The Village Oak Tree

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Welcome to The Village Oak Tree

I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.

Thank you for joining me once again.

This week, I'm going to dive into religion and education, and how the separation of church and state is starting to become blurred in the United States, despite what the U.S. constitution says.

After I have presented my findings from this week's news feeds, I bring you another chapter of The Priest by Michael Campi to end today’s show once again.

So come, sit you down somewhere comfortable for a bit and let explain what I mean and what that might mean for U.S. citizens in the future.

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I decided to talk about something that some people might consider taboo, religion and politics, and how these topics are becoming part of the educational landscape of the United States.

I found two recent articles to illustrate my point. This first one is something that I've been following for a couple of years now. I first read about it from a U.S. mainstream media article that republished it from a local newspaper in Oklahoma City when this first became a political issue there.

Since then, there have been other news articles that would hit the western news feeds over the last couple of years and I've been looking for more. Now, this has finally made it to the U.S. supreme court.

The Supreme Court Is About to Let Religion Ruin Public Education

Two recent cases suggest that the era of secular schools is coming to an end.

Pema Levy for Mother Jones

The root issue, is whether the school district in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma can use taxpayer funds to build and support a Catholic charter school. The state supreme court ruled this as unconstitutional last year but the school district and Catholic diocese appealed and there they are. The federal supreme court is reviewing this case right now.

In the United States, it's against the law to use taxpayer funds to build and support a religious school. It always has been, which is why Catholic and other religious education institutions were always considered private schools and the parents would have to pay the tuitions.

This time, the school district and the diocese are claiming that they want to build a charter school instead of your normal private Catholic school. This charter school would be required to teach normal state standard curriculum, along with religious teachings. Just like all Catholic schools have done since anyone can remember. This time, someone wants to make an end around the law and label this religious school a charter school in order for the taxpayers to pay for this new school.

For anyone who doesn't understand what a charter school is, let me help you out. This is the definition of an American charter school as per Goggle AI.

A U.S. charter school is a publicly funded, tuition-free school that operates independently from traditional public school districts, but is still subject to state and federal regulations. These schools are governed by a contract (the "charter") with a public agency, detailing their mission, goals, and performance expectations. In exchange for greater autonomy in operations and curriculum, charter schools are held accountable for academic outcomes and meeting the terms of their charter

As you can see from this definition, these are publicly funded schools. In other words, taxpayer funded. This means that the citizens of Oklahoma City would have to use their property taxes to fund this school that by law, would have to allow any student to enroll, but would be biased towards Catholic students. Or pressure the students to convert through the mandatory religious curriculum.

I don't know about any of you but I wouldn't want my property taxes to be used for an exclusive charter school that is notoriously religious biased. The bigger issue here is whether the federal supreme court will allow this to stand? Which would open up a whole other can of worms for school districts across the country.

Can you imagine what other conservative school districts across the country would do with this decision, should the supreme court rule in favor of this? There would be taxpayer funded religious charter schools cropping up everywhere and the government money allocated for the public school systems could be split into more of these new exclusive charter schools and not the already standing public school systems. Which are already in a lot of financial trouble in a lot of these so called red states.

But with a right wing Christian majority in the supreme court known for siding with Christian institutions, there is a lot of speculation that this will split the court right down the middle. One of the supreme court justices, Amy Coney Barrett, has recused herself as she is friends with someone involved with the case. Good for her. But that leaves an eight member decision panel to review this. We already know that three of the justices will be all about this and likely rule for the school district and diocese, but the others? Three of them will definitely rule in favor of the constitution. That leaves one justice who is a wild card.

Just to get a better picture of how all of this works with regard to state school funding, I reached out to someone I know that works in an administrative capacity in a public school system in another state.

He explained to me that school funding is based on student head count and zoning laws. By state laws, public school students are required to attend the public school in their government drawn school zones, based on their home address. If a charter school is allowed to accept public funding, the schools have to comport their curriculum to meet the state standards. They can teach additional courses, such as religious material, as long as they also meet state curriculum standards. They also cannot restrict the students who attend these charter schools as long as they are accepting public money, to include state vouchers if a state has them. Parents have to understand that by sending their kids to these special schools, the students will be subjected to the extra curriculum that the school promotes, such as religious education.

But what this can do is draw students away from regular state public schools, which takes the money away from the public school systems. The more charter schools you have, the more money is drawn away from already established public schools in the district.

