The United States ranks among the lowest of Western democracies in governmental support for educational freedom, and particularly for the right of parents to select schools that correspond to their own religious convictions. This principle, explicitly included in the international human rights covenants, is supported through public funding of faith-based[Read More…]
Author: Charles Glenn
A radical’s take on educational freedom
This guest post is part of our continuing series on the center-left roots of school choice. It may be hard for younger readers to imagine a time when to be anti-establishment was a position of the political left. Today, of course, the left is so well-ensconced in positions of power[Read More…]
Wishing for the sprouting of education reform, near and far
Editor’s note: The U.S. is hardly the only place on the planet where parental school choice and education reform are hot topics, as Boston University Professor Charles Glenn reminds us in this post. Glenn is an associate of the American Center for School Choice, which co-hosts this blog, and has[Read More…]
Catholic schools, gay employees and the duty of loyalty
In recent months, there has been a steady stream of high-profile stories about Catholic school policies towards gay employees. In one, the front page of the New York Times relayed the controversy at a Catholic school in Washington State that fired an administrator after he married another man. In another,[Read More…]
Balancing freedom & justice to shape school choice accountability
Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on the Fordham Institute’s Choice Words blog. It’s one of many pieces written in response to Fordham’s release of a “school choice toolkit” for lawmakers that called for more regulatory accountability measures for “voucher schools.” Policy-making usually involves trade-offs, finding the right balance between[Read More…]
In education debates, the tired arguments of secular fundamentalism
Editor’s note: This piece is in response to Friday’s guest post from Alex J. Luchenitser of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It seems simplest, though scarcely elegant, to reply to attorney Luchenitser’s statements one by one, though I will leave to the lawyers how a school choice[Read More…]
Time for a ‘Brown’ ruling on religious discrimination in education
New Hampshire joined other states in adopting a tuition tax credit program in 2012; now this has been partially blocked by a ruling that illustrates how urgently the United States needs a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court doing, for legalized discrimination on the basis of religion, what Brown v.[Read More…]
Families should be free to choose schools they trust
Every school, whether intentionally or not, teaches more than academic subjects. Simply participating in the daily life of a school, its routines and how it justifies and enforces them, its norms for relationships among pupils (of the same age and of different ages) and between youth and adults, the ways[Read More…]