A Proposed Policy Statement by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA Presented for First Reading Nov. 12, 1997, by the NCC General Assembly
Final Approval Pending Second Reading in 1998
I. Historic Support of the Member Communions for Public Schooling
Although many of the member denominations of the National Council of the Churches of Christ have issued statements supportive of public education, and although the NCCC itself has made its pro-public schools stance clear for several decades, in recent years the voices of our churches have been largely absent from the ongoing debate about the meaning and future of our nation's schools.
As a result, public consciousness has been dominated by religious and political groups whose view of public schools is largely negative. Because we have been silent, many, even in our own communions, are ignorant of our historical ties to and support for public education. With this statement we propose to bring the voices of our member churches back into the present debate, bringing with us our traditional support for the strengthening and reform of the public schools. Our concern for children and for the creation of a truly caring community impels us to this action.
The public schools are the primary route for most children--especially the children of poverty--into full participation in our economic, political, and community life. As a consequence, all of us, Christians and non-Christians alike, have a moral responsibility to support, strengthen and reform the public schools. They have been and continue to be both an avenue of opportunity and a major cohesive force in our society--a society becoming daily more diverse racially, culturally, and religiously.
We welcome the fact that many public schools now teach about our nation's diversity and the role of religion in human life and history, and applaud the schools' efforts to promote those virtues necessary for good citizenship in a pluralistic democracy. These programs help to accommodate the constitutional rights of all students and their parents. Just as we encourage schools to ensure that all religions are treated with fairness and respect, so we urge parents and others to refrain from the temptation to use public schools to advance the cause of any one religion or ethnic tradition, whether through curriculum or through efforts to attach religious personnel to the public schools. We repeat our conviction that parents have the right to select private or parochial schools for their children. But with that personal right comes the public obligation to support public schools for all children.
To that end, we affirm once again that public moneys should be used only for public schools, and declare our belief that the First Amendment to the Constitution, along with the Equal Access Act, provides an adequate and sufficient guarantee of the religious liberty of students and their parents. Consequently, we oppose any efforts to alter the First Amendment's prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion.
II. The Larger Social Context
We speak at a moment when many voices are questioning the value of the public schools; indeed, one recent study has concluded that the American public is now "half way out the school house door." We are convinced that, should the public further weaken its support for the public schools, we would all suffer a devastating loss in the quality of public, economic, and spiritual life throughout our society. Tragically, those who would suffer most from this abandonment would, once again, be children.
Public schools have been a cornerstone of our democracy. What is not sufficiently known is that, historically, education, particularly the ability to read the Bible, has also been held to be essential to the development of religious faith. To that end, the great figures of the Reformation called for the establishment of schools. Our religious heritage should lead us to defend the public schools, and to rejoice that they now reflect the racial, ethnic, and religious diversity of our country better than they have ever done before.
Yet public education has been under attack for over two decades by persons representing religious, cultural, and economic views which offer little or no support for public schooling. Too often, criticism of the public schools fails to reflect our present societal complexity. At a moment when childhood poverty is shamefully widespread, when many families are under constant stress, when schools are often limited by lack of funds or resources, these criticisms often ignore an essential truth: we cannot believe that we can improve public schools by concentrating on the schools alone. They alone can neither cause nor cure the problems we face. In this context, we must address with prayerful determination the issues of race and class which threaten both public education and democracy in America.
III. Public Funding Issues
Faced with all the problems of end-of-the-century America, it is noteworthy testimony to the commitment of educators and parents that the schools succeed as well as they do. No reforms can be realized without widespread public support for public schools and a determined willingness to invest in children and their future. Therefore, it is imperative that our churches begin a serious effort to educate their members about our history in regard to education in general and public education in particular, and to turn the attention of their denominations to the plight of school children in this country.
By almost any standard of judgment, the schools our children attend can be described in contradictory terms: Some are academically excellent, some a virtual disgrace; some are oases of safety for their students, while others are dangerous to student and teacher alike; some teachers are exceptionally well qualified, others are assigned to areas in which they have little or no expertise; some school facilities are a fantasy land of modern technology, while others are so dilapidated that they themselves impede learning.
The wide disparities among public schools exist largely because schools reflect the affluence and/or the political power of the communities in which they are found. Within virtually every state there are school districts which lavish on their students three or four times the amount of money spent on other children in the same state. Most tellingly, the schools which offer the least to their students are often schools serving poor children, among whom children of color figure disproportionately, as they do in all the shortfalls of our common life. Indeed, the coexistence of neglect of schools and neglect of other aspects of the life of people who are poor makes it clear that no effort to improve education in the United States can ignore the realities of racial and class discrimination in our society as a whole.