My education expert further explained that only private schools not accepting public funding can restrict which students can attend. As long as a school is using public money they're obligated to fill every seat, no matter who they are, just like a regular public school. The difference being the curriculum. So the fight is about public tax dollars for schools and what's required to use public money to fund a school. Can a publicly funded charter school be allowed to teach a religious curriculum to all of its students regardless of background? With vouchers, parents can use that money to send their kids to any accredited private or charter school they want. But for a fully publicly funded charter school, that's what the supreme court is trying to decide. Does this cross the line between the separation of church and state as per the constitution?

I have another related news story from Texas. As most people in the U.S. know by now, school voucher programs have become very popular in certain states. Sixteen states so far, have voted in voucher programs that divert taxpayer school funds into programs that allow parents to apply to use this money to partially cover tuition for schools of their choice. This money is usually a fixed amount that the parents can apply to private school tuitions and the parents pony up the rest.

For the wealthy parents who want to send their kids to private religious or other specialty schools, this is great for them. Once again this diverts public money away from the public school systems. Which in turn causes public schools to close due to lack of money, sending the kids to other schools, causing overcrowding and a serious lack of resources, like books and school programs.

Some have argued that this may be on purpose in certain republican controlled states who have or are thinking about lowering the age limit and other restrictions for kids to go to work. Arkansas being the most prominent of these states in recent history.

Is this the goal here in certain states.? To eventually only allow students whose parents can afford to pay the tuitions to attend primary schools? To do away with all free public school systems in these states altogether? I'm not the only one who has thought of this.

In Texas, governor Abbot just signed into law the largest school voucher program in memory. This will allow five million Texas students to attend private schools paid for in part, by school vouchers. As I mentioned before, this will put a serious divide between the students with money versus those who don't. In Texas, that applies to the majority of the Latino kids and immigrants from other countries, who may lose out on a public school education soon if there's not enough money to maintain these public schools.

Texas governor signs largest US school voucher law in win for conservatives

State becomes 16th to allow public funds to be used for private schools, which opponents say will benefit mostly wealthier children

From The Guardian

This doesn't come as a surprise to me with regard to Texas. They've long been a state ruled by white Christian nationalists and this is just par for the course for them. This is the state that has one of the most restrictive laws on abortions and against trans gender people. Now they want to disenfranchise the poor even more. Texas, along with several other states in this part of north America still live with the leftover passed down hatred of the Union, as defined during the American civil war.

Yeah, these white guys are still mad at the Yankees from the north for defeating them in the civil war and taking away their slaves back in 1865. What better way to continue to be a thorn in the side of Washington D.C. than to push the envelope of secession, without seceding. These white guys seem to take great pleasure in thumbing their noses at the federal government as long as the feds keep sending them money. When the president threatens that, they gnash their teeth and usually back down. Texas has a long reputation for this and a lot of other republican states want to emulate them.

With Oklahoma City in front of the supreme court this week, waiting on a decision, you have to know states like Texas are watching this very carefully. These Texas republicans are probably drooling over the prospect of public funding for religious charter schools. So is Florida. Florida is another of the sixteen states that has a robust voucher program. A decision like this would probably open the charter school floodgates there also. Then a lot of other republican controlled states will follow suit and the great divide will be on.

It doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see where this is going. There are certain states that do not like the way the federal government is telling them how to run their states. The biggest reason they're still hanging on to the republic, is for the money. They need that federal money to keep their states solvent. Without it, they'd go bankrupt in a hurry and they know it. Otherwise they would have left a long time ago, or never returned to the union in the first place back in 1865.

It's always about the money or lack thereof.

My other worry about all of these stories is what might eventually happen to parents and students who follow a different religion than what these new charter schools are teaching. What if a Muslim student were to be sent to one of these new religious charter schools because of school zoning laws? According to my source, this shouldn't happen as these charter schools are for parents who seek out these schools for their additional curriculum. But what if the public schools are shut down due to lack of funding? Will these charter schools be forced to take in any and all students in the school district because they're publicly funded and therefore, required by law to fill seats with public school students?

My source tells me that if a charter school accepts public funding like a regular public school, they're subject to the same rules. Essentially, they become just another public school, with some extra added curriculum. If students are sent there, would the parents be able to object to their kids being taught Catholicism or a protestant religious leaning curriculum?

Would an Islamic or Jewish charter school also be eligible for public taxpayer funds? What about a Hindi or Buddhist school? Like I said, this opens up a whole other can of worms as this decision would have to be applied across the board to any charter school that agrees to teach the government mandated curriculum, along with their particular religious education they want to add on. If they accept public funding, and I don't mean vouchers, they would have to accept the government rules that go with that money.

