Folks, wasn’t there a line between church and state?
Ohio is now sending millions in taxpayer dollars to private Christian schools to pay for new buildings and campus expansions.
Experts say it’s the first time in U.S. history that churches and religious groups have built schools or increased their classroom capacity solely through government funding.
One of our lawmakers behind this unprecedented, unconstitutional power grab said the goal is to increase how many students private schools can take in, so the state can increase the number of vouchers.
In case you missed my last email about Ohio’s education, the private school voucher system in Ohio is being paid for out of the public education budget. They are literally funneling resources out of our public schools and into private religious institutions.
At first I thought this was just Republicans being Republicans, passing policies and abusing power to increase profits for their religious extremist donors.
Then I heard what J.D. Vance said on the campaign trail yesterday, and I realized what’s really going on.
Harming public schools isn’t just a consequence of prioritizing religious institutions. It’s the motive. They’re testing a coup on public education, and Ohio is the lab rat.
Vance spent yesterday taking questions at the Courage Tour, an event organized by self-titled Christian Nationalist Lance Wallnau.
Wallnau is a televangelist who mainstreamed the extremist belief that God wants his followers to invade education and the government to create a Christian-controlled nation.
At Wallnau’s event in Pittsburgh yesterday, Vance called public schools “radical organizations” and said we have to cut off their funding altogether.
"We’ve got American children who can’t add five plus five, but they can tell you that there are 87 different genders… We’re not teaching them reading, writing, arithmetic, the things that every child needs in order to live a good life… We’ve got to get them out of there. I think we cut off the money. Stop spending your tax dollars on radical organizations that are poisoning the minds of our kids."
First of all, I have a kid in public school. If you don’t, trust me, they still teach math. I helped my kid with his math homework last night.
Second, J.D. Vance let the cat out of the bag.
They will do anything to put our kids’ education in the hands of private religious groups who have NO required curriculum, NO obligation to teach history or critical thinking, and EVERY incentive to teach the same hate and propaganda we see out of the Republican Party on the daily.
This is an attack on public schools, yes, but it’s also an attack on the people who depend on them: teachers, students, and the great majority of American families.
Congress has to act to end this assault on our education and our future, but they’ll only do it with a Democratic majority and people like us in there to keep them accountable and raise the alarm.
Jerrad Christian
Democrat for OH-12
Comments