Maine Catholic School Challenges State Anti-Discrimination Requirements for Funding

[Stan]

Last year's Supreme Court decision allowing taxpayer-funded aid to religious schools in Maine has led to concerns over potential regulation. A Catholic school is now suing the state for imposing anti-discrimination requirements and restrictions on schools participating in the program. This could lead to religious schools needing to eliminate their religious characteristics to receive funding. Schools that resist will face pressure from parents to take the "easy money."

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[Rahab]

A local sda church school years ago was getting some government funding. At one point the government said they could not have bibles in the classrooms. The sda church decided at that point it was probably not a good idea to have government funding. 

[Hanseng]

There are more than 200 Jewish religious schools [yeshivas] in New York State. These schools can receive government money as long as they provide a certain amount of secular education along with the religious instruction. It is estimated that about 1/3 of the schools do not provide the amount of secular education required. A Jewish organization called YAFFED [young advocates for fair education] has been calling attention to this issue for years, mostly to no avail, until recently.

Many of these strictly orthodox Jewish children are being deprived of basic knowledge to function in modern American society. Their math, English language, science, history and other subject scores, on standardized tests, are abysmal. 99% of students fail standardized tests. This may seem hard to believe considering that your physician, lawyer, stockbroker are all Jewish; nevertheless, it's true. 375 million dollars are spent every year funding Yeshivas that produce students who are unable to function effectively in secular society.

Consequent to the educational problems is the large number of Jewish families that must live off of welfare due to their inability to earn a living. 

What We Do - Yaffed

[Rahab]

That’s sad.