A Charter Madrassa

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Many people favor making our economy freer, but haven't thought that deeply about some of the difficulties of actually achieving that goal. And many of these same people innocently support such measures as charter schools or voucher programs, thinking of them as viable alternatives to public education, or even as steps towards privatizing education.

Unfortunately, decreased government regulation will not, yanked out of the greater context of the need to protect individual rights, necessarily lead to private education or even a freer economy. In fact, half-measures such as charter schools can backfire spectacularly, as we can see in Minnesota.

Recently, Amanda Gertz, a substitute teacher who filled in at Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, volunteered some very interesting news to a reporter whose efforts to learn more about the charter school had been met with stonewalling:

Arriving on a Friday, the Muslim holy day, she says she was told that the day's schedule included a "school assembly" in the gym after lunch.

Before the assembly, she says she was told, her duties would include taking her fifth-grade students to the bathroom, four at a time, to perform "their ritual washing."

Afterward, Getz said, "teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day," was preparing to lead prayer. Beside him, another man "was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered."

"The prayer I saw was not voluntary," Getz said. "The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred."

Islamic Studies was also incorporated into the school day. "When I arrived, I was told 'after school we have Islamic Studies,' and I might have to stay for hall duty," Getz said. "The teachers had written assignments on the blackboard for classes like math and social studies. Islamic Studies was the last one -- the board said the kids were studying the Qu'ran. The students were told to copy it into their planner, along with everything else. That gave me the impression that Islamic Studies was a subject like any other."

... [B]uses leave only after Islamic Studies is over. [This is despite it being an "optional" activity. --ed]
Certainly, Moslem parents should be free to send their children to a Moslem school -- at their own expense. A private system of education would not prevent that. But it would prevent ordinary citizens who -- like myself -- would never voluntarily donate money towards the spread of Islam, from being forced to do so through taxation.

It could conceivably be that something like charter schools or voucher programs will one day serve as a transitional step from our current socialized system of education to a free market system. But such programs must avoid state funding of religious instruction. This is clearly difficult to do, which is why such programs would deserve support only if there is a definite plan to privatize the entire system on a definite timetable.

In a mixed economy, controls breed controls (and not just in the economic realm), making all arrangements inherently unstable. This is partly because of distortions in the economy created by the controls, and partly due to the fact that there are always people willing to take loot when it's being passed around. In other words, mixed economies foster bad decision-making and dishonesty.

The longer a provision, such as that which allows for charter schools, is on the books, the more likely it will be to invite widespread and spectacular abuses. (And as we have seen, the public system is already being subverted for such tax-funded indoctrination as religious instruction and leftist reeducation!) Without a clear movement towards capitalism, many such measures are better left on the cutting room floor.

-- CAV

7 comments:

Burgess Laughlin said...

Thank you for highlighting this institution and the underlying problem (the lack of capitalism, the political system devoted solely to protecting individual rights).

Cultures change slowly. One metaphor is the movement of a sand dune. In a light breeze, which is the normal condition, the dune actually moves over time, but only as individual grains of sand are shifted an inch or so, one by one.

This school you have discussed is one grain of sand in a shifting dune. The lack of widespread principled opposition is disturbing.

One minor correction: A madrasa (also spelled madrasah or madrassa) is, strictly speaking, a school of higher learning, not a school for lower-level students.

The madrasa was very likely the inspiration for the Christian colleges that appeared in Paris in the 1100s, as antecedents to the rise of the university there (a unique Western invention, by the way).

In fully Islamic societies, lower level schools are attached to or are part of mosques. They are "mosque schools." By contrast, a madrasa, which is organizationally independent of any mosque, teaches higher level subjects (such as religious law, fiqh) to students who much earlier learned to read, write, and memorize the Qur'an in lower-level schools.

An excellent, quick source for such things: Cyril Glasse, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam.

Gus Van Horn said...

And thanks for the background information about madrassas. I had heard that a type of Islamic school inspired the university, but I did not know it was the madrassa, or that I was misusing the term.

Monica said...

Hm. I wonder if such a school could be part of Bush's faith based initiatives? heh.

Gus Van Horn said...

Maybe not legally, but the religious right does see vouchers, at least, as a "close cousin" of faith-based initiatives.

C. August said...

It could conceivably be that something like charter schools ... will one day serve as a transitional step ... to a free market system. But such programs must avoid state funding of religious instruction.

That's an interesting idea, and certainly one that the Republicans often try to use when supporting these programs. Of course they aren't as intellectually honest in their assessments, nor do they really want a free market system.

What this really highlights, however, is just what you implied in your "close cousin" comment. Rather than avoiding religious instruction, conservatives are co-opting the good ideas of the free market system to push religious instruction.

It's similar to the way they support "privatizing" social security, as if any government-mandated social justice program could ever be considered part of a free market. But some people recoil at the idea of big government programs, so the conservatives pander to that idea by sugarcoating the issue with talk of free markets.

In the same way, religious conservatives -- Christians, and now apparently Muslims -- are using the privatization/free market smokescreen to smuggle in public financing of their religious goals.

Gus Van Horn said...

"Rather than avoiding religious instruction, conservatives are co-opting the good ideas of the free market system to push religious instruction."

The fact that they want prayer back in the public schools should have been a red flag long ago.

If they really wanted to be free to have their kids pray while in school -- vice making all kids pray, they'd have gotten on the side of private schools ages ago, and we'd praobably have them by now.

Monica said...

"In the same way, religious conservatives -- Christians, and now apparently Muslims -- are using the privatization/free market smokescreen to smuggle in public financing of their religious goals. "

Oh yes. In the same way that modern churches use the capitalism smokescreen in order to get people into their churches and convert them to altruism... Boggles the mind...