Supreme Court Ruling Adds to Assault on Public Schools

The Supreme Court, in a split decision reflecting its political schism, upheld the use of state tax credits that pay for children to attend religiously affiliated schools "cannot be challenged on constitutional grounds." The story from today's LA Times reviews the decision, the reactions of very interested parties, and the decision's likely impact on public and church schools.

The ruling continues a trend in which classist forces, such as Mike Bloomberg and Barack Obama, have found common ground with reactionary religious organizations and political conservatives. Both groups want the end of the public school system as we know it. The classists believe an education "crisis" exists which can only be solved through the erosion of teacher's union clout, the creation of "new" schools, and the need for "21st Century" curricula and instruction. In this effort, an entire generation of teachers has essentially been told to hit the road. Why? They're allegedly too expensive, indifferent to students, and unable to teach. Curiously, the people making this criticism may very well have been taught by the same instructors now given a collective dunce cap.

The right-wing doesn't like public schools on principle (no pun intended). Their mantra is "choice," though that slogan has become a Trojan horse for the taxpayer subsidy of religious education. Nothing good can result in the United States from state supported religion. The Supreme Court's conservative wing, with its intention to provide a legal foundation for the right-wing's moral agenda, produced a transparently specious line of reasoning to support a politically motivated decision.

The big losers are, again, teachers. The public schools will certainly be weakened; the religious schools can pay lower salaries and demand fealty to religious beliefs, while keeping their hand out for taxpayer funding.