Tax Dollars Are Now Funding Christian-Nationalist Schools

Turning Point Christian Academy in St. Augustine, Florida. Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Google Maps

Three days before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and blotted out the sky with its audacious destruction of a basic constitutional right, the Court dealt a major blow to the much older tradition of separation of church and state. In Carson v. Makin, the same six justices who killed federal abortion rights decided it was unconstitutional to deny public funds to private schools simply because they are sponsored by religious organizations or teach religious doctrines. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which effectively killed the so-called Blaine Amendments in many state constitutions, which banned taxpayer subsidies for religious schools. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that the implications went deeper than the small Maine private-school scholarship program at issue in the case:

Today, the Court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation. If a State cannot offer subsidies to its citizens without being required to fund religious exercise, any State that values its historic antiestablishment interests more than this Court does will have to curtail the support it offers to its citizens. 

Sotomayor was right about the sweeping scope of the decision but perhaps didn’t anticipate how powerfully the wind was blowing for taxpayer support for private schools. Republican-controlled state governments are in the process of turning what used to be marginal, experimental private-school voucher programs into a fundamental right to use public funds to finance private K–12 education. And thanks to Carson v. Makin, the principal beneficiaries in many states are religious schools, as the Washington Post reported earlier this month:

Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades.

School vouchers can be used at almost any private school, but the vast majority of the money is being directed to religious schools, according to a Washington Post examination of the nation’s largest voucher programs …

Voucher programs, which vary in their details, have grown particularly large in a half-dozen states. In each of these, participating families have overwhelmingly chosen religious schools, sometimes using the subsidy for schools their children were already attending before the programs began.

The Post found that 91 percent of voucher recipients in Ohio, 96 percent in Wisconsin, and 98 percent in Indiana attended religious schools. In Florida, one of six states with universal (or near-universal) voucher programs with no limitations based on income or the availability of quality public education, 82 percent of recipients attend religious schools. And in Arizona, which has two separate voucher programs that together cover virtually all students (including those who are homeschooled), 87 percent of the dollars have gone to religious schools.

The trend toward making vouchers available to all students with no targeting means a massive shift of tax dollars to kids already attending private schools, particularly well-established Catholic schools and those catering to wealthy families. This reflects the “parental rights” ideology so many Republicans now embrace, which denies taxpayers or their representatives any role in determining where educational funds go. It’s clear that vouchers are operating as seed money for a whole new breed of religious schools that is far less conventional than the familiar parochial schools found nearly everywhere. Kiera Butler of Mother Jones points to a school run by Phoenix’s huge Dream City Church that hosted a recent Donald Trump election rally:

In addition to its thrumming weekly worship sessions and its blockbuster events, the church has another project: Dream City Christian Academy. The K–12 private school, which serves nearly 800 students, is part of Turning Point USA’s Turning Point Academy program, a network of 41 schools that describes itself as “an educational movement that exists to glorify God and preserve the founding principles of the United States through influencing and inspiring the formation of the next generation.” Dream City Christian Academy promises to “protect our campus from the infiltration of unethical agendas by rejecting all ‘woke’ and untruthful ideologies being pushed on students.”

That’s right: Turning Point USA, the infamous MAGA group that plays a key role in mobilizing Trump voters to put him back in the White House, also franchises private religious schools using voucher funds and teaches its own peculiar brand of Christian nationalism. As Rolling Stone reported last year, TPUSA has taken a major turn toward right-wing religion:

In recent months, TPUSA has adopted a cause that’s very different from foisting Milton Friedman on frat boys. The group is putting its cash, and its political cachet, behind Christian nationalism, promising to “restore America’s biblical values.” Indeed, TPUSA has embraced a new crusade to “empower Christians to change the trajectory of our nation.”

TPUSA’s faith initiative is currently backing the reactionary preacher Sean Feucht in his Kingdom to the Capitol tour, where he’s staging “revivals” at the nation’s 50 statehouses. The MAGA preacher is explicit about the aim — declaring that he wants “believers to be the ones writing the laws!” and pleading “guilty as charged!” to Christian nationalism. “It’s all part of the King coming back,” Feucht told followers in Oklahoma — a reference to the second coming of Jesus. “That’s what we’re practicing for.”

Feucht, a religious musician turned self-styled prophet, is one of the most prominent among the breed of “independent charismatic” preachers who have identified Trump’s vengeful politics with “spiritual warfare” against allegedly demonic feminists and progressives. His are the sort of teachings tax dollars are supporting via religious schools in the guise of giving kids and parents “options.” Thanks a lot, Supreme Court.