Should we call vouchers the "Jesus Tax" - forced public tithing to religious schools??

[TomDaisy]

Forced subsidy of religious instruction?

Sounds like that violates my freedom of religion and free speech rights.

[pandr32]

1. Works for me.

We have to fight to maintain the separation between church and State and remind everyone that the U.S. is NOT a 'Christian' nation at every opportunity.

[2naSalit]

2. Mine too!

[Timeflyer]

3. The rotten right throw firebomb words around, why shouldn't we?

And, you are correct--it is forced public tithing.

[Igel]

4. Sure.

But remember that not all private schools are religious, and a lot of religious schools are pretty secular.

Observed at one very religious school where there were two things that seemed religious:
--chapel once a week, easily canceled for sports or special events;
--advisory period, students paired with a same-sex teacher for the duration of school, for sitting, talking, discussing issues and problems academic, personal, or social. Sort of teacher as grown-up best friend.

Oh, and
--morality and behavior clause for teachers and students, mostly dwelling on the amount of public notice the morals or behavior of a teacher attracted.

[ShazzieB]

19. It's true that not all private schools are religious.

Also, not all religious private schools are Christian.

In this country, the vast majority of religious private schools are no doubt some flavor of Christian, but not all of them are. For example, areas with large Jewish populations (like NYC, Chicago, etc.) will usually have some Jewish schools.

In addition, the money that goes to private school vouchers isn't really an extra tax that taxpayers pay. It's money that would go to support public schools if it weren't being siphoned off to fund vouchers. So in a sense, it's the public schools that are paying for people to be able to send their kids to private schools.

[Warpy]

5. Good idea and a good place to start

Most of those schools are frauds started so the sweet white flower of southern youth wouldn't be exposed to their families' former property in public schools.

No way should public money go to those private schools. Ever. I don't care what their cover is, Jesus or college prep.

[Mr.Bill]

6. It's bad enough that churches pay no taxes.

Now they want to collect them.

[paleotn]

7. Absolutely.

If they don't want their tax dollars funding abortions (rot in hell Henry Hyde, if there is such a place)....I don't want my tax dollars funding their religious bullshit.

[Duppers]

13. Well put.

[Raven123]

8. An apt description

[pazzyanne]

9. Agree!!! nt

Guess my church contributions will be cut to even it out. I am a separation of church and state kind of gal!

[MLAA]

10. Yes! Nailed it.

[TheBlackAdder]

11. It's even more incideous than that. This goes far beyond a tax redistribution, but a tax increase.

.

A public school system gets money based on the students in each grade level.
Most states average $15,000 per child. Busing funds are often around $800 per child.


If you have 30 kids in each grade level, that means you have two classes per grade, as the maximum student/teacher level is around 16:1. This would mean that you have 2 nearly full classrooms of 15 children each. Sometimes a teacher's assistant will join a class, and that can extend the classroom student body to 25 or so. Still, in this scenario, you need two teachers and two classrooms.


If a school has 5 grade levels, with 30 students each, that's 150 students. 150 x $15,000 = $2.25M

Now, lets say that 5 kids from each grade level get vouchers to go to another school. That would drop the grade level to 25 students, or the max of a Teacher/Assistant classroom. What is lost is the individual time with the teacher, a packed classroom, and more interruptions and distractions within it. Little is saved because the other classroom would just be empty, and they still have to pay for the teacher's assistant, so most schools would opt to keep 2 classrooms.

The school loses out on anywhere from 80-100% of the student capitation rate, depending on how the vouchers are given. Most at home programs pay at 80%. If it's 80%, then 5 x 5 = 25 students. 25 x $12,000 = $300,000 (25 students at 80% the $15,000 capitation rate). So, the operating costs of the school are nearly the same, but the school loses $300K, which must be made up by taxing district residents.

Often the busing money goes with the student. So those buses still have to run the same routes, with just a few less children. The bus money is given whether the students are walkers or bus riders. The bus portion loses out on 25 x $800 = $20,000.


That one school alone loses out $320K per year, while expenses stay the same. Multiply that by the size of the school district and number of schools, such as elementary, middle, high, votech, special needs and you can see that the taxpayers will get royally fucked!

.

[TomDaisy]

16. just think of how vile you have to be to create this scheme to destroy public schools

up or down vote won't work, because so unpopular

so they do it the dirty sleazy way

[ThoughtCriminal]

12. Louisiana found out the hard way

That they could end up funding Islamic schools.

[Duppers]

14. TY for posting this!

Excellent point.

💕

[TeamProg]

15. Yes!

[bringthePaine]

17. perfect

[SYFROYH]

18. There are secular private schools.

[efhmc]

20. No it is the Evenglical Right GQP tax .Jesus has nothing to do with it.

[GoodRaisin]

21. I call it theft from the public school system.

[ShazzieB]

23. That's what it is, all right. 😠

[jaxexpat]

22. Yes, it's tyranny.

It's forcing us to pay taxes which go toward financing the latest incarnation of red lining.