{"id":172,"date":"2009-05-15T18:11:15","date_gmt":"2009-05-15T18:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/05\/cross-is-religious-charter-sch.html"},"modified":"2009-05-15T18:11:15","modified_gmt":"2009-05-15T18:11:15","slug":"cross-is-religious-charter-sch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/05\/cross-is-religious-charter-sch.html","title":{"rendered":"Cross Is Religious; Charter Schools Are Bad News (Usually)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think the first four people who responded to your last post claiming the cross isn’t necessarily religious are completely on the mark, particularly emphasizing that all deceased war veterans are not Christian.  I’d be happy to leave them have the last word.<\/p>\n

Moving to another topic, we now have questions being raised about a new public “charter school”<\/a> in New Jersey.  To me, such institutions pose two questions.  First, are they really subterfuges for having taxpayers shell out money for religious schools?  I have complained about the content of some curricular material at a similar Jewish “culture” charter school in Florida<\/a> and changes were made.  On the other hand, some Jewish and Islamic charters do manage to confine their lesson plans and curricular materials to non-theological matters.  Obviously, it is impossible to know what teachers do or say that is not in the publicly available materials from such schools.  Over at Americans United, we’ll be taking a close look at the New Jersey plan.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nThere is an even bigger question, though.  Why do we even have charter
\nschools.  Some want them to “experiment” and be out from under onerous
\nor silly “regulations”.  If a school system thinks it has a bad
\nregulatory atmosphere, why not just get rid of the bad rules for every
\nschool?  Lately, more charters are focused on “unique” learning
\nexperiences.  I’m not too troubled if what is “unique” is a focus on
\nlanguages or science.  However, when that focus is on particularly
\nethnic or religious “cultures”, I’m very uncomfortable.  Remember, Jay,
\nthese are all public schools–and public schools were such a great
\ndevelopment in this country precisely because in theory (not always in
\npractice, obviously) they served as a “melting pot” of cultures and
\nbackgrounds.  Learning to live and study in environs reflecting the
\npost-school culture still sounds like a good idea to me.  It certainly
\nwas for my children.  (Thumbs up to my daughter who will graduate from
\nthe University of Virginia Law School<\/a> on Sunday.  Don’t worry, she’s not joining the Americans United legal staff.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think the first four people who responded to your last post claiming the cross isn’t necessarily religious are completely on the mark, particularly emphasizing that all deceased war veterans are not Christian.  I’d be happy to leave them have the last word. Moving to another topic, we now have questions being raised about a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,11],"tags":[147,149,148,51,67,131,150,151],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-public-schools","tag-charter-schools","tag-florida","tag-new-jersey","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-public-schools-2","tag-regulation","tag-university-of-virginia"],"yoast_head":"\nCross Is Religious; Charter Schools Are Bad News (Usually) - Lynn v. 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