ACLU will check Bible use at charter

ACLU will check Bible use at charter

Tabitha Keily

tkeily@idahopress.com

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

http://www.idahopress.com/news/?2009-07-25-ACLU-will-check-Bible-use-at-charter

NAMPA — The American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho will investigate Nampa Classical Academy’s use of the Bible as a classroom text to see if it violates separation of church and state rules.

Monica Hopkins, executive director of the ACLU of Idaho, said the state constitution affords more restrictions on the separation of church and state than those given in federal requirements.

“Our main concern is the separation of church and state, and that the state is not funding or endorsing a specific religion,” she said. “We can’t forecast one way or the other right now what the applicable law would be because we are still gathering all the facts.”

Officials at Nampa Classical Academy maintain they will use religious documents only in a secular manner as an original text in academic studies.

“The purpose of reading about religions is to better understand why a certain culture behaves the way they do,” Kyle Borger, chairman of Nampa Classical Academy, said in a letter to the Idaho Press-Tribune.

The ACLU’s focus will be to collect facts in the situation first and then apply those to see if there will be a case, Hopkins said.

“This case has not been tested by the Idaho Supreme Court and we can’t predict how the Idaho Supreme Court would rule in this case,” she said.

Isaac Moffett, director of operations and a founder of Nampa Classical Academy, cites U.S. Supreme Court rulings in School District of Abington Township v. Schempp and McCollum v. Board of Education as allowing the charter school’s planned use of religious texts.

Borger said the use of original literature would not be specifically biblical in nature.

“Our focus of concern is actually on the use of religious documents in general,” he wrote in his letter. “We will not treat the information within the Bible any differently then we will treat the information in the Quran.”

Some additional points he made:

* The Bible, the Quran and other religious documents do not have to be true in order to be studied to gain understanding why people behave differently based on their beliefs.

* The use of the Bible within the academy would be a small percentage in comparison to the rest of the curriculum.

* In literature and history classes, the Bible is one of 35 books that will be studied and only a small portion of the Bible will be used in older children’s classes.

“Children of all faiths including those who have no faith should feel comfortable in our Academy,” he wrote. “Our dedication is that no student would experience a teacher telling them that their religious belief is wrong. … We are a group of parents who have been searching for an education that will teach our children how to think and will not go against what we teach our children to believe at home.”

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SIDE NOTE:

I went to the homepage of the school mentioned, and did NOT find anything that suggests they would use any one religion as a teaching tool, I came across this quotes when “Charter School” is discribed:

It is a nonprofit, publicly funded and nonsectarian entity.

I did find a few troubling things, but as of now, they are only the schools descriptions of what their school teaches when compared to others. For example under What is classical liberal arts education?:

Classicalism (C) vs. Progressivism (P)

The Classical philosophy conforms to the reality of human nature, it values developing those skills necessary for self-learning, and it strives toward the goal of making the individual intellectually independent, virtuous and self-reliant.’

The Progressive philosophy attempts to mold human nature into a new form; it seeks to instill individuals with a subject/slave mentality, and it has a goal of creating the ideal collectivist society.’

I Disagree. “Reality of Human Nature is a Secular Humanist idea, more Progressive mindset. “Subject/Slave mentality is more a “dogma”, rules to follow, lead and to be lead, more a Christian ideology than Progressive.

C – Tests academic achievement.’

P – Tests value systems.’

I Disagree. VALUE is usually used by “Religious” folks, NOT Progressives

C – Teaches moral absolutes.’

P – Teaches moral relativism’

I Disagree. Using MORAL in anyway poses questions

C – Teaches the logical deduction of values from absolutes.’

P – Teaches self-clarification of values from a limited offering of politically correct options.’

C – Teaches academic skills and seeks the highest individual achievement.’

P – Teaches “social” skills and reduces academics to the lowest common denominator.’

I Disagree, How would Progressive teaching dumb-down anyone

C – Educates for the individual and the family.’

P – Educates for the state.’

I Agree, “Family” again is usually used within Religious centered trachings, and I Disagree that Progressive has anything to do with “state”. Oddly, most “Red” states, predominantly “Christian/Republican, are VERY “state’s-rights” centered

C – based education, in its many forms (Liberal Arts; Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric; Readin’ ‘Ritin’ & ‘Rithmetic) has been an academic, social and economic success for millennia.

P – based education, in its many forms (Mastery Learning; Value-Added Core Curriculum; Standards Assessment Testing) has been an academic, social and economic failure for decades.

I Disagree, unprovable, and studies can argue for and against both arguments.

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