This is true in general. But governments starting voucher programs can attach as many strings to the vouchers as they wish.
I would think that if they are run by a church / temple / mosque they could if they wanted to.
Around here most of them don’t. But they do offer discounts to members of the churches or synagogues that sponsor them.
Then pay for grade improvement, perhaps.
Not quite. One string they can’t attach is “schools getting vouchers can’t require religious instruction in a specific religion”.
I think if this SC hears a case where a religious school accepting vouchers refuses to hire an LGBT teacher due to religious belief against same sex sex, they will rule in favor of the school. “Free exercise of religion”
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I don’t quite follow your scenario. Are you saying they can’t offer vouchers to only their preferred religion? I’m sure that’s true. They could probably only offer vouchers to schools not affiliated with religions though. Or only if the schools don’t teach that their religion is right.
I mean is my “as many as they wish” slightly broad? Sure. They probably can’t offer a voucher of $5,000 per pupil unless the principal murders the superintendent’s brother-in-law in which case the voucher is $10,000 per pupil either.
But they certainly have broad discretion to attach conditions to the vouchers and the private schools can then accept the conditions or decline to participate. No top-up-fees certainly sends the elite private schools packing.
I was talking about this part.
“Maine’s ‘nonsectarian’ requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the free exercise clause,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in the 6-3 majority opinion in Carson v. Makin (No. 20-1088). “Regardless of how the benefit and restriction are described, the program operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise.”
A state does not have to offer vouchers. But, it it does, it cannot offer them for non-sectarian schools while excluding religious schools because they are religious.
Oh interesting. That surprises me, but ok.
I moved the tangent on Christianity and US politics to a new thread. School choice/vouchers/ welfare for wealthy families discussion can continue here.
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My state is at it again, proposing a voucher program that generally provides welfare to wealthy families.
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Wealthy families living in crappy school districts that their kids are currently attending?
It’s only available to kids who are currently attending public schools that score in the bottom 25% of the state’s rating system are eligible, from what I understand.
How many such children have wealthy parents? Plenty of rich kids live in crappy school districts. Most of the urban wealthy would meet that criteria. But the kids also have to be attending those crappy schools to be eligible. Only for a semester though. So I suppose you could pull your kid from private school and enroll them in a crappy public school for a semester in order to take advantage. But I bet a lot of the wealthy parents wouldn’t want their kids in the crappy public school for even a semester. Still, if they made it a year that would be a further deterrent, plus switching schools mid-year doesn’t seem like the best idea anyway.
Lots of people here keep their kids in public education in early grades, but start sending their kids to private school in middle school or high school. Poor or lower middle class parents will not be able to afford private school here even with the voucher. It’s some nice welfare for the wealthy.
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Sounds more like welfare for the middle class than for the wealthy. Which still maybe isn’t a good use of state funds, I will grant you. But the wealthy people I know either start out in good school districts, or send their kids to elite private schools starting with pre-K, or both.
A lot of kids in my school district went to public school for K-8 and then private high schools. Especially the boys because one of the top Catholic boys high schools was nearby (whereas the top Catholic girls schools were further away, making it logistically more difficult to send the girls to those schools). But my school district was decidedly average and certainly not in the bottom 25%, so it wouldn’t have met that criteria.
Whereas my roommate in college attended an elite private school for K-12 … and also lived in a posh suburb with a high-ranking public school. (She might have attended an elite preschool too… I no longer recall.) It would have been no sweat for her to attend the very good public school for a semester… except that wouldn’t have netted her parents anything because it wasn’t in the bottom 25%… not even close.
When I lived in a crappy school district as an adult the kids were either poor enough that they were actually attending the crappy schools or rich enough that they’d been in private school all along. Maybe a few kids on the bubble in the middle but those were middle class kids, not wealthy kids. The wealthy kids were in private schools from the get go.
If you live in a district with an underperforming school, just need to enroll your kid in public school for one semester and then transfer to private to get that sweet $6500/year for the rest of their schooling. Even sending them to public kindergarten for a couple months appears to qualify. Maybe the very wealthy aren’t willing to have their kids mingle with the hoi polloi for even a couple of months, but this is certainly welfare for middle class and above families.
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I’d expect Georgia to have a lot of church connected schools that aren’t so expensive. But, I don’t have any basis for that other than “South”.
If so, a lot of the movement would go in that direction.
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In Atlanta schools with religious affiliation are generally much more expensive than this voucher. Maybe the voucher makes a difference for an upper middle class family deciding to go private.
For reference, the school I went to is now $32,700 per year. Other schools I am aware of with religious affiliations are more in the $15-18k range.
Just another data point.
In Canada, almost all of the schools are publicly funded. There’s some private schools around but they’re rare and generally fairly fundie religious based.
Teachers are paid $70-$100k/year. They have two full months off in the summer. full top of the line benefits. A pension plan that’s second to none (it’s pretty gold plated). Arguably, they’re overpaid.
But the result is that schools in almost all places are pretty good. Doesn’t matter if you go to a school in a large city or small town, the schooling will be reasonably equivalent. And getting a teaching job is highly competitive. When people move homes, a consideration is often how close a school is. ‘How good’ the school is, isn’t really a consideration.
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UC Berkeley used to be free 
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Some of the Atlanta Catholic high schools I am familiar with are very competitive to enter, even with high price tags. They function more like elite prep schools.
My area’s larger Catholic high school isn’t as expensive or academically competitive as the ATL schools we seem to be discussing, and has income based financial aid, so there is much wider economic and academic diversity. The other local Catholic HS is a “co-op” high school (4 days school 1 day work at a local company). There is a low income upper limit to attend, it is focused on educating poverty level students.
I was indeed thinking about 2 Catholic schools in particular, and you hit the nail on the head. I was thinking about them because I have friends that sent kids to each.
I was curious enough to google others. Some of the aggregator sites on various school tuitions are way off. Don’t use that, go to the actual school websites. I specifically looked for some of the larger Christian schools whose names I recognize. High school tuition, rounded to 100:
Greater Atlanta Christian: $28,700
Fellowship Christian: $23,400
Mt Bethel Christian: $19,500
Landmark Christian: $21,700
The Catholic schools are a bargain compared to these Christian ones above IMO, as they are better quality academically and significantly cheaper. Still 15-18k/yr,