Which brings me to a lighter topic. Freedom of religion in the United States, for now anyway. As we all should know, all residents in the United States are covered under the first amendment that allows everyone to practice their religion, whatever it may be, without prejudice from the government, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone.

Which means that I can celebrate my religious holidays without anyone telling me no. The U.S. does not have a national religion proscribed by law, yet. Donald Trump has intimated that he might like to change that but then he says a lot of things.

I have never hidden my religious beliefs. I tell people about my beliefs right on the home page of my website. I just celebrated a seasonal holiday last week called Beltaine on May 1st. For anyone interested in learning a little bit about this holiday, I will add a link to a Substack post I uploaded last Sunday right here.

The reason I'm telling you this is because if states like Oklahoma, Texas, Florida and others have their way, I, and others like me, may not be allowed to freely practice our religion in their states. Only some version of Christianity would be allowed. This is also part of that Project 2025 agenda that everyone is talking so much about. I read large parts of it. There's a section that calls for the president to declare protestant Christianity as the national religion. Which version would it be? Southern Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, or something else? Imagine the states fighting over that decision. What about all of the Catholics? What about the millions of Muslims, the thousands of Hindus and Buddhists? Not to mention the pagans who practice ancient earth based religions that predate any of the monotheistic religions currently in the majority around the world?

I'm currently reading a science fiction series right now called Coyote by Allen Steele. In the first couple of chapters, the author describes a dystopian future United States, only no longer a United States. In this book, the United States has gone through another revolution and these so called, red states, have split off and created a new country with an ideology much like what we're seeing in these republican controlled states right now. Authoritarian politicians, secret police, extreme southern Baptist style enforced religion and so on. This book was written back in 2002. The main story is about a group of people who highjack a colonist space ship and fly out to another solar system but I thought it interesting that this author conjured up this future United States long before Trump was president the first time and how the story parallels what we’re heading towards right now. Let me show you a map that might give people an idea of what that might look like.

Screenshot of map with this dystopian future north America from Coyote by Allan Steele

As always, I tell myself that my goal with these podcasts is to make people think. Today, I want everyone who listens or reads this to think about how a publicly funded religious charter school might affect your kid's education. How that might affect the quality of the education they're receiving from their secular public school system. Are you okay with your school age child being told they will have to attend one of these new charter schools someday because their old school had to shut its doors due to a loss of funding? Would you be okay if someday, the school system sent a letter home telling you that the schools are all closed in your district and they'll have to be transported to another district way far away?

What am I thinking, this is already happening in places like Mississippi, and Louisiana. If the supreme court allows these religious charter schools to receive the same funding status as the government public schools, this may happen in a lot more school districts across the country in the near future. Especially if Trump keeps cratering the economy and the United States never recovers as it was before.

There may be a lot more students left out someday soon with no schools to attend anymore. Will the government force them to go to work to keep them off the streets? Is this why some republican controlled states are lowering the working ages and allowing more after school work hours in preparation for this? Are they preparing for a time when primary K thru twelve education will only be for those who are willing to attend religious schools and be indoctrinated or attend private schools for the rich? Is this why Donald Trump is trying to do away with the federal department of education and the cabinet position that goes with that?

Are you okay with the president declaring a national religion someday and bullying citizens into practicing it?

As things are now in the United States, the government public school system has been under assault by government bureaucrats for years over who controls the money. Public school teachers are vastly underpaid babysitters in a lot of the poorer school districts around the country, and they're leaving the profession in droves. Those who're left, are overworked and under paid. Now, the states want to give their public education money to religious charters schools because some of them may have a curriculum that might align with their religious ideology. Is the United States reverting back to its Puritan days, when the churches owned all of the schools?

As I leave you with that to ponder on, I have a programming note. I'm going on a long vacation starting next week. I'll be posting written articles with pictures of our adventures along the way and the occasional other article to stir up trouble. I expect to be gone for a month so stick around to see what kind of trouble I get into on the roads of the U.S.

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I leave with the link to this week’s episode of The Priest, Formerly Known as Bob, (part 34)

The Priest

Thank you for watching or listening to the show today. I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll return again to talk about the world we live in.

Please like, subscribe, reply and share the videos or audio podcasts, however you watch or listen. The goal here is to resist the people who want to take our freedoms away from us. Together, we can resist the authoritarians but only if we stand up to them.

As I say good bye this week, I wish to leave you with this rebel quote. "The fire that burns brightest in the rebels is the fire of freedom." Slán go fóill.