In making a policy statement on Public Education, we are conscious of the need for individuals to be well educated to face the challenges of our time. As Christians, we are mindful of both Jesus' extraordinary care and concern for children, and of his admonition that those who put stumbling blocks in the paths of children would be better off if they were thrown into the sea with a millstone tied about their necks (Mark 9:36–42). In our society, to fail to provide a child with the best kind of education available is to put an almost insurmountable stumbling block in the path of that child.

This statement is also born of our conviction that we Christians are to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds and our neighbors as ourselves. To that end, our minds must be educated, so that, exercising God's good gift of free choice, we can develop our spiritual lives and make decisions with full awareness of options and consequences. We need good public schools to assist children to learn to read and think. Being able to read, including to read the Bible, helps children make informed life choices.

Loving our neighbors means wanting the best for them and their children. Good public schools will help all children, but in supporting such schools we repeat the National Council of Churches' earlier affirmation that public money should be used only for public schools. To do otherwise is a clear violation of the First Amendment's anti-establishment provision, which has protected and continues to protect the freedom in which American religious life has flourished.

All parents have an obligation to make sure that their children are well informed about religion and its role in human life and history; parents of faith are free to give their children appropriate religious instruction, in the home or in the religious institution of their choice, including in a parochial school. But opting for parochial schools is an exercise of religious freedom which is outside the realm of public finance. And it is accompanied by a parallel obligation to give financial support to the public schools which provide for the well being of all children and of our common life.

We act in the awareness that children are a gift of God, made in God's image. Jesus' deep concern for "the least of these," brings us to echo that concern in the modern world by seeking maximum educational opportunities for all. Without the best education available, children continue to slip through the cracks of our society. We recognize with pain that we have lost and continue to lose thousands of children whose well being ought to have been our continuing concern. For this omission we ask God's forgiveness.

Glossary of Terms

Nationwide, there are 51.7 million children in K–12

By 2006, there will be 54.6 million; about 6 million are in private or parochial schools. Most private schools (over 75%) are parochial schools.

School Funding:

About 43% of the money to support public schools is raised from the school's local district, usually through property taxes; about 50% of the funding comes from the state; about 7% from the Federal government. In over half of our states the formulas for the allocation of school funds have been challenged or struck down by the courts, because the present formulas often result in well-funded schools in affluent areas, usually suburbs, and poorly-funded schools in urban and rural areas which have less valuable bases on which property taxes can be levied. This educational inequity is also fed by the practice of many communities of giving tax breaks to businesses to attract them to the community, thereby weakening the financial support for the schools.

One-third of America's schools require major repairs or need to be replaced; 46% lack the basic electrical wiring to enable them to use computers and other modern technology. The cost of repairing/replacing schools is set at $112 billion. The $5 billion the Administration had asked for to begin this repair/renovation was cut in the Budget agreement, which contains $85 billion in tax cuts. New York Times, 5/9/97

The present Administration has asked for $350 million to train teachers for poor urban and rural public schools. The plan is to train 35,000 new teachers in the next five years.

Vouchers:

Vouchers are cash payments given to parents to enable them to pay all or part of their children's tuition at parochial, private, or even public schools, although most plans, often called "school choice" or "parental choice" provide only for parochial and private schools. Most voucher proposals would use public money, which would be drawn from the tax dollars otherwise used to support public schools only. But in some areas money for vouchers or voucher scholarships is already being raised and allocated. These funds come from the private sector: from individuals, businesses, or other groups.

Proponents suggest giving parents a sum of tax money (usually under $2500) per child; some proposals limit vouchers to low-income families. Proponents argue that competition among public, private, and parochial schools would improve the public schools; in any event, it would give more parents the option to choose that the wealthy now possess. Further, they compare voucher programs with the GI Bill, funds from which were often used at church-related colleges, and point out that tax money already goes for the provision of many services and resources used in parochial/private schools.

Opponents of vouchers say that using tax moneys to pay tuition at parochial schools is a violation of the separation of church and state called for by the U. S. Constitution. They dismiss the "improvement through competition" argument by saying that the competition is not on a level playing field: public schools must accept all students, regardless of physical or intellectual or emotional problems, race, ethnic origin, class, or religious affiliation. Parochial/private schools do not. Further, parochial/private schools can reject or expel students, as public schools cannot. Therefore, they say that the assertion that parents could choose the schools their children attend is invalid, since in fact it is the schools that do the choosing, on any basis they want, including ability or disability, class, religion, etc.

They answer the comparison with the GI Bill by pointing out that the GI Bill was a bonus for services rendered. In addition, church-related colleges, usually make chapel attendance or theology courses voluntary, and conduct their courses with a degree of intellectual objectivity sufficient to maintain academic accreditation. Parochial elementary and high schools, by contrast, have a pervasively sectarian character; indeed, it is for that reason that parents choose them for their children! Finally, adults are usually capable of viewing all teaching with some capacity for critical appraisal. Children are more nearly a captive and uncritical audience.

Strict church/state separationists also caution that with government money must come, over time, government supervision, and the application of non-discrimination statutes in matters of employment and retention, personal behavior or sexual orientation, religious beliefs, etc. Such supervision, they believe, would greatly restrict the freedoms of church related schools, and ultimately change their character.

Voucher legislation has appeared in virtually all state legislatures; no voucher program, however, has ever been upheld by the higher courts. In its 1961 policy statement, "Public Funds for Public Schools," the NCCC called for the use of public funds for public schools only, affirming "the principle of public control of public funds."

Charter Schools:

Charter schools are PUBLIC schools, free to all students, non-sectarian. Like all public schools, they abide by health, safety, and civil rights laws. They are not usually run by their school district, however, but operate under a charter obtained from a state agency. Usually, parents, teachers, or others can create a public charter school. Nineteen states have passed charter school laws, and more than 200 are in operation. (1996-7)

Research published recently in the Harvard Educational Letter called for community vigilance in regard to both charter school and magnet school proposals, observing that just as parents who opt for parochial/private schools often do so on religious, class, or racial/ethnic grounds, so parents creating magnet and charter schools could make similar choices, which could damage the public character of these alternative schools. The writers advised licensing groups to put requirements in place from the inception of these plans to guard against such practices.

Standards-Based Reform:

Most critics of public schools decry the fact that in the U.S., unlike most other industrialized countries, we have no national standards or agreement on what exactly constitutes a high school education, or what degree of proficiency actually constitutes mastery of a subject. Those who call for national standards are usually criticized from the left, which dislikes standardized tests, and from the right, which dislikes having government set standards. Yet in order to reform, one must have goals toward which the reforms should work.