For nearly a decade, the Orlando Sentinel exposed factually-flawed teaching and blatant discrimination at religious schools in Florida, funded with our tax dollars.
Some schools refused to serve gay students. Schools fired gay teachers. Schools refused to serve kids if officials learned that they had two same-sex parents — all in the name of religion.
The Sentinel documented schools that refused to serve kids with disabilities or whose written policies said they wouldn’t enroll kids in wheelchairs or with intellectual challenges, citing autism as an example.
The newspaper found schools that teach all kinds of factually inaccurate science and history lessons, with books that question evolution, human history and even the negative aspects of segregation.
Every time these twisted teachings or discriminatory policies were exposed, supporters of school choice — including the governor and many GOP lawmakers — shrugged it off, saying that’s how “choice” works. Schools should be free to teach what they want, and if parents don’t like it, they argued. they should simply choose to take their kids to another school.
That was apparently before some politicians learned that Muslims also get tax dollars to run voucher schools. Now they’ve decided that unfettered “choice” may have some drawbacks.
A recent push to defund voucher schools that teach Islamic faith is being led by the hard-right members of the Freedom Caucus in Congress, which included aspiring Florida governor Rep. Byron Donalds.
After learning that taxpayer-funded vouchers supported a Muslim-run school in Tennessee, the Freedom Caucus tweeted: “School choice is great, but taxpayer dollars should not be going to Islamic schools.”
Then Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier highlighted an Islamic voucher school in Florida that he suggested should be investigated, saying “Sharia law seeks to destroy and supplant the pillars of our republican form of government and is incompatible with the Western tradition.”
So if a school uses Christian faith to discriminate against gay students or children in wheelchairs, it’s fine. It’s what “choice” is all about. But if an Islamic school espouses objectionable ideas, it’s a problem.
I have long argued that no school should get public money to spread religious indoctrination or discriminate against any member of the taxpaying public, regardless of whether the school is run by Christians, Muslims or anyone. That doesn’t seem radical. Yet that approach to both quality and equality has been roundly rejected by school-choice proponents.
As a refresher, the Orlando Sentinel started documenting the ugly things going on inside Florida’s publicly-funded voucher schools in 2017 in its “Schools without Rules” series.
Among the findings:
- Some “teachers” lacked degrees or any basic teaching certification.
- Finances were so disastrous that some schools shut down in mid-year, stranding families and students.
- Science classes claimed dinosaurs roamed the earth with humans and history lessons claimed slavery and segregation weren’t all that bad.
- Gay teachers were fired, and more than 150 voucher schools had policies that explicitly said LGBTQ students would not be admitted or students who said phrases like “I am gay” would be expelled.
- Schools would not serve kids with special needs or disabilities. A Volusia County school received more than $1.5 million in public money a year while it had a written policy that students must be “ambulatory” and have “no emotional disorders or limited intellectual functions.”
Some schools, including the one in Volusia, would later change their policies or claim they never actually enforced them — but also made it clear that Florida lawmakers gave them permission to do as they please with public money.
Two years ago, the headmaster said: “Our teaching is Bible-based and we will make no apology for that.”
She was right. Florida’s taxpayer-funded voucher system allowed schools to largely do as they please, unapologetically — until some Muslim schools caught their attention anyway.
Uthmeier and some newer critics have tried to coat their concerns about Muslim schools by linking the theologies or school leaders to anti-American sentiment, or even terrorism. But the Freedom Caucus was clear that “taxpayer dollars should not be going to Islamic schools.”
There are some Muslim extremists, as there are Christian extremists, and many faith-based schools do spectacular work teaching kids, and they do so in an inclusive manner.
The solution isn’t to allow indoctrination and discrimination from some religions and not others. It’s to ban both altogether at schools that run on public money.
If you believe your faith endorses discrimination and warped versions of history, you’re fortunate to live in a country where you’re allowed to hold and espouse those beliefs. But taxpayers should not be forced to pay for any of it, no matter who’s doing it.
Scott Maxwell is an Orlando Sentinel columnist. Contact him at smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com.
