TEXAS FAITH: Should Religious Organizations Speak Out About Education?

Schools are in the news with K-12 budget cuts the talk of the day across Texas, and Washington debating whether to trim Pell Grants and other forms of higher education spending. And there are plenty of discussions going on in Texas and nationally about getting better teachers into classrooms, expanding the number of charter schools and updating the No Child Left Behind Act.

Naturally, many education constituencies speak out about these issues. But not much is heard from the religious community. When it comes to public policy, religious leaders usually speak out about issues like poverty, abortion or war.

So, here is this week’s question:

Should religious organizations, including churches, synagogues and mosques, speak out about issues dealing with education? If so, how? For example, should this be a matter of adopting schools or actively lobbying decision-makers?

If you don’t think religious organizations should get involved with education issues, please explain why.

JOE CLIFFORD, Senior Minister and Head of Staff, First Presbyterian Church of Dallas

Today’s conflicts born of the fundamentalist-modernist controversies equate religious involvement in education with manipulating curriculums to suit religious doctrines. I’m against fundamentalists shaping public school curriculums. However, to the degree that education nurtures our communities, religious organizations have an obligation to support the effort. Education is essential in alleviating poverty. How can the church stand idly by while budgets are balanced on the backs of public school students and Pell Grant recipients?

Religious communities have historically contributed a great deal to the education systems of our world. John Calvin‘s Geneva was one of the first cities to offer education opportunities for all its citizens. The Catholic Church has made huge contributions to education through orders like the Jesuits who have founded schools and universities around the world. Presbyterian churches in frontier communities often served as the school house during the week. Most of the Ivy League universities were originally founded as theological seminaries. Princeton University, for example, began as a Presbyterian seminary.

First Presbyterian Church has a relationship with City Park Elementary School that has extended over 34 years. Through the Stewpot’s Children and Youth ministries, we provide Saturday programs and summer day camps for children. These programs aim at equipping students to succeed in life. They do not proselytize in any way. They continue through middle school and high school, and if students want to attend college or technical school, scholarships made possible through generous donations are provided to assist in that effort. We see this as a central aspect of our mission as a church–to bring good news to the poor. It’s an example of the truth that the church exists for the sake of the world, not the other way around.

LARRY BETHUNE, Senior Pastor, University Baptist Church, Austin

The Christian scripture places responsibility upon each generation to educate the next. Education is the means by which the accomplishments of one generation live into and may be built upon by the next.

Individualistic and materialistic forces want to make education an economic privilege of a select few for gaining advantage over others. This is a narrow, selfish, narcissistic, and ultimately self-defeating approach.

Some religious interests wish to make public education a means of indoctrination in their own minority beliefs, to gain tax support for their religious schools, or to destroy public education altogether. This is also a narrow, selfish, and ultimately self-defeating view which subverts democracy, religious liberty, and the separation of church and state.

Public education is the means by which our democracy prepares the next generation to become responsible and capable citizens. It is based on the recognition that unless all children are educated – regardless of ethnic identity or economic class – we all lose the best possible future. Balancing the budget on the backs of children and teachers is not only selfish, but short-sighted. It refuses investment in the future and surrenders the competitive edge our nation may have with others in the global economy, dooming us to be a second rate state in a failing nation.

Attacks on public education have historically been religious or racist in motivation. Both of these and the universal benefit of public education make education a religious issue of high importance. All would agree our public education system needs continual repair (as do all human institutions). The wise course is to fix it, not wreck it.

Supporting teachers and students is a critical contribution of healthy spiritual communities. Each congregation should find its own best way in its local context, which may mean adopting schools, tutoring programs, programs to support parents and families, advocacy with the local school board or legislature. In our democracy we can all demand our governor and legislators make education a priority, even in difficult financial times. While the excellent public education system the children of Texas deserve may be expensive, the cost of not providing it is too costly to imagine.

KATIE SHERROD, Independent writer/producer and progressive Episcopalian leader, Fort Worth

Religious organizations should indeed speak out about public education issues, including funding.

Many Episcopal churches already are working with public schools in their neighborhoods — tutoring students, working in the school library, coaching, offering before and after school care as well as helping raise funds for things not paid for by the school district. One Fort Worth church is working with a middle school by letting the science teachers use space in the church’s community garden for courses on botany. The students get class credit for working in their individual plots in the garden and they get to keep the food they grow.

Advocating for those schools is a logical next step.

Anyone who thinks a good education is not necessary for a financially secure adulthood is simply not paying attention. People with poor educations are falling farther and farther behind in our global economy. One can make a case that speaking out in defense of school funding is part of the Gospel imperatives of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and caring for the widows and orphans. Denying educational resources to our children is as short-sighted as deliberately making them go hungry would be — both will result in a stunting of growth, one of the body, the other of the mind and that person’s potential for success in our capitalistic system.

