r/politics • u/southpawFA Oklahoma • 2h ago
No Paywall Taxpayers are funding private school tuition. It's helping classical Christian schools expand
https://apnews.com/projects/privatizing-school-classical-christian/•
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u/Cobra-Lalalalalalala 2h ago
Yes, that was the intent. Steal public dollars for private profit and actual indoctrination.
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u/southpawFA Oklahoma 2h ago
That's the Republican manner. They want to steal money from public schools, and then point to schools failing without saying what they've done to make it so.
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u/foomachoo 1h ago
And the private schools won’t accept kids with disabilities. So the public schools pickup a huge burden even more. Then point how the public school kids underperform…
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u/Infamous-Sky-1874 Illinois 1h ago
It's more than just not accepting kids with disabilities. If given the chance, there would be certain demographics that they would refuse to allow into their schools even if they have a voucher.
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u/imjustnotready 2h ago
That about sums it up. I guess the charter school movement is the other prong.
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u/RamonaQ-JunieB 2h ago
This is one of the many reasons I absolutely abhor vouchers, no matter how they try to disguise and justify them.
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u/southpawFA Oklahoma 2h ago
Yup. They are basically ways to turn money from public schools that accept everyone and turn them to for-profit companies that have no scruples.
I worked at a charter school, and I don't want to go back again.
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u/southpawFA Oklahoma 2h ago
This summer, Texas began rolling out $1 billion in public funding that eligible families can put toward private education expenses. Republican-controlled state legislatures around the country have approved a cascade of similar programs in the past six years, alarming public school advocates.
These programs mean half of school-age children in the United States are now eligible to apply for state money to attend private schools. In the U.S., most private schools are religious. Securing public money for them raises issues over church-state separation but fulfills a longstanding goal for Christian conservatives, who lobbied for this funding.
“I have been praying for 28 years for things that are coming to fruition right now,” said Castello, who is launching three classical Christian schools this fall under his Kyrie Christian Academy brand.
Those suburban Texas schools are part of a larger network, the Association of Classical Christian Schools, which has ties to the Trump administration and was founded by Doug Wilson, a conservative Idaho pastor and writer. The schools offer a liberal arts education, with an added emphasis on virtue and a biblical worldview.
The schools have their roots in a radical source. Wilson, the founder of ACCS, is a self-described Christian nationalist who has made headlines for preaching at a Pentagon worship service and advocating for the repeal of women’s voting rights. For more than four decades, he has also been a pioneer in classical Christian education.
Wilson can be a provocateur, suggesting homosexuality should be criminalized and criticizing Muslim immigration to the U.S. His Idaho church prefers heads of households, usually men, to vote. He describes his politics as “slightly to the right” of Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart.
The Association of Classical Christian Schools calls its campaign the “Battle for the American School.” It’s a riff on the 2022 bestselling book Goodwin co-wrote with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who sent his children to ACCS schools before joining President Donald Trump’s cabinet. Their book, “Battle for the American Mind,” extols classical education and critiques the prevailing public school model.
Hegseth remains a booster: The Pentagon recently introduced a form of classical education into government-run schools on military bases.
Wilson is part of the reason three mothers pulled their children this year from a San Diego-area Christian school, which pursued an affiliation with ACCS. They opposed his patriarchal, controversial views and were concerned when students received humanities coursework Wilson wrote.
In one of the texts students read, a commentary on C.S. Lewis, Wilson defends the author’s “historic Christian understanding of the relationship of men and women.” He calls Islam and Hinduism “false religions.”
Sarah Stankorb, an author who covered Wilson in her book “Disobedient Women,” said ACCS schools are “definitely a mode of transmission into the Doug Wilson pipeline.”
Conservatives are banding together to leverage these expanding taxpayer-funded scholarships. Last year, ACCS formed a coalition with some powerful conservative groups, including Turning Point Education and the Heritage Foundation. Their goal is to convert or create 5,000 new classical Christian schools in the next decade with 1.5 million students nationwide.
Christian nationalists claim "indoctrination" whenever a show with a gay character merely existing is on television, or when a trans person is just merely existing.
However, they are okay with being the Yeehawdists that turn America into Christian Sunday Schools, mirroring Islamic madrasas.
The hypocrisy of Christian nationalists knows no bounds.
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u/T1gerAc3 2h ago
You need to understand the future of America.
