Written by Don Byrd
The Ohio House Education Committee is set to consider legislation that would authorize public schools to allow students release time for religious education off campus. HB 171 specifies students must provide their own transportation, and that no public funds may be used to support the courses. Students would receive school credit for the courses.
Cincinnati.com reports (emphasis added):
If the bill becomes law, Ohio would be the only state other than South Carolina offering school credit for outside religious classes. Democratic and Republican bill sponsors say they want to encourage teenagers to take religious classes.“It’s an attempt to reinstall some of the same things that made this country great,” said Rep. Bill Patmon, a Democrat from Cleveland who is one of the bill’s two main sponsors.
The safeguards in place may be helpful – this program is voluntary, with no mixing of public funds allowed, and students are not allowed to substitute religious courses for core requirements. But the purpose behind the legislation is clear and troublesome. Of course, you know what “reinstall the things that made this country great” means in the lexicion of those who oppose church-states separation… prayer and religious indoctrination in school.
The bill specifies that school officials must use “secular criteria” in determining which course offerings qualify for credit, but it fails to indicate the specifics of those criteria, or explain how secular criteria can be used to evaluate overtly religious content. This creates complications and entanglements for the public school system. If the criteria must be secular, why not just require the content to be secular as well, and leave the religious education outside the public school system?
