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There’s nothing that prohibits public funds given to individuals from then going to religious organizations, eg student loans at university level. They’re not

There’s nothing that prohibits public funds given to individuals from then going to religious organizations, eg student loans at university level. They’re not “siphoning public dollars” as some third-party cabal; members of the public are choosing to allocate their dollars (in benefits) to what they believe will be best for their children. Edit: It’s not “siphoning” because the allocation is made by the beneficiary of those funds, who is choosing their preferred service provider. There’s no diversion of funds: they’re being utilized by the intended beneficiary in the manner they deem to best suit their needs. That’s in contrast to traditional school systems, where funds are diverted by administrators to engage in politicking unrelated to education. Edit 2: I understand that many people are upset the beneficiary of a public benefit is allowed to make their own choice of service provider. People that in their wisdom, they know better how other people should run their lives! But it’s indisputably the case school allocations are to benefit the student — the intended beneficiary. Admit you’re in a huff because you’re being told you can’t control what other people do with their benefits. You’re like people yelling candy shouldn’t be allowed with SNAP/EBT funds. Next you’ll be yelling about “muh welfare queens!” or whatever.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
If money is literally being diverted, why can't it be called 'syphoning'? Guess it depends on the state. In my state, public dollars are literally, pulled from public schools, and given to private schools, which can then teach religion as fact. How is that not 'syphoning'?
- mhb 3y ago
  The "public" dollars were already, literally, pulled from the people who would prefer to use them to choose a school at which to spend them.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    Why can't I choose to have my tax dollars go somewhere besides the Military? I think this whole 'choice' thing with education is odd. Government isn't a buffet you get to 'choose' where the money goes. The responsibility is to provide a minimum education standard. Teach logic, science, math, reading. Give all kids equally some minimal ability to function. Why do some kids get choice and others do not? If a lot of parents choose to indoctrinate their kids to be Scientologist, that would be wrong wouldn't it? That would have negative consequences for everyone. What about teaching them that honor killings if they have sex before marriage is ok? Even the bible teaches if a women cheats, she should be stoned. Is that where we are going with our 'choice'? What if a large portion of the population 'chooses' to stone women because that is what their school taught where their parents 'choose' to enroll them. At some point that changes society, and that is the goal of the religious right in promoting private schools. If the Taliban choose to teach stoning, it's Evil, if Christians do it, it's 'Choice'? How did we get to a point where people are ok with tossing out the separation of church and state? People are willing to die for the second amendment, but really like cherry picking everything else.
    - vacuity 3y ago
      Not disagreeing with you, just trying to get a grasp of your principle here: prohibit schools from teaching/encouraging illegal acts? Morality is beyond laws, in a sense, and you might think "immoral acts" is more proper. I don't feel like going down that rabbit hole, but I felt I had to mention it.
      - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
        Teaching about religions, is different than teaching that a specific religion is a fact to follow. The problem is when teaching that immoral acts are 'correct', that they are actually 'moral'. As in 'I was just taught that stoning was a valid response to cheating, hence I can feel moral in stoning someone'. I think you are wrong that Morality is beyond law. If morality can shift based on how you were raised, and then people do want laws to reflect their morality, a society can get to a point where stoning is ok with the law, is legal and moral.
        vacuity 3y ago