IV. What Local Churches Can Do
Moved by our conviction that public schools benefit all the children in our society, and that they are a salient mark of our sense of ourselves as a part of God's diverse, multi- cultural and multi-racial family, we repeat the 1963 call of the National Council of the Churches of Christ for "efforts to strengthen and improve the American system of public education."
Local churches and all communities of faith must become better informed about the needs of the public schools in their communities and in the country as a whole. They can then counter the widespread disinformation now abroad, and work together to support and strengthen the schools. Without adequate information, we can not defend public education and the democratic heritage which it supports. Without full knowledge of our religious and democratic traditions we cannot ensure that those elected to school boards are strongly committed to both public education and religious liberty.
Churches can and should emphasize--through sermons, programs, and by example--the importance of education and of public schools.
They can support education by
* honoring teachers as role models for young people
* emphasizing books and literacy; speaking out for the academic freedom of teachers and librarians; calling for the broad availability of all age-appropriate materials and books in public schools libraries; and encouraging schools to include information which will broaden students' understanding of human life all over the world;
* initiating programs in cooperation with the public schools to provide after-school and vacation help, enrichment and adopt-a- school programs, and literacy and reading emphases;
* insisting that the science curriculum present the best textbooks and teaching at all levels. There is no inherent conflict between faith and science, and religious faith has nothing to fear from programs which encourage children to read and to imagine, or to see math and science as ways to understand the many wonders of God's world;
* providing parenting classes to emphasize the special responsibilities of families to schools and school-aged children;
* encouraging the use of curricula in all schools that reflect the role of the many racial and ethnic groups in the history and culture of the United States;
* advocating for quality, age-appropriate Comprehensive Health Education in the public schools;
* advocating for the inclusion of differently-abled students in our classrooms, and ensuring that teachers have the special training needed to meet these children's needs; and by
* supporting thoughtful reform and innovation in local schools to improve teaching and learning at all levels.
V. Church Action on the National Level
Just as the nation has come together in the past to address situations deemed to be crises, so it must come together now in a national crusade to save the public schools and to bring to all children the abundant life which ought by rights be theirs as children of God. With the history of vocal support for public education which NCCC communities share, they ought to be leaders in this crusade.
We therefore call upon the member denominations of the National Council of the Churches of Christ, working with others in communities of faith and concern, to
* encourage local churches to form committees to learn about public school issues, to offer candidate forums during schools board elections, and to educate their members about the historical role of churches in creating and supporting public schools;
* support programs to equalize state and local funding and support, to end the present unjust educational disparities between rich and poor;
* insist upon excellence in teaching in the public schools by calling for strengthened teacher training in both church- related and public institutions, for enhanced professional development for teachers and administrators, and for policies which assign teachers only to disciplines in which they are fully prepared, to classes whose size encourages individualized assistance, and to schedules which give teachers time to prepare or consult with other teachers, students, and parents;
* support standards-based school reforms, working in districts and states until the country as a whole has reasonable and challenging standards by which to assess students and schools;
* encourage the development of smaller schools (including
"schools within schools") to provide a caring environment;
* call upon the Congress to pass and fund fully legislation to repair and modernize school facilities and to create new facilities as needed;
* and advocate for universal, early, and quality pre-school education for all children.
As Christians, we must make real our commitment to children and to the welfare of all our neighbors and our communities. Therefore, the churches of the National Council of the Churches of Christ state with renewed conviction their belief that "public education should have the full and conscientious support of Christians and Christian churches." We call on communities of faith to bring their resources, public concern, and moral authority to support not only the public schools, but also the teachers, the administrators, and, most particularly, the children in those schools.
We have said repeatedly that we care about children and schools; now we must undergird our words with actions.
Theological Basis of Proposed Policy Statement
"The Churches and the Public Schools at the Close of the Twentieth Century" and Glossary of Terms Presented for First Reading at the Nov. 12, 1997, NCC General Assembly Second Reading in 1998 Required for Final Approval
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 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.
Moderates call for localities or states to set voluntary standards of achievement and curriculum, and for state educational committees to confer with localities about those standards, in order for some degree of coherence to develop. Meanwhile, various professional groups (teachers of English, teachers of Science, etc.) are suggesting standards to influence the discussion, and governors and other national groups are working to develop areas of agreement. Whether voluntary national standards will develop, and whether they will aid in the improvement of the public schools, remains a matter of debate.