All services for the public good will be dismantled at the federal level and many state levels. Public education, Medicare, Medicaid, social security, snap, unemployment, etc will all be eliminated. All your taxes will flow into privately held companies, owned by the billionaires, political donors and politicians themselves through no bid, no audit contracts. They'll get paid regardless of whether or not they fulfill the contract.
You'll get almost nothing in return. You only exist to have money extracted from you so that already obscenely wealthy people who do nothing and offer nothing can have even more.
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u/southpawFA Oklahoma 2h ago
Doug Wilson is sponsoring this movement for Christian classical schools. There are many in my area now. It's important to pay attention to him.
Doug Wilson is Pete Hegseth's pastor. He advises Pete Hegseth on "spiritual matters". He was at the Capitol worship service.
There are many things you need to know about Doug Wilson, and kudos to Tim Whitaker of the New Evangelicals for letting me know about him:
- Defense of Chattel Slavery: Wilson has written and stated that American slavery included "decent human beings" who owned slaves without mistreating them, describing parts of the system as "mutually harmonious".
- "Paleo-Confederate" Stance: He openly aligns his politics with the Confederate States of America and describes his views as being to the right of Confederate General Jeb Stuart.
- Provocative Rhetoric on Race: He has encouraged the procreation of "white babies" as a response to secular cultural systems, drawing accusations of promoting white Christian supremacy. [1, 2, 3, 4]
- Repealing the 19th Amendment: Wilson advocates for revoking women's right to vote.
- Household Voting: He proposes replacing individual voting with "household voting," where the male head of the house casts a single vote on behalf of his entire family.
- Ultra-Patriarchal Roles: He teaches that women should be strictly submissive to men, barred from church leadership or military combat roles, and that same-sex marriage should be criminalized.
- Married a child molester to a member of his church and stated it was okay. Wilson literally married Steven Sitler, a convicted serial child molester. In 2011, Wilson officiated Sitler’s wedding to a church member after Sitler served time for lewd conduct with minors, defending the marriage as a way to manage sexual temptation. [1, 2]
That's just the tip of the iceberg. I didn't even get to the fact he stated in an NPR interview that he wants to either exile all LGBTQIA+ people from America or mass-slaughter us. That's Doug Wilson for you.
Is it any wonder why Pete Hegseth is as evil as he is?
Tim Whitaker on Doug Wilson —Why This Man is the Most Dangerous Pastor in America
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u/mysterious_jeffrey 2h ago
“Jesus loves me very much ‘cause he puts Skippy in my lunch!”
-those kids
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u/yourockcanceltht 2h ago
I’m so tired of religion in general. It’s never been anything more than an organized cult.
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u/OwntheWorld24 1h ago
As long as they have to meet the same standards as public schools then fine. 95% won't and those should not be able to accept funding.
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u/afro-deezy-yac 8m ago
I'd make it a requirement that they take a disproportionate share of the state's special education students. Like all of them and the struggling students too if they get expelled from public schools. AND then be required to meet state standards. But with 1/3 the funding.
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u/1K-Year-Egg 1h ago
Madrasas for Talibangelicals.
You know, the French are justifiably famous for their regicide, but they don’t get nearly enough credit for their anti-clericalism.
I’d say this quote of Diderot sums it all up rather nicely: Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
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u/Distinct-Pain4972 20m ago
The voucher program is a complete sham. Using public money to fund a private school must require that school to accept every applicant, or no money.
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u/Ok-Economist-9466 2h ago
Oh how terrible, Parents are choosing a classical education over critical race theory and neo-Marxism. The Constitution weeps--Jefferson and Madison clearly wanted to protect the right of the state to tell our children that there's 57 genders and their civilizational heritage was evil white supremacy. /s
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u/The_Navy_Sox 2h ago
I don't know if this comment is making fun of maga or not, but if not, your view of public schools is very funny.
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u/Ok-Economist-9466 2h ago
I thought it was obvious satire. I've put an obligatory /s but honestly I didn't think anyone could read that and think it was meant unironically.
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u/The_Navy_Sox 1h ago
I missed the /s, I am just an idiot lol. My bad.
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u/Ok-Economist-9466 1h ago
It's all good. It sucks that we live in time where that could be taken as a serious comment.
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u/canyoucamus 1h ago
Been there before. Writing it out it seems so outlandish but then we realize like 45% of the sincere comments on posts about this are nearly identical.
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