        I suppose I didn't express myself very well. The rabbit hole I mentioned is about how people agree or disagree with aspects of each others' moralities, and what the outcome should be in the larger context of society. I agree that stoning as a punishment for adultery shouldn't be tolerated, but that doesn't mean my principles for believing that are necessarily the same as yours, or that I share your other principles. That's what I'm trying to get at. The dance of which morality is correct and should be enshrined in law (I think anything that is "clearly" immoral should be prohibited by law as a 1:1 mapping; the law is therefore a reflection of morality) is not one I like to partake in. Even if we all agree to discard current major religious beliefs around morality, there will still be many points for people to disagree on. Some people will be very left out and others slightly; that's what I meant by "morality is beyond laws". There is an inherent impasse that arises at this junction.
        FrustratedMonky 3y ago
        Ok. I get that. Agree with that. There is definitely a problem with splitting hairs on finer and finer points, until everyone is subdivided, until each individual has their own religion, their own morality. No two people are identical, and it is also impossible to force or convince everyone to be identical, thus there is always something different to disagree on. So all arguments on religion are really fruitless. I guess I come back to, how to get to a best common good. And in todays US, there is such a wide split between people, that there is also a wide range of things where there could be compromise to have a better society. Every difference is a chance to find a solution. So how do we get to commonalities if kids are indoctrinated (brain washed) from an early age. Religion blocks progress, because if someone truly believes in their god, then they wont compromise. Then there are religious wars, persecutions, inquisitions, etc... And sadly, the US is moving that way with the blurring of the split between state and church. We don't have to agree on all points of religion to make progress, we just have to agree to some basics like maybe treat everyone equally, don't beat up trans kids. Religion should be taught in the home, not in the schools. There should be a lot of room to come together before we get to an impasse. The 'left' is trying to do good, make things better, 'to progress', and they are clueless that the 'right' is actually in a Holy War without compromises where anything goes. It's an un-even fight. This country went to the moon, I never in a million years thought we could backslide into religious dogmatism. So, all of this arguing in this thread that religious schools are ok, is really not looking at history.
jgeada 3y ago
It isn't the parent's money! Everyone in my area pays local taxes, whether they are parents or not, including businesses; the bulk of these local taxes are allocated to fund schools. Most of us don't want our taxes going to charter schools or religious schools, and I'm tired of entitled parents siphoning from the system and leaving everyone worse off. If you want to make changes, fix the rules under which schools operate and allow disruptive kids to be expelled.
- davemp 3y ago
  > It isn't the parent's money! It’s as much theirs at it is any other citizen’s. > entitled parents siphoning from the system Very loaded choice of words. Parents who feel entitled to what? A quality education for their children? > If you want to make changes, fix the rules under which schools operate and allow disruptive kids to be expelled. Foisting the responsibility on individual parents to push huge political changes through seems entirely unreasonable.
  - jgeada 3y ago
    But it is much more everyone else's than theirs. Everyone, individuals and businesses, pays into the pot, whether they have kids in the school or not. Individual parent's taxes are a minority fraction of the actual cost of running the education system. Thus "siphoning": common public moneys being used to pay individual interests. If you want a private education for your kids, go right ahead and pay for it, don't ask the rest of us to subsidize you. And yes, we all want a quality education for all children. Make schools better for everyone, not just the entitled or well connected.
    - mhb 3y ago
      Competition is a way to make things higher quality. School choice is competition.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- cmurf 3y ago

