成人抖阴

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The Supreme Court ruled last month that the state of Maine cannot bar religious academies from participating in a school choice program that uses public funds to pay for students鈥� private school educations with vouchers.

The basic premise behind school vouchers is that a family receives credit for a certain amount of public money that they can then apply toward tuition at the private school of their choice. Money that otherwise, presumably, would have flowed into traditional public and charter schools.

In addition to the usual arguments about how such a system diverts funds from needy school districts and/or skims away the best students and their highly involved parents (an argument that is also applied to charter schools yet, strangely, not to NYC鈥檚 and ), the main red flag waved to convince voters to reject school vouchers is that, since parents can use the credit at any type of educational institution, a percentage of public funds will inevitably go to private religious schools (in the same way that public funds such as can be used at ).

Self-described progressives like former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio are .

Except, that is, when using public money to fund religious schools is the only way they can get their own pet projects off the ground.

De Blasio, for example, took office in 2014 with a promise to provide 鈥渉igh-quality pre-K for all鈥� at no cost to parents. He swore that not only would every one of New York City’s 70,000-plus eligible 4-year-olds be guaranteed a seat, but that every classroom would be headed by a teacher with a master’s degree in early childhood education. Toward the end of his second term, DeBlasio added , for the city鈥檚 3-year-olds. His touted universal pre-K as his signature achievement and top campaign issue.

But having done the math, I remember saying to my husband as far back as 2016, 鈥淧ublic schools are already overcrowded. Where is he going to find the space? And are there really 20,000 (!) unemployed people in New York City with a master’s in early childhood education?鈥�

Turns out the answer to the latter was, 鈥淣ope.鈥� And to the former, it was, 鈥淚n .鈥�

And what do many, many of these organizations turn out to be? Religious schools and faith-based day care centers.

The mayor was obsessed with getting these already-up-and-running organizations to sign onto his endeavor for a variety of reasons. The first was physical space: There simply wasn鈥檛 enough in existing public schools to accommodate the numbers De Blasio promised would be accommodated. The second, much less publicized, reason was that and at these organizations could be paid less than their public school counterparts for doing the same jobs 鈥� an inequitable situation that continues to this day.

Hizzoner needed the religious schools鈥� participation so desperately that he even agreed to let them hold , if only they would join his initiative. In addition, pre-Ks housed in religious institutions are permitted to of the same faith.

Prayer breaks! In 鈥減ublic鈥� schools!

How exactly does that not violate the constitutional separation of church and state? Granted, parents can opt out their kids from prayer time. But, by that same definition, concerned families can opt out of using their vouchers for religious schools by 鈥� not using their vouchers for religious schools. Ruling that public money can be used for private religious schools does not mean that anyone who doesn鈥檛 want to attend a religious institution would be forced to attend one. All it means is that those who do will have the option of using their voucher for a religious school, the same way as other parents will have the option of using it for a non-religious school that matches whatever they鈥檙e looking for, for their child, which their local public school is failing to provide.

So for any New Yorkers 鈥� or anyone 鈥� up in arms over the possibility of their tax dollars being used to fund religious schools under the new Supreme Court ruling, be advised: Locally, they already are.

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