Anybody for Catholic charter schools?

Flypaper: Ideas that stick from the Education Gadfly team
Posted on April 25, 2008 at 4:48 pm by Eric Osberg

Left unspoken* at yesterday’s White House summit on faith-based schools was whether the idea of religious charter schools has any merit. Of course, this is no surprise. There are enough opponents of charter schools, of vouchers, and of any co-mingling of church and state, that direct funding for overtly religious schools would be a combustible mix. It’s controversial enough that D.C. is converting seven Catholic schools to charter status, stripping them of their “Catholicity,” and besides, yesterday’s conference had plenty else on the agenda. Yet given the success Catholic schools have shown in educating poor and minority students, and the likelihood that that’s because of their Catholicity, it’s an idea that warrants more of an airing. (Two prior Gadfly op-eds provide a bit, at least, here and here.)

I was reminded of this yesterday when I met Lawrence Weinberg, author of Religious Charter Schools: Legalities and Practicalities (2007), a book I’m now curious to read. Checker and Mike have argued that the Zelman decision paved the way for religious charters, at least insofar as the U.S. Constitution is concerned, but (at the risk of mischaracterizing his work) Weinberg replies that the legal landscape is a little more complicated than that (both because of state-level issues, like Blaine amendments prohibiting state funding of religious schools, and because Zelman is not the only relevant Supreme Court case). Of course, practically speaking, charter schools have to be approved by authorizers, most of which are districts or universities who would surely be unwilling to test these waters. Still, I can’t help but think that it’s a matter of when, not if, someone is bold enough to really advance this idea.

*Update: Sportswriters shouldn’t submit their articles before the final buzzer sounds, and apparently bloggers shouldn’t critique a summit without staying for the whole event. An astute reader immediately pointed out that I missed Lawrence Weinberg presenting on this very topic in the day’s final panel. So much for leaving this idea unspoken! Kudos to the summit and those who organized it for raising this interesting idea. I’m sorry for the error, but I’m especially sorry I missed the discussion. I’d be curious to hear from any attendees how the audience reacted.

For the original post

Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-Based Schools

Religious charter schools was on the agenda at the White House Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-Based Schools, when
Dr. Lawrence D. Weinberg, Author, Religious Charter Schools: Legalities and Practicalities, spoke at the Summit.

DR. WEINBERG: Charter schools are public schools that face greater accountability and have greater autonomy than traditional public schools. The school receives a charter to operate from a state-approved entity. It then receives a combination of state, local, and federal funding. Forty states and the District of Columbia have charter school laws which educate over a million students.

The Establishment Clause requirement of separating the church and state applies to charter schools because they are public schools. However, the chartering process offers a faith-based school important opportunities because of the increased flexibility and control enjoyed by charter school operators.

The bottom line distinction -- and I'm going to summarize everything I'm going to say in one sentence. The bottom line distinction is that a faith-based charter school can accommodate its students' and parents' religious beliefs, but it cannot endorse religious beliefs. Because the Establishment Clause draws a line that's far from clear, any list of permissible or nonpermissible activities that faith-based schools might engage in is not going to be perfect. Accordingly, these issues need to be discussed in broad terms.

And it's important to bear in mind that these schools are always examined in their particularities and that everything class every prayer situation, that every class, every prayer situation, every school board is going to be examined in its particulars. And the best example I can give of this is that the Supreme Court has held that a creche in the public sphere in one situation is unconstitutional but in different situation it may be constitutional. So the context and nature of the situation is everything.

For the rest of Dr. Weinberg's speech

A School Called 'Enlightenment'

EMILY ALPERT
Monday, April 21, 2008
Voice of San Diego

Girls in uniforms and Muslim headscarves circled around fifth-grade teacher Rebecca Kruske in the cement courtyard. She squinted at the ingredients listed on a Doritos bag, then conferred with the girls before sharing. Unlike them, her shoulders were bare in the spring sun.

"Isn't Yellow 5 haram?" she asked, using the Arabic word for "forbidden."

Cross-cultural moments like these have multiplied over the past decade as City Heights schools absorbed thousands of East African students: A non-Muslim teacher asking her Muslim students if a food dye breaks religious dietary laws. And it epitomizes the mission of Iftin, a fledgling charter school where Somali-speaking parents are comfortable, Arabic is offered, and perfecting English is a mission.

***

Iftin isn't the first San Diego charter school to cater primarily to Somali Muslim students. Another effort was MidCity Charter Academy, which closed in 2006. A nearby public school, Carver Elementary, tried to accommodate the displaced children by adding single-gender classes and setting aside time for prayer. Those efforts proved controversial nationwide, spurring outcry that Muslim students were afforded special treatment. Eventually, the school ended single-gender classes and shifted its schedule so that children could pray at lunchtime.

