Texas just passed a law that gives extra funding to public schools that teach the Bible.
this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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Checked my Texas municipal property taxes recently. We've dropped ISD funding by 30% over five years. Meanwhile, city police spending has surged by 25%.
So I'm paying slightly less than I did five years ago, but over $1k/year of that has simply been a transfer from teachers to cops.
Are you comparing raw dollars or percentage of property tax? Accounting for inflation and the increase of your property value? What about the whole situation where Texas collects the taxes but only disburses up to some amount to schools. Probably easier to just look at the ISD financials. Just need to remove all expenses for non education activities, like sports and administration. I wonder if the ISD funding also gets used to pay for ISD specific police. Just asking questions, without actually doing the work, betting teachers have lost way more than 30% in 5 years. Texas government is actively trying to prove that public education doesn't work so they can justify privatization, and bring back legal segregation plus religious schooling funded by taxes.
Are you comparing raw dollars or percentage of property tax?
Raw dollars. I paid $2980 to HISD in 2019 and $2035 to HISD in 2024. Incidentally, my housing price has increased 20% over this same time.
Texas government is actively trying to prove that public education doesn’t work so they can justify privatization, and bring back legal segregation plus religious schooling funded by taxes.
Yup
They urgently need russian orthodox popes on payroll
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Maybe I'm even more cynical, but it feels like us evangelical christianity is being used as a tool. A gullible fool.
So all these old gheezers are vaguely pushing for a US Christian nationalism... But coronated someone who doesn't really care about that beyond how they can elect him, and basically shoved their values out the the party's window.
And US youth is increasingly less Christian. Including Trump supporting youth.
So... I'm not even worried about this long term, relative to everything else to worry about. There will be short term scares, but post Trump Trumpism is not going to be very religious.
Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation would like a word. Or not. They do better when no one pays attention to them.
Orange man indeed doesn't care.
It's the people whispering in his ear that are pushing their brand of Christianity(TM) to positions of power.
Evangelical Christianity has absolutely been used as a political tool for the past generation.
~~Evangelical~~ Christianity has absolutely been used as a political tool for ~~the past generation~~ ever
FTFY
You have to be gullible to become an evangelical in the first place.
Watson Heston had no trouble explaining this to people via cartoon in the 19th century.
Bonus cartoon:
The funny thing is, being anti religion in public schools was a Protestant thing in the 19th century US. The KKK were also very much in favor of public education without religion, and advocated for laws against private schools. Private schools were associated with Catholicism, until integration - you can see the allusion with the shadow of the mitre in the second image.
Evangelical Christians have really just been throwing a decades long fit over the fact that Black children get to go to the same school as their kids.
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That second one is legitimately one of the best political cartoons I’ve see
I love most of Heston's stuff. Although some of it is pretty antisemitic, at least from this atheist Jew's perspective.
The only way religion should be handled in school is in a philosophy class
Which should talk about religion at most, not teach religion. You can talk about what religions believe and the differences between them, but you shouldn't teach the religion itself.
Prezactly
What about history?
History already has a class and last I looked religion was only touched on for the crusades and jihads. Religion should have its own department to allow in-depth discussion of it in all its many flavors.
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Alt: the freethought road versus the Orthodox route, a drawing from 1890 about the separate paths faith and reason will lead you to.
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Bro people just gonna walk around that wall.
And we should let them. People can choose in what to believe in and we shouldnt disallow it. The point is secularism. Church and state should be separate. When organized religion is kept out of public schools, with time, religion slowly fades away as there is less need for it.
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I recognize this artist instantly - it's Matt Wuerker, a fellow student from Lewis & Clark College. He and I worked on the school paper at the same time - he had already developed his distinctive cartooning style at that age. I don't recall ever talking with him, so I srsly doubt he would remember me, but I've always been a fan of his work. He's one of the more distinguished L&C grads IMO - along with Monica Lewinsky and actress Markie Post (RIP, best known as the beautiful lawyer on Night Court).
USA: What about second Church? We can cut school.
This should not be controversial
Theology has no place at the table of knowledge
Except in social studies class. People should be aware of other people's religions. But each religion should be taught equally, or in proportion to how many members they have. Kids should also be able to learn why people join religions and why religions are persuasive.
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It’s crazy that the conservative Christians have forgotten their own narrative. They claim that “freedom of religion” is about selecting and practicing a preferred denomination of Christianity. Separation from the Church of England (state defined Christianity) is a huge part of their narrative of the creation of the US.
They will discover why that is important in their narrative of history if they continue on this path.
Disagree. People without any religious knowledge are more susceptible to being lured into one.
Instead, school should teach about the history (how they came to be) of the mayor religions.
Out of curiosity do you have any evidence to back that claim for those raised in an environment where you have a high degree of science education? Like I know without science to explain the natural world, religion makes "sense". But as long as you have a strong knowledge base in science I'm not convinced people would be easily swayed by religion.
For example, I was raised without religion, and I've never seen much of a reason to learn about it. That being said whenever I hear someone talk about religion it sounds particularly absurd to my ears. "Sky Daddy will fix all your ills, you just need to trust in sky Daddy. Sky Daddy doesn't like it when you X." I'm sorry, what? Uh no.
But did you learn about them and their history though? Even in one of the most laïc country in the world we heard a lot about various religions in relation to history etc.
Where I live now a lot of school are either super-liberal or the ones with a bit more structure are usually under this strange system where the schools are technically Christian but there's nothing about it in the lessons and kids from all religious backgrounds attend but they'll maybe have a bible somewhere or whatever because a lot of the funding for the schools come from the churches. That's even the case in some of these super liberal schools. Can't say I'm a fan of that and it's a part of why we're considering leaving.
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No. We already know how to prevent that without teaching religion. Building a solid foundation on science, critical thinking and evidence based knowledge.
science hasn't been anywhere near there for as long as I can remember
I remember when Lauren Boebert said the church should be telling the government what to do, and the crowd she said this to cheered.
The religions will pay for it! It worked so well with the last wall…
Luther was among the first to advocate for separation of Church and State. First, to keep the State out of Church business. And second, to clear the path for a more democratic structure for Christianity but not for the State.
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