And then there’s the argument of enlightened self-interest. Do we all really want to live in a world where the majority of the workforce is too ill-educated to produce quality goods or services? Moreover, If we truly believe that each human being has a spark of divinity called a soul, how can we justify deliberately setting them up to fail?
GEOFFREY DENNIS, Rabbi, Congregation Kol Ami, Flower Mound; faculty member, University of North Texas Jewish Studies Program

Education has been a religious issue since the Bible, when God instructs Israel to teach its children about the Exodus (Ex. 12). Jews have held public education a religious value since the 1st Century, when Shimon ben Setach mandated that every Jewish community needed to offer children an elementary education.

I see no issue with a religious group advocating for education and teachers by any mechanism. I would be baffled by religious groups that would oppose quality universal education for all chidlren.

DEAL HUDSON, President, Catholic Advocate, Washington, D.C.

It’s not a question of whether religious communities should engage education but whether they should address the need to cut budgets both at the state and national level. All we hear from religious communities is how immoral it is to cut any programs to relieve poverty, etc., when the increasing level of the deficit spending is threatening to cause an economic downturn that would bring poverty upon millions more.

How about the morality of a federal government that willfully spends many times more than projected revenues, thus passing along the responsibility of paying the indebtedness to future generations? Doesn’t the word “injustice” cover that kind of financial recklessness?

A temporary agency should be established over a two-year period whose job it would be to start from zero to rewrite the federal budget — every line of the budget should be examined from the perspective of both government necessity or a benefit to the taxpayer justifying the expense.

DARRELL BOCK, Research Professor of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary

In my mind, education is not so much a religious issue as a social issue. An educated society should lead into a potentially better deliberative society. That is healthy for all of us.

As such, religious organizations should encourage educational development. We short change education here in comparison to Europe, where I currently am living. We do not sufficiently reward teachers for the hard work of teaching they do.

If religious faiths do this, however, they will need to work to be sure people better comprehend the pluralistic world we are a part of. This is not to say all religions are equal, but simply to note they are present accounted for and a part of our communities.

DANIEL KANTER, Senior Minister, First Unitarian Church of Dallas

Education is acknowledged as an important tool to address poverty, violence, and job loss. Each of these affects the health and well being of our communities in different ways. An uneducated society is one destined to crumble its infrastructure from the bottom up. One key to a safer and more secure society is good basic education with increased rates of high school graduation.

Religious organizations should and do speak out for the funding of education. Lobby days in Austin were filled with faith leaders talking to representatives about the fabric of our communities being torn by defunding of basic rights like education. We speak out from pulpits about the imbalance of teacher layoffs and poor pay for educators with the incessant political banter in favor of further tax cuts. Faith leaders should and do speak up for tax increases as we watch our representatives think more about future elections than about the futures of our children.

In short, yes, we need to speak about any issue that fundamentally affects the quality of health and wholeness in our communities.

AMY MARTIN, Executive Director, Earth Rhythms; Writer/Editor, Moonlady Media

Those who are typically spiritual-not-religious posses a passion for knowledge, as much of it as they can absorb from as many sources as possible, particularly related to science, which this demographic is enthusiastic about.

Yet we are in a terrible dumbing-down period for education in this country. Rather than teaching young minds the skills of analysis and discretion, how to research and evaluate facts, we teach for tests. Adults who lack intelligence and even rudimentary education are lionized and even elected. Unlike most countries in Europe, we make quality impossible to get except for those with money.

Certainly religious groups, or just about any group for that matter, and all individuals should be speaking out about this. But it is folly for any of them to think that they can control what these students learn to match their particular religious dogma. As soon as students are out of the school building and onto unfettered internet, a plethora of conflicting info abounds.

MATTHEW WILSON, Associate Professor of Political Science, Southern Methodist University

Addressing this question from the standpoint of my own faith tradition, the Catholic Church is of course already deeply involved in education at all levels. Catholic education at all levels, from pre-school to research university, has a nationwide and long-standing presence in America, and the Catholic Church is far and away the largest provider of non-state elementary and secondary education.

Moreover, Catholic schools are frequently the only alternatives to failing public schools in poor urban neighborhoods, such that school voucher programs (wildly popular among residents of these neighborhoods) often become de facto Catholic school voucher programs. As a result, it would be impossible for the Catholic Church in the United States to ignore issues of education policy. On questions that directly affect Catholic schools (school choice for low-income families, curricular autonomy, tax credits for religious education, etc.), the Church simply could not ignore debates so fundamental to its mission and to its ability to offer as many students as possible access to an education of unique and genuine value.

This does not mean, however, that the Church needs to wade into every policy debate involving education in America. I’m not sure that the Church should have a stance on the appropriate funding levels for Pell Grants, the advisability of merit pay for teachers, or the best uses for standardized testing–these are all technical policy questions on which people of sincere faith could reasonably disagree.

Beyond affirming the general principle that access to basic education is a universal human right, and standing up for the interests of Catholic schools, I think the Church is rightly circumspect in its commentary on educational issues.

JAMES C. DENISON, Theologian-in-Residence, Texas Baptist Convention and President, Center for Informed Faith

Tertullian (died A.D. 220) asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem, or the Academy with the Church?” A great deal, as it turns out.