Nationwide, charter schools that serve East African refugees and other newcomers have multiplied, said Martha Bigelow, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. Those schools include Ubah Medical Academy in Minneapolis and the International Community School outside Atlanta. Charters are cropping up because of the unique academic and cultural needs of refugee children, she said. Some have spent years in refugee camps without picking up a pencil or paper.

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And as Iftin forges a path to success for East African students in the U.S., it juggles questions about how to balance East African values and U.S. norms. Iftin is grappling with how to teach sexuality and human development, for instance. Whether Doritos are haram is just the beginning.

"American values and ours too, they will not contradict each other," said Arrays, the Iftin board member. In fact, Arrays said, Iftin is a fundamentally American enterprise. "America was started by only a few people. They said, 'We don't want other people to rule us.'"

"Now we have to rule," Arrays said, "and face all challenges."


Original article

Inver Grove Heights school on defensive after death threats

John Croman
KARE 11 News

A charter school in Inver Grove Heights is taking extra security precautions and working with law enforcement agencies in the wake of death threats.

It all began with a series of newspaper columns accusing Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy of using taxpayer money to teach Islamic religion, something the school's director says is just plain false.

"We are fully aware of the obligations that come with that public money," the academy's director Asad Zaman told KARE 11 Wednesday, "And we take care to insure that we operate a non-sectarian program. None of the public money is spent on any religious activities. "

***

Many of those who leveled complaints and threats appear to view the school as part of a larger conspiracy to establish the Muslim religion as the official worldwide religion.

"I can't even control my own parking lot," Zaman laughed, "Let alone the entire world!"

Zaman says he can only hope those who hate him because of some perceived threat will look at the world differently some day.

"All problems can be solved," he said, "We can solve this problem if only people would have reasonable, rational discussions instead of having hateful conversations."

He's heartened by letters of support, including a donation mailed in by a teacher in Hutchinson, Minnesota who wrote simply, "Please use this money to buy more books for your library."

As the children played at recess a police squad car could be seen slowly cruising through the parking lot nearby, part of stepped up patrols.

But, like most kids on a warm, sunny spring day in Minnesota, the youngsters were preoccupied with enjoying the outdoors.

Original article

Furor over Islam taught at US public school

Agence France-Presse

CHICAGO (AFP) — Police have stepped up patrols of an elementary school in Minnesota after it received threats in the wake of accusations that it was using public funds to teach Islam.

The threats came after a local columnist wrote that the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a suburban Minneapolis charter school run by an Islamic charity, appeared to be violating a ban on teaching religion in public schools.

Charter schools are public schools run by private organizations with public funds.

While many have been started by religious groups, they are bound to US rules that public schools must accommodate the religious needs of their students but are not allowed to promote religious views or lead prayer services.

The brewing controversy came to head in recent days when a substitute teacher said she saw students "corralled" into involuntary prayer services, and a local television station criticized the school for failing to fly a US flag.

The story got picked up on anti-Muslim websites and the school started getting threatening calls and e-mails, including threats to burn it down and "destroy" its students and leaders.

"These vile and vicious attacks on us have resulted in death threats against my students, myself and my family," Asad Zaman, executive director of the academy, told AFP Wednesday.

Tarek ibn Ziyad is run by the charity Islamic Relief USA and specializes in teaching Arabic language and culture in addition to standard public grade school subjects.

The majority of the students are Muslim and the school offers regular prayer services and after-school Islamic instruction, but officials say they are careful to follow state guidelines.

Zaman scoffs at the idea that the school is secretly Islamic or that students are forced to attend prayer services, noting that it is inspected regularly by the state Department of Education and has hosted a number of reporters and high-profile politicians.

"We do not teach religion. We do not favor any religion," he said in a telephone interview.

"We specialize in dramatic turnarounds. More than 90 percent of our students are in poverty and we outperform schools in the (wealthy) suburbs."

But the columnist who sparked the controversy says that while the reports of threats are "repellant" they should not "distract attraction from the central issue here, and that is, whether this publicly-financed school is skirting or breaking the law that all others must observe when it comes to religious endorsement."

"If this were a bunch of Baptists or Catholics with the kids being led to the rosary on Mondays through Thursday and led to Mass on Fridays there wouldn't be any question that this is crossing the line," said Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten.

Kersten is also concerned that the school, which has a long waiting list and has recently expanded to a second campus, will prevent the assimilation of the area's growing population of new Muslim immigrants.

