President Bush urges steps to save urban religious schools

WASHINGTON — President Bush called for more proactive measures to help urban religious schools — including expanding voucher programs — and invoked the spirit of Pope Benedict XVI in a speech April 24 at a summit on faith-based schools in inner cities.

“America’s inner-city faith-based schools are closing at an alarming rate,” Bush said.

“Helping inner-city children receive the education they deserve is so important as we head into the 21st century.”

The president said close to 1,200 faith-based schools closed in U.S. inner cities between 2000 and 2006, affecting about 400,000 students. While defending his work with public schools through his “No Child Left Behind” initiative, Bush said parents should have options when their public schools are not meeting proper standards.

According to recent data from the National Catholic Educational Association, about 29 percent of students in Catholic schools come from racial or ethnic minorities, up from 11 percent in 1970. About 14 percent of students in Catholic schools are non-Catholics.

Bush suggested that there should be greater efforts to overturn so-called “Blaine Amendments,” which prohibit public money for religious schools and currently exist in more than 30 state constitutions.

“These amendments have their roots in 19th century anti-Catholic bigotry and today continue to harm low-income students of many faiths and many backgrounds,” he said.

Bush also said he would continue seeking congressional expansion of the D.C. Choice Incentive Act, a pilot voucher program that permits funding of students in religious and nonreligious private schools in Washington, D.C.

— RNS

Note: The Baptist Joint Committee acknowledges that the Blaine Amendments may have, in part, been fueled by anti-Catholic bigotry. This history, however, does not negate the fact that now state constitutional provisions are applied broadly to all religious institutions and do not discriminate based upon a particular religious denomination.