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

If money is literally being diverted, why can't it be called 'syphoning'? Guess it depends on the state. In my state, public dollars are literally, pulled from public schools, and given to private schools, which can then teach religion as fact. How is that not 'syphoning'?

mhb 3y ago
The "public" dollars were already, literally, pulled from the people who would prefer to use them to choose a school at which to spend them.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Why can't I choose to have my tax dollars go somewhere besides the Military? I think this whole 'choice' thing with education is odd. Government isn't a buffet you get to 'choose' where the money goes. The responsibility is to provide a minimum education standard. Teach logic, science, math, reading. Give all kids equally some minimal ability to function. Why do some kids get choice and others do not? If a lot of parents choose to indoctrinate their kids to be Scientologist, that would be wrong wouldn't it? That would have negative consequences for everyone. What about teaching them that honor killings if they have sex before marriage is ok? Even the bible teaches if a women cheats, she should be stoned. Is that where we are going with our 'choice'? What if a large portion of the population 'chooses' to stone women because that is what their school taught where their parents 'choose' to enroll them. At some point that changes society, and that is the goal of the religious right in promoting private schools. If the Taliban choose to teach stoning, it's Evil, if Christians do it, it's 'Choice'? How did we get to a point where people are ok with tossing out the separation of church and state? People are willing to die for the second amendment, but really like cherry picking everything else.
  - vacuity 3y ago
    Not disagreeing with you, just trying to get a grasp of your principle here: prohibit schools from teaching/encouraging illegal acts? Morality is beyond laws, in a sense, and you might think "immoral acts" is more proper. I don't feel like going down that rabbit hole, but I felt I had to mention it.
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      Teaching about religions, is different than teaching that a specific religion is a fact to follow. The problem is when teaching that immoral acts are 'correct', that they are actually 'moral'. As in 'I was just taught that stoning was a valid response to cheating, hence I can feel moral in stoning someone'. I think you are wrong that Morality is beyond law. If morality can shift based on how you were raised, and then people do want laws to reflect their morality, a society can get to a point where stoning is ok with the law, is legal and moral.
      - vacuity 3y ago
        I suppose I didn't express myself very well. The rabbit hole I mentioned is about how people agree or disagree with aspects of each others' moralities, and what the outcome should be in the larger context of society. I agree that stoning as a punishment for adultery shouldn't be tolerated, but that doesn't mean my principles for believing that are necessarily the same as yours, or that I share your other principles. That's what I'm trying to get at. The dance of which morality is correct and should be enshrined in law (I think anything that is "clearly" immoral should be prohibited by law as a 1:1 mapping; the law is therefore a reflection of morality) is not one I like to partake in. Even if we all agree to discard current major religious beliefs around morality, there will still be many points for people to disagree on. Some people will be very left out and others slightly; that's what I meant by "morality is beyond laws". There is an inherent impasse that arises at this junction.
        FrustratedMonky 3y ago
        Ok. I get that. Agree with that. There is definitely a problem with splitting hairs on finer and finer points, until everyone is subdivided, until each individual has their own religion, their own morality. No two people are identical, and it is also impossible to force or convince everyone to be identical, thus there is always something different to disagree on. So all arguments on religion are really fruitless. I guess I come back to, how to get to a best common good. And in todays US, there is such a wide split between people, that there is also a wide range of things where there could be compromise to have a better society. Every difference is a chance to find a solution. So how do we get to commonalities if kids are indoctrinated (brain washed) from an early age. Religion blocks progress, because if someone truly believes in their god, then they wont compromise. Then there are religious wars, persecutions, inquisitions, etc... And sadly, the US is moving that way with the blurring of the split between state and church. We don't have to agree on all points of religion to make progress, we just have to agree to some basics like maybe treat everyone equally, don't beat up trans kids. Religion should be taught in the home, not in the schools. There should be a lot of room to come together before we get to an impasse. The 'left' is trying to do good, make things better, 'to progress', and they are clueless that the 'right' is actually in a Holy War without compromises where anything goes. It's an un-even fight. This country went to the moon, I never in a million years thought we could backslide into religious dogmatism. So, all of this arguing in this thread that religious schools are ok, is really not looking at history.

jgeada 3y ago

It isn't the parent's money! Everyone in my area pays local taxes, whether they are parents or not, including businesses; the bulk of these local taxes are allocated to fund schools. Most of us don't want our taxes going to charter schools or religious schools, and I'm tired of entitled parents siphoning from the system and leaving everyone worse off. If you want to make changes, fix the rules under which schools operate and allow disruptive kids to be expelled.

davemp 3y ago
> It isn't the parent's money! It’s as much theirs at it is any other citizen’s. > entitled parents siphoning from the system Very loaded choice of words. Parents who feel entitled to what? A quality education for their children? > If you want to make changes, fix the rules under which schools operate and allow disruptive kids to be expelled. Foisting the responsibility on individual parents to push huge political changes through seems entirely unreasonable.
- jgeada 3y ago
  But it is much more everyone else's than theirs. Everyone, individuals and businesses, pays into the pot, whether they have kids in the school or not. Individual parent's taxes are a minority fraction of the actual cost of running the education system. Thus "siphoning": common public moneys being used to pay individual interests. If you want a private education for your kids, go right ahead and pay for it, don't ask the rest of us to subsidize you. And yes, we all want a quality education for all children. Make schools better for everyone, not just the entitled or well connected.
  - mhb 3y ago
    Competition is a way to make things higher quality. School choice is competition.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cmurf 3y ago