"If you have a very large immigrant Muslim population being educated at taxpayer expenses in a separate system where Arabic is mandatory and there's an emphasis on the culture of the so-called Eastern world, it seems to me you are setting up a very problematic situation," she told AFP.

The Minnesota Department of Education said it goes to "great lengths" to ensure that charter schools understand they must be "non-sectarian" in nature while also accommodating the religious beliefs of students.

"We take seriously the concerns raised regarding Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy and are conducting an appropriate review," Minnesota Education Commissioner Alice Seagren said in a statement.

Original article

From Catholic to charter schools

The Washington Times
Editorial

During this week's much-anticipated papal visit, Pope Benedict is slated to deliver an unusual address to Catholic college and university presidents on Catholic education. His words may have unintentional relevance for the District of Columbia's own Catholic-education questions, which are closely linked to the tides and turns of the city's nascent charter schools.

At present, the Archdiocese of Washington faces much criticism for its proposal to convert seven Catholic schools into publicly funded nonreligious charters. Some Catholics question what they view as the archdiocese's abdication of a key, historic role in education, while the D.C. Council and voices from the public-school system ask further questions about the finances. But Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee seem favorably disposed and should push the plan to completion. It makes good sense for the city and the students, both to bolster the city's charter-school alternatives and to save schools that educate students from mostly minority and lower-to-middle-income backgrounds.

In a city plagued with public-education problems as extensively as Washington is, the loss of these schools would decrease the options of families who already face significant limitations in one of the country's worst-performing public-school systems. At least some of the financing questions reflect hostility toward the expansion of the District's charter schools. But those who characterize the plan as Mayor Fenty's "bailout" of the Catholic Church can at least be shown the numbers to suggest the plan is more like a bargain acquisition. Nationally, Catholic schools outperform their public counterparts and do so on much tighter budgets. These schools will no longer be "Catholic" — religious curricular components, Catholic names and other signs of the church will be stripped away. But they will retain many of the people and characteristics which drew families seeking alternatives to the public schools in the first place. If the schools close, the District will end up educating the students in any event, except — and this is perhaps key to the opposition — the educating will occur inside D.C. public schools, which the education establishment controls firmly.

The question of whether the archdiocese's finances necessitate the move is of interest to Catholics who have posed worries about the future of Catholic education in the District. But the city must presume that Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl means what he says when he reports that a 5-year, $50 million operating deficit will require the schools' closure absent this plan. The city must convert these Catholic schools into charters.

Original editorial

Kersten's Arabic-school source: more to the story

Kersten's Arabic-school source: more to the story
David Brauer
MinnPost.com

Conservative Strib columnist Katherine Kersten kicked up a storm last week in her campaign against an Inver Grove Heights Arabic charter school, Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA). Kersten claims the public school engages in questionable Muslim religious practices. The school hasn't allowed her to visit, but Kersten found an eyewitness: a substitute teacher who confirmed many of the allegations. State officials have since said they will increase inspections and will contact federal officials about the school's sponsors.

One data point Kersten omitted: the substitute, Amanda Getz, is a Republican political and education activist. As Getz wrote two years ago, the self-described conservative has a special interest in "education reform and work to improve our country's public schools."

Does that obliterate Getz's credibility? No; it might even enhance it in some eyes. But Getz was not some naïf walking into a charter school; it's unlikely the politically active conservative teacher was ignorant of Kersten's longstanding anti-TIZA campaign when she accepted the assignment. Getz's affiliations may have colored her views, and Strib readers deserved to know about it.

The original article

Paul Rolly: Bus keeps non-LDS student waiting

By Paul Rolly
The Salt Lake Tribune

Annie Yeager is part of a group of parents in northern Utah County who pool their money to rent a bus owned by the charter Paradigm High School in Sandy to shuttle their children to and from school.
But on Fridays, when Paradigm lets out at 11 a.m., Yeager's daughter Rebecca must wait for three hours to take the bus home because it is busy shuffling the LDS students to seminary classes.
Not only does this policy single her daughter out as "non-LDS," says Yeager, but leaves her daughter in limbo for three hours.
State school officials have other concerns. School Board attorney Carol Lear says a charter school that uses public money and provides a resource to aid religious instruction raises "serious constitutional issues."
And while the bus is insured by the state Office of Risk Management, director Roger Livingston recently wrote to Schools Superintendent Patti Harrington to tell her that Risk Management will not cover school buses rented to private parties. Once a private entity takes
control of the bus, Livingston said, the state loses its governmental immunity protection, which puts caps on liability claims.
Paradigm director Celia Johnson said the charter school by law is not responsible for transporting students to and from school. The school contracts with the parents for rent of the bus to transport their children. It also contracts with a group of parents to transport their children to an LDS seminary building for "released time."
But Yeager points out the school's policy manual says parents may opt to rent the bus for transportation to seminary "if the time does not conflict with previously planned school bus activities."
Yeager says the contract with the northern Utah County parents constitutes a "previously planned bus activity.
She has filed a complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Click here for the original article.

