Your Taxes Go to Teach Religion to Other People's Kids

There are three separate "school choice" programs in Wisconsin. One applies to Milwaukee, one to Racine, and one covers the rest of the state. The common bond among the various schemes is that we, the hardworking taxpayers of Wisconsin, are forced to pay for the religious indoctrination of other people's children.

According to the DPI, there were 33,076 students in the three tuition giveaway programs in January 2017. Wisconsin spent almost $245 million on religious school vouchers for last school year alone. The tuition grants amounted to $7,323 for students in grades K-8 and $7,969 for high school students.

The ever-expanding statewide program is called the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program (WPCP). Of the 155 schools enrolled next year in WPCP, every last one is a religious school. Not a single Montessori school. Not a single non-religious college prep academy. Not a single trade school.

The religious schools your taxes fund in the WPCP are primarily Lutheran (45%) and Catholic (38%). The other schools are an assortment of fundamentalist Christian (15%), Jewish (1%) and Muslim (1%). The participating schools in the Milwaukee and Racine programs are also overwhelmingly religious ones.

But that is not all. In addition to the publicly-funded tuition vouchers for religious schools, Wisconsin gives a big tax deduction to parents who send their children to private schools. This deduction amounts to $10,000 per pupil for high school and $4,000 for K-8. It is no big surprise that the bulk of this tax giveaway goes to the richest Wisconsinites. According to the Department of Revenue, about two-thirds of the benefits go to the top 13% of individual taxpayers. The state loses $12 million of revenue a year thanks to this unnecessary tax break.

There are many reasons why the public should not be forced to pay for private religious schools. We hear frequent horror stories of schools locking their doors in the middle of the school year after management absconds with tuition money. Study after study shows poorer student performance for private schools compared to public ones.

However, my biggest objection to these programs is that taxpayer funding of any religious school is simply wrong. Separation of Church and State is one of the founding principles of America. If parents wish to send their children to religious schools, that is fine. They (and their church/Kingdom Hall/temple/synagogue/mosque) should pay for that themselves. It should not be my responsibility to fund the religious instruction of other people's children.

Using my tax dollars to teach religion in religion classes is bad enough. As a scientist, what really burns me is the teaching of religion in science classes. Many of these schools, especially ones associated with Lutheran and other fundamentalist Christian groups, teach Creationism. This pseudo-scientific hogwash ignores the reality of modern Geology, Paleontology, Astronomy, Physics, Archeology, and Biology in favor of Genesis creation myths.

Let's look at science course offerings for just one typical taxpayer-funded voucher school, Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School, in Jackson, WI. The course description for Biology states, "Human biology will also be applied to each sub-unit, with particular emphasis on combating evolutionary theories with the truths of God’s creation."

Advanced Biology at the school is no better. The course's purpose is listed as "God created all things in the first six days of creation. In the book of Proverbs, God encourages us to get wisdom and understanding. These two provide huge foundations for the purposes of this course."

From Advanced Biology's course description, "The course will develop growing Christians who will be able to proficiently apply the timeless truths of God's holy, inerrant word to their study of organisms. " The syllabus describes one of the units as "Early evolution of life, the so called “evidence” for evolution, Mechanisms of evolution, A closer look at Creation."

This is just from one school, but Kettle Moraine is fairly typical. Many of these voucher schools teach similar creationist flim-flam in trying to prop-up their version of religion. Wisconsin state laws that mandate this taxpayer-supported dumbing-down of society do America a great disservice.

GOP politicians in Madison are forcing state taxpayers to fund religious schools. We pay for these schools through direct tuition payments, as well as through generous tax breaks. This funding comes at the expense of our public schools. With sympathetic ears to school voucher expansion in both Madison and Washington, this bad situation will only get worse.