida state taxes;

Are you saying the the tuition is all paid through taxes, or that the school is run by the state using state funds?

[hrothgar]

Assuming that this is what is normally understood as a "Charter School", I have an objection.

Charter Schools are publicly funded. I objected to the use of public funds to fund religious initiatives. (Don't get me started on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives). While I agree that Judaism is both a faith and a culture, I think that the overlap with what is commonly understood as a "religion" is too strong.

In many ways, this feels (vaguely) similar to the debates surrounding the establishment of Sharia courts in Great Britain. I see nothing wrong if a group of Muslims wants to use the principles of the Sharia as a mechanism to work out problems. However, I think that it is crucial for everyone to understand that judgments of any such "Sharia Court" aren't legally binding in any way, shape, or form. Moreover, if the Sharia runs into conflict with the civil laws, the civil laws are what matter. The whole Sharia court system is best viewed as a private initiative to which the State should remain neutral.

In much the same manner, I don't care if a group of individuals wants to go out and create their own private school which will focus on Scientology, or Judism, or whatever. I have a big problem if they want public funds.

[Winstonm]

Here is more information:

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The taxpayer-funded institution says that it will offer two hours of instruction a day in Jewish-related topics, but not religion.

By definition, charter schools are publicly financed elementary or secondary schools that are managed privately, with minimal input from local school boards, and whose innovative teaching methods are expected to produce higher academic results.

Ben Gamla's director, an Orthodox rabbi named Adam Siegel, said that students will learn Hebrew, Jewish culture and Jewish history for two hours a day; faculty will be forbidden from teaching Torah or prayer. Siegel, 37, added that the school will serve kosher meals, and students will be permitted to organize their own worship services.

"The Ben Gamla school is not religious in nature at all," stated Onori. "We do not fund public religious schools in the state of Florida."

The new Jewish-themed school is named after Rabbi Joshua Ben Gamla, a first-century rabbi in ancient Israel who is credited with establishing the concept of public education.

"Ben Gamla was the one who saved Torah study for his generation," quipped Tuffs, the Reform rabbi. "He was known for teaching religion, not math or science."

[TimG]

I guess I was blurring (or confusing) charter schools with vouchers.

[BebopKid]

hrothgar, on Aug 4 2007, 02:05 PM, said:

Assuming that this is what is normally understood as a "Charter School", I have an objection.

Charter Schools are publicly funded. I objected to the use of public funds to fund religious initiatives.

I object to the fact that the courts don't allow religion in schools.

According to one Supreme Court Chief Justice, the United States Constitution was not meant to exclude Christianity from government but to keep government from interfering with Christianity. His name was John Jay, and he should know, he was there.

IMHO, atheism and/or universalism are now state religions being forced on all students by the Feds in violation of the Bill of Rights.

[Winstonm]

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IMHO, atheism and/or universalism are now state religions being forced on all students by the Feds in violation of the Bill of Rights.

I can agree somewhat in part with this thinking, insofar as atheism can be viewed as a religious faith. I say that because the existence of a higher being cannot be either proved or disproved, so the conviction in the rightness that there is no higher being is as much faith-based as is belief in a higher power.

I do not see how atheism can be stretched into a religion, though, and what is taught in schools is not the faith-based belief in an absence of a higher being.

Even if you are isolating the argument to evolution, evolution is not taught as "because there is no god, this is how plant and animal life evolved," which would be atheistic religion. Rather, what is taught is "this is how plant and animal life evolved," which is totally neutral unless a conflict arises from the religious-based creationism previously taught through personal religion. But there, it is not the school that created the conflict; the conflict was created by the holding of religious-based preconceived beliefs.

Myself, I don't want public schools to teach any religious doctrine, which is another way of saying a neutral doctirne, which is what is done IMO.

[pbleighton]

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IMHO, atheism and/or universalism are now state religions being forced on all students by the Feds in violation of the Bill of Rights.

Would you like to elaborate?

I assume you have many examples available of teachers saying to students that God does not exist. That's what you mean, isn't it?

Peter

[Gerben42]

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I object to the fact that the courts don't allow religion in schools.

The only place for religion in schools is teaching the students what religions exist and how they influence our culture.

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Myself, I don't want public schools to teach any religious doctrine, which is another way of saying a neutral doctirne, which is what is done IMO.

Myself, I don't want "katholic", "baptist", "protestant", "sunni", "jewish" schools at all. Religion is not a subject fit for small children. Nor is politics.

There is no such thing as a protestant or catholic child, just like there is no liberal or conservative child. Religions thrive by imprinting rather than giving kids some alternatives and letting them figure out which one they like.

Okay there are some people who choose religions independently, I am fine with that, but they are quite a minority.

[hrothgar]

BebopKid, on Aug 5 2007, 07:23 AM, said:

>I object to the fact that the courts don't allow religion in schools.

The courts do allow religion in school. The courts allow private schools to teach anything that they want with respect to religion. However, the US government has (wisely) decided that public funds should not be used for the purpose of religious indoctrination. More explicitly, the government maintains a stance of strict neutrality when it comes to matters of faith.

>According to one Supreme Court Chief Justice, the United States
>Constitution was not meant to exclude Christianity from government but
>to keep government from interfering with Christianity. His name was John Jay,
>and he should know, he was there.

John Jay also had some very interesting ideas about just what constituted appropriate religions. His concepts of religious liberty didn't extend to Catholics and he argued that Catholics should be barred from holding office. Jay's writing underscore one of the biggest problems with interleaving Church and State. You almost immediately get embroiled in all of the laughable schisms between all the different "believers". Personally, I think that the experiences of Roger Williams are a much better guide regarding the principles upon which this country was founded. Williams was a deeply religious man, but he recognized the problems associated with an establishment church.

>IMHO, atheism and/or universalism are now state religions being forced on all >students by the Feds in violation of the Bill of Rights.

Unfortunately, the definition of religion is very fluid. I would (probably) go so far as to agree that strict atheism in the vein of Rich Dawkins coud be viewed as a religion. However, I think that it is laughable to argue that Dawkins type atheism is promoted by the US government.

[Badmonster]

I think it's out of line to use public funds for non-secular education. If we're going to have public monies used for charter schools I don't think learning about religious culture is as much of an issue as pervasive illiteracy, over-crowding and all the myriad ways our public education system fails our youth in the mainstream schools. Let's spend our educational budget on schools where children learn to oh, I don't know ... read and do math.

[Winstonm]

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Let's spend our educational budget on schools where children learn to oh, I don't know ... read and do math.

Careful - that's bordering on heresy.

[Gerben42]

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Let's spend our educational budget on schools where children learn to oh, I don't know ... read and do math.

Number literacy is dropping everywhere in the western world. This is a very worrisome development and it needs to be turned around.