Wednesday: Wall of silence broken at state's Muslim public school

Wednesday: Wall of silence broken at state's Muslim public school
Katherine Kersten
Star Tribune
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN

Recently, I wrote about Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Charter schools are public schools and by law must not endorse or promote religion.

Evidence suggests, however, that TIZA is an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers.

TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is "establishing Islam in Minnesota." The building also houses a mosque. TIZA's executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.

Students pray daily, the cafeteria serves halal food - permissible under Islamic law -- and "Islamic Studies" is offered at the end of the school day.

Click here for the whole original article.

Charter school's religious activities focus of state investigation

Tim Nelson, Minnesota Public Radio
April 10, 2008



State education officials say they're investigating claims that a publicly-funded Inver Grove Heights charter school is offering religious instruction to students in violation of the law.

St. Paul, Minn. — Tarik ibn Zayad Academy is one of only a handful of public schools in Minnesota that focuses on Middle Eastern culture.

More than 300 students attend the school. Girls wear headscarves and the school shares a site with a mosque and the Muslim American Society of Minnesota.

Now, a Bloomington woman who taught at the school last month says she believes the school is offering religious instruction to its students.

***

The Minnesota Department of Education said Tuesday it was conducting a review of Getz's allegations.

***

The substitute teacher may indeed have seen students praying, he said. But the students had been released early from school for religious instruction, as occasionally happens in other public schools, he said.

Zaman noted that the substitute teacher didn't speak Arabic, and he said she may have misinterpreted any number of cultural practices as religious instruction.

"This is part of the problem with relying on the word of someone who has been in the school all of six hours," Zaman said.

His school has become the subject of a series of threatening communications after the substitute teacher's allegations were made public in the newspaper on Wednesday, Zaman said.

The threats had prompted him to invite Inver Grove Heights police to Tarik ibn Zayad Academy to assess the security of his school, he said.

Click here for the original article.

A different kind of Jewish education

Guest Column: A different kind of Jewish education
By SARAH KASS
The Jerusalem Post

When charter public schools began in the US more than a decade ago, proponents were divided as to whether their purpose was efficiency (bang for the buck) or innovation (raising the bar). As American Jewish philanthropists explore investing in this sector - in light of the successful launch of the Ben Gamla Charter School in Florida - they would do well to identify their purpose, and to clarify the Jewish future they aim to propel.

he Jewish community has long worried about the rising cost of Jewish education in the United States, where unlike most other countries with Jewish citizens, there is no public support for religious schools. High tuition costs - upward of $25,000 per child per year in New York City, beginning in kindergarten - ensure that, beyond the Orthodox world, where secular school is out of the question, a Jewish education is largely a privilege for the rich. Moreover, as leaders of these ever-financially-strapped Jewish day schools spend so much of their time raising money, they find themselves devoting precious little attention to how they are raising the kids. And so, concerned philanthropists have wondered how to relieve the financial burden on Jewish day schools so that Jewish education in America might be more accessible and more educational.

***

INSTEAD OF private Jewish day schools, how about public Jewish charter schools? And given the tiny matter of America's first amendment, which precludes public financing of religious education, the new pitch is for public Hebraic charter schools. Rather than fitting form to function, this plan fits function to form, remanding Jewish education to the flushest box, the one supported by Uncle Sam. The purpose would appear to be bang for the buck: better to get more Jewish kids a Jewish-style education on the cheap than to figure out how to pay for the best Jewish education.

While the 180-day six-hours/day school year of a public charter education is free to the parent-consumers, success is extremely expensive for the educator-producers. Opening a charter public school is no cheaper than opening a private day school. There is precious little public funding for start-up costs. There is no public money for facilities. Taxpayers do not provide computers or furniture. There are no free science labs or gymnasia, playgrounds or parking lots. There is no public money for curriculum development, personnel recruitment, professional development, policy creation or the building of operating systems.

***

PERHAPS HEBRAIC charter schools could prepare the next generation to practice and promote the principles of a Mosaic politics, embodied in the Jewish people's founding civic institutions such as brit mila, Shabbat and shmita, nourished by the topology of a land rich in promise but poor in natural resources, where rain is a gift and not an assumption, and designed to prevent individual and collective regress into the abuse (and allure) of Egyptian strongman rule.