The Lord instructed his people to teach his commands to their children (Deuteronomy 6:7). The adolescent Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). He was known as “Teacher” both to his enemies (Matthew 12:38) and his followers (John 20:16). Paul was “educated at the feet of Gamaliel” (Acts 22:3), the greatest student of the greatest teacher in Israel. Jesus taught us to love God “with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).

How can Christians engage the critical education issues of our day?

We can make a difference personally in the lives of students and their families and teachers. One example of many in Dallas is Park Cities Baptist Church’s longtime partnership with Dan D. Rogers Elementary–church members tutor students, help meet financial needs, and provide a summer sports camp.

And we can influence public policy on behalf of this generation of students. While I do not believe the church should be a political organization, I am convinced that Christians should be engaged fully in political leadership. In fact, I believe God is calling more Christians into public service than are answering his call. Those who are not called to political leadership can influence those who are. In a participatory republic, a few passionate citizens can make an extraordinary difference.

I was able to attend college through the kindness of a donor who provided my academic scholarship. When I graduated, he took me aside and made a statement I’ve never forgotten: “The Holy Spirit has a strange affinity for the trained mind.”

MIKE GHOUSE, President, Foundation for Pluralism, Dallas

Religion is one of the key strands in the overall life arrangement and it is not a stand -alone independent item. Everything is a part of the web of life. The Hindu teaching sums it up with a phrase Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam; the whole world is one family and if one strand is affected it messes up the wholeness of the system.

We are (were) the most advanced nation in the world in terms of education, innovation and bringing the civilization forward. So, the cuts to school funding are simply not acceptable. We are regressing and will be sliding downwards if we do not take the steps now. We need to balance the budget but not at the cost of education, the very foundation of our success story.

The religious communities are indeed involved in the process of education when it affects them directly, a very selfish irreligious value. The California textbooks were insensitive towards Hindu culture and the battle continues without much support from others.

The right wingers want to push their agenda into Texas textbooks. If they see the sorry state of affairs they are causing, they may alter their views. Someone aptly said that he would not hire an engineer coming out of the proposed education system where the Pi is defined as an integer and not as a fraction. He said his missile will not hit the target and the rockets will land on the moon. The relentless efforts of the Jewish community to keep us from dumping a singular version of God on all children is a major contribution in building a cohesive society, a basis for our prosperity.

Religions teach us to stand up for others, and we need to quit being selfish and join hands with others to act in the interests of common good. It’s an insurance to preserve every one’s future. As Americans together, we need to urge our representatives to restore our firm foundation in education.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “our 15-year-olds rank 17th in the world in science and 25th in math. We rank 12th among developed countries in college graduation (down from No. 1 for decades). We come in 79th in elementary-school enrollment. Our infrastructure is ranked 23rd in the world, well behind that of every other major advanced economy. “

Our representatives are not going to die out of hunger if they take pay cuts over a period of two or three years. They need to prove to us that they care about our future and are willing to take the first step in being a public servant. In Texas alone, we can afford to eliminate 75 state representatives, 15 State senators and 16 US Congressman and offer a pay cut for rest.

The Taliban keep the children out of schools with a barrel, and our representatives want to do the same to our children with funds? Absolutely not. We can afford to cut the rascals but not cut a dime to our schools.

CYNTHIA RIGBY, W.C. Brown Professor of Theology, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Churches, and the people of faith who comprise them, should speak out about issues dealing with education, and not only in a symbolic or token way. They should be actively involved in lobbying decision makers and in doing whatever they can to shape public policy.

As a theological educator and ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), I worry that we are losing sight of the historical and theological reasons we are called to support and ensure educational opportunities for all. Historically speaking, 16th century church Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin spoke out about the need for education because they subscribed to two important theological ideas: First, they believed there should be no hierarchy between members of the clergy and their parishioners, in terms of access to the Word of God. All children of God were “priests,” they taught, meaning that all people have gifts for ministry that include discerning what God is up to in the world.

Second, Luther and Calvin believed that everyone should have the resources to read and study the Bible, in the context of their church communities. And so they were deeply committed not only to translating the Bible into the vernacular, not only to finding ways to print it up and to distribute it, but also to teaching people how to read. They cared about educating people because they wanted folks to read the Bible; they wanted people to read the Bible so they could participate fully in the new life that comes only when people can see, learn, and interpret for themselves.

Many other church teachings and practices beg to be applied to the challenges we face, educationally. We baptize our children, promising to do everything we can to help them grow up strong and confident. We preach the love and grace of God, assuring everyone that Christ came to bring life abundant. We insist that our vocation is not to love God with our hearts alone, but “to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, with all our minds, with all our souls, and with all our strength.”

When school district budgets are cut by millions ($100 million, in Austin where I live), that for which Luther and Calvin risked their lives is in jeopardy. If we do not push back against these cutbacks, it is because we have forgotten what a privilege it is to read and interpret for ourselves; we have forgotten the responsibility we take for all children every time any child is baptized into Christian community. If we do not push back, we have turned our backs on abundant life, tearing faith away from all that we are and reinforcing caricatures that represent church people as indifferent to knowledge and uninterested in growth.

It is time to stand up for our faith by taking a stand for education.

See story @ http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/04/texas-faith-should-religious-o.html