No state or federal organization tracks the curriculum being used in private school choice programs. The religious affiliations of schools that participate in these programs are also not always tracked.
That means there are thousands of kids receiving an extremist and ultraconservative education at the expense of taxpayers.
Several months ago, HuffPost set out to create a database of every private school in the country that receives taxpayer funding. We also tracked the religious affiliation of each school and looked at how many taught from these evangelical Christian textbooks.
Our analysis found that about 75 percent of voucher schools across the country are religious ― usually Christian or Catholic, with about 2 percent identifying as Jewish and 1 percent identifying as Muslim. There were gray areas: At least six schools identified as non-religious but used a curriculum created by the founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard.
What Their Textbooks Say
ENVIRONMENTALISTS HATE PEOPLE
What the Abeka textbook says: “Radical environmentalists” don’t just appreciate nature, but they “worship” it. In a pursuit of preservation, environmentalists “view mankind as the enemy of nature.” Environmentalists advocate for laws that hinder the advance of technology.
Abeka, America: Land I Love, page 359
What the academic says: The textbook seems to be suggesting that environmentalists have ulterior motives, says Southern Methodist University history Professor Edward F. Countryman. The passage misrepresents the intentions of environmentalists and promotes a Tea Party view of environmentalism. “That’s party propaganda,” said Countryman of the passage.
NELSON MANDELA WAS MARXIST
What the Abeka textbook says: Nelson Mandela, the South African leader who helped dismantle apartheid, was a “Marxist agitator” who helped move the country toward “Communist tyranny” and a system of “radical ‘affirmative action.’”
Abeka, World History And Cultures, page 450
What the academic says: The Abeka section on Nelson Mandela contains many inaccuracies and attempts to delegitimize Nelson Mandela and his movement, says Southern Methodist University professor Jill Kelly. The term “Marxist agitator is incendiary language to dehumanize him and make his resistance not legitimate,” says Kelly, who specializes in South African history. The affirmative action system put in was not radical and not much different from the system in place in America, says Kelly.
SATAN CREATED PSYCHOLOGY
What the Abeka textbook says: Satan did not want people worshipping God, so in the late 1800s, Satan hatched “the ideas of evolution, socialism, Marxist-socialism (Communism), progressive education, and modern psychology” to counter America’s increased religiosity.
Abeka, America: Land I Love, page 282
What the academic says: “This is not historical explanation. This is invoking something that can neither be proven nor disproven, it’s faith,” says Southern Methodist University professor Ed Countryman.
GOD WANTS ONLY MODEST WOMEN
What the ACE textbook says: After women gained the right to vote in the 1920s and started working more outside the home, they also started behaving in increasingly anti-Christian ways. Women moved from being “obedient to their own husbands as Titus 2:5 instructs” to having the audacity to start cutting their hair and wearing short skirts.
ACE Social Studies, PACE 1131, page 25
What the academic says: In reality, the 1920s were a liberating time for women, says Southern Methodist University history professor Ed Countryman. After World War I, when many women went to work in factories, women gained some financial freedom. Of course women were still expected to be largely passive, but it became more normal for them to assert themselves in and outside the homes. Instead, the textbook’s framing of these developments are “as anti-woman as you can get,” Countryman said.
THE “WAR BETWEEN THE STATES”
What the ACE textbook says: There were many causes for the “war between the states,” or the Civil War, according to ACE. Slavery is a “likely causal” factor, but not the only one. States’ rights and protective tariffs also played a big role. God may have also been punishing people with the war, as it was preceded by a time of “religious apostasy and cultism.” After the war, the South suffered, but it “rose from the ashes” to become the Bible Belt, “a part of the country that has continued to stand firm on the fundamentals of Christian faith.”
ACE Social Studies, PACE 1126, page 1
What the academic says: The textbook ignores the fact that slavery was the driving factor behind the Civil War, which is clear from the early documents of the confederacy and secession documents, says Southern Methodist University professor Countryman. The textbook also suggests that God created the war as punishment, which is deeply problematic. “That’s like saying Katrina was some sort of punishment on New Orleans. Or Sandy on New York,” said Countryman.
BLACK SUPREMACIST ACTIVISTS
What the Abeka textbook says: During the civil rights movement, some activists belonged to “black supremacist” organizations, which were akin to white supremacist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. The most prominent “black supremacist” of the era was Malcolm X.
Abeka, America: Land I Love, page 356
What the academic says: “This is factually wrong,” says Countryman. Malcolm X was not a “black supremacist” but was, for a time, a “separatist,” preaching the cause of a separate nation for African Americans.
A Bob Jones high school world history textbook portrays Islam as a violent religion and contains a title “Islam and Murder.” In the same textbook, when describing the Catholic Reformation, Catholic leaders are described as failing “to see that the root of their problems was doctrinal error.”
When describing the concept of Manifest Destiny, the term used to describe America’s 19th century expansion westward, an ACE textbook referred to the movement essentially as spreading the gospel: “It was considered God’s will that this vastly superior American culture should spread to all corners of the North American continent,” the passage reads. “The benighted Indians would be among the many beneficiaries of God’s provision.”
David Brockman, an expert on world religions, was presented with passages from the Bob Jones and ACE textbooks. Most Protestants would likely disagree with the theological and historical narratives portrayed in the books, he said.
“The textbook simply distorts history,” wrote Brockman, a non-resident scholar at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, after examining the selections. “And given the biblical command not to bear false witness, I would question whether a distorted history is consistent with Christian teaching.”
With taxpayers footing the bill for religious private schools, the separation of church and state, a cornerstone of American democracy, becomes a murky line. So how did it come to be that taxpayers are footing the bill for an evangelical education?
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