Perhaps, 60 years into modern statehood in the ancient Jewish homeland, Jewish education, even in the Diaspora, could once again be civic education, focusing on the Jewish meaning of power, plenty and the future - the core concerns of any sovereign nation governing in its own land or sojourning beyond its borders. Hebraic charter schools might indeed reboot Diaspora Judaism and enable future Jewish leaders to propel a nation which can truly be or l'goyim, a light unto the nations.



Click here for a link to the original article.

Charter schools give students unique options

Dynamic programs engage and challenge Rhinelander students
By Ana Davis - Special to The Daily News
The Daily News

Rhinelander’s three charter schools, Northwoods Community Elementary School, Northwoods Community Secondary School and Rhinelander Environmental Stewardship Academy, are all working hard to offer local students excellent learning environments and expanded educational opportunities as part of wider effort by the school district’s strategic planning committee to enhance the area by improving its schools.

***

The charter schools are also reaching out to include those students who are home-schooled for religious reasons or because they have previously struggled to succeed.

“NCES also offers a K-5 virtual program for students that have previously been home-schooled,” Jacobi said. “Teachers work closely with families to provide an individualized program that meets the needs of the child, and virtual students are invited to school for guidance, library, music, art, physical education, projects, field trips, and other school activities.”

***

Click here for a link to the original article.

From Catholic Schools to Charters: What's Left?

From Catholic Schools to Charters: What's Left?
Marc Fisher
The Washington Post

The bottom line is clear, says Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl: The Catholic Church can no longer afford to run a full complement of inner-city parochial schools serving a population that is, by an overwhelming majority, non-Catholic.

So, facing a deficit of about $50 million over the next five years, the church is moving to convert at least seven D.C. elementary schools into secular, taxpayer-funded charter schools.

"We simply don't have the resources to keep all those schools open," Wuerl said in an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors the other day. "We have exhausted the resources available to us."

But as the parochial schools move through the charter approval process, the question is what would those schools be if they emerge as publicly-supported, non-religious institutions? Catholic schools, even when they are educating a population that is 76 percent non-Catholic and almost entirely black and Hispanic, as in the Archdiocese's D.C. schools, "provide a faith-based formation," Wuerl says. "These schools give kids a self-confidence, a hope."

Take away the religious foundation and what remains? You'd have "the same teachers, the same kids, the same environment," the archbishop says. "There will still be a level of value formation."

***

But the bottom line is the bottom line, and he figures charters are the best the church can do right now: "If the alternative is a failing public school, then isn't the charter school the better" choice, he asks.

Perhaps so, but any institution that chooses to save money by chipping away at its appeal to the next generation is buying a big box of trouble. In the end, the church is following its members, naturally focusing its educational work on places where there are more Catholics. Sadly, that entails pulling back on a grand urban tradition of educating inner city children, regardless of their denomination.

Click here for the original article.

Blaine On Trial

Blaine On Trial
Gerald J. Russello
National Catholic Register
April 6-12, 2008 Issue

Ever hear of the Blaine amendment? It’s sort of obscure, but it remains one of the last remnants of bigotry in the statute books. Some court cases are finally beginning to tackle this shameful legacy.

***

In 1998, New York enacted a charter school law, which enables the state to provide funding for private or independent schools. These schools are usually in areas where the public schools are failing, and would give poorer families a chance at shaping their children’s education.

New Horizons Church Ministry is a Baptist congregation in New York City’s Harlem, and applied for a charter school license under the law.

But the law establishing the charter school program provides — following New York’s Blaine amendment — that support should be refused to any school “wholly or in part under the control of direction of any religions denomination, or in which any denominational tenet or doctrine would be taught.”

New Horizons was refused funding by the state because it proposed to establish a school in keeping with its religious principles.

Late last year, the pastor of New Horizons sued the state seeking a court to declare the prohibition of funding religious schools in the charter school law and New York’s Blaine amendment as a whole unconstitutional under the federal Constitution.

The case is now making its way through the court system, and is one of a number of challenges to state-level Blaine amendments.

The New Horizons case should be of considerable interest to all those interested in religious education, but specifically in Catholic education. While the development of parochial schools developed independently of public schools, there is no reason why Blaine amendments should block Catholic schools from accepting funds pursuant to a state charter school program.

Indeed, in poorer neighborhoods, the need for such schools is greater than ever, and eliminating Blaine amendments would enable religious schools of all types to have a chance to succeed and help their communities. And Catholics should have a particular desire to see these legal remnants of anti-Catholic discrimination erased from the statute books.

In other words, it is time for the bigoted heritage of the Blaine amendments to pass into history.


Click here for the original article.