The Founding Fathers must be frowning on House Speaker John Boehner; you can almost envision the furrow on Thomas Jefferson’s brow. How could this fine conservative lawmaker from Ohio, who often cloaks himself in the Constitution, go on a crusade to give federal funds to D.C.’s Catholic schools? What happened to the separation of church and state?
It was Jefferson who first articulated the notion that the new country he helped found should create some distance between organized religion and the its government. In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802, he wrote that he contemplates “with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
Neither Jefferson nor the Constitution explicitly prohibits the government from providing funds to religious schools, but the Founding Fathers made it darn clear that the government should stay on one side of the “wall of separation,” and organized religious activities should remain on the other.
In full frontal violation of that edict, Boehner has put his name and his clout behind two bills that blow holes in the “wall.” One would breathe life into a voucher program that gives poor D.C. kids up to $7,500 toward private or parochial school tuition. The second would fund the program with $20 million a year for the next five years.
It’s hard to argue with the principle underlying the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships: They seek to give poor kids the wherewithal to attend pricey private academies. Unions and Democrats revile what they see as an assault on public education; conservatives love them for leveling the playing field.
I am on the fence, with one caveat: The scholarships should not be used for parochial school tuition. And that is exactly where they have been going.
According to the Catholic Standard, 879 of the 1,700 D.C. students enrolled in the voucher program in 2008 went to Catholic schools. The U.S. Department of Education reported that 80 percent of the voucher students attended religious schools in 2009, including Muhammad University of Islam.
So let’s not let Boehner kid anyone. He’s a good Catholic, attended Catholic schools in Cincinnati, has raised funds for D.C.’s Catholic schools, reads to their students, invited Cardinal Donald Wuerl to the State of the Union. His bill is a subsidy, plain and simple.
Catholic schools provide a strong education, build character and give poor kids a way out. No doubt. In Chicago and other cities, Catholic congregations support vibrant school systems. The truth is that D.C.’s Catholic community can no longer finance more than a few schools, which is why Wuerl turned seven into charter schools.
When John Boehner attended Archbishop Moeller High in Cincinnati, his parents split the cost with the local parish. When his brothers attended, Boehner helped.
That’s the American way, where congregations and families helped their own get religious education. That’s the way Thomas Jefferson saw it, at least.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
