NJ pastor announces in church he is forming charter school. NJ law forbids schools run by churches.

madfloridian

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Mon Oct-25-10 06:51 PM
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NJ pastor announces in church he is forming charter school. NJ law forbids schools run by churches.

So this should be an interesting thing to watch. That pastor has already helped other churches form charter schools this year. It's easier now that a school called a charter can get taxpayer money.

Church, State, and Charter Schools

Rev. Reginald Jackson greeting parishioners after yesterday's service at St. Matthew's AME Church in Orange.

The announcement came about halfway through yesterday�s service at St. Matthew�s AME Church in Orange, when the Rev. Reginald Jackson broke from the celebratory music and prayerful message to talk education policy. Jackson told his congregation of about 200 that he had applied to the state Department of Education to open a charter school, drawing applause.

.."And Jackson asked for a little help: �I want you to be in prayer that the charter school be approved.�

.."Jackson, better known for his advocacy of private school vouchers, has applied not just to lead a charter school himself, but has helped steer four other charter applications this year from pastors in the Black Ministers Council of New Jersey, of which he is president.

I will want to keep tabs of this because it is forbidden by NJ law for churches to run charter schools.

New Jersey is explicit in its regulations on charter schools. They cannot be operated by religious organizations, nor are they permitted to include religious instruction in the curriculum, the same as traditional public schools.

The other charter petitions the pastor worked with are listed in the article.

This is getting to be a very big thing now...this breaking down of the barrier between religion and public education.

A charter school in Pennsylvania has paid a local church 4 million for rent.

According to the northeast Pennsylvania newspaper, a congregation in the community has been shamelessly profiting from its relationship with a charter school located at the church facility. Reported the Record, �More than $4 million in public money flowed to Shawnee Tabernacle Church by way of the Pocono Mountain Charter School over the past five years, according to documents made public Thursday.

This incident is just the latest in a long string of church-state abuses involving �public� charter schools. A fundamentalist charter school in Idaho wants to use the Bible as a primary textbook, a charter school in Minnesota is in court because of its alleged promotion of Islam and a Hebrew language charter school in Florida dropped a textbook after complaints that it was infused with religion. In many states, financially strapped Catholic schools are converting to publicly funded charters while remaining on church property and keeping many of the same staff and students.

A Florida evangelical school joined 7 (I think 8 now) Catholic schools in becoming charter schools to survive financially.

They will get public money, and they are keeping their same staff and administration. As Barry Lynn of Americans United says, that can be problematic.

"This is problematic particularly if you have the same personnel as when it was a private religious school," said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington-based advocacy group. "One wonders if the people running the school will treat it as purely secular, purely a public institution?

Money is going to Hebrew language schools and schools with ties to Islamic groups.

There appears to be little concern in this administration that this is happening. That has been a shock to me.