Nick Bell – 11/30/10

This page was last updated on December 1, 2010.

Should tax money follow the student?; Nick Bell; Beaver County Times; November 30, 2010.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“There is much more to the debate surrounding the allowance of the Baden Academy Charter School to set up shop at the former Mount Gallitzin Academy.

“Students view charter schools as a way of escaping traditional schools: places where students have been going for decades to sit and learn academics as well as a multitude of social skills, something that these charter schools (most especially cyber charter schools) are robbing from their students.”

[RWC] Logically we must assume Mr. Bell doesn’t look favorably on homeschooling either.

“The fundamental issue, however, on which the Ambridge Area School Board is focusing, is the separation of church and state.”

[RWC] Though it’s an entire discussion by itself, there is no such thing as “the separation of church and state” in either the PA or U.S. constitutions.

“A huge fear of the school board may be the fact that if the Baden Academy is established as a public charter school in an obviously Catholic environment, debate for allowing tax dollars to follow Catholic school children to their prospective schools will come about.”

[RWC] Note how Mr. Bell considers a building formerly used for a Catholic school to be “an obviously Catholic environment.” I attended St. Titus grade school and the building had nothing to do with St. Titus being “an obviously Catholic environment.”

Mr. Bell is close to being right. The “huge fear of the school board” is that it will lose power to the parents of the school district. To maintain power, the school board must make sure parents have no choices they can afford. If the proposed building used to be a public school, the school board would have come up with a whole other set of objections.

“Being a product of Catholic education, I feel that this is a debate that is long overdue.

“If you support the establishment of a public school in a Catholic building, how is it different from allowing parents’ tax dollars to follow their children to a Catholic school?”

[RWC] In what used to be a synagogue in Chippewa Township, there is now a dialysis clinic. Does that mean Medicaid and Medicare can’t pay for treatment there? And what about Villa St. Joseph skilled nursing facility in Baden, run by the Sisters of St. Joseph?

“If the Baden Academy takes root at Mount Gallitzin, Catholic school students should receive their parents’ tax money to fund their pricey Catholic education.”

[RWC] Ignoring his flawed logic, Mr. Bell needs to read the PA Constitution. Article III, Section 15 says, “No money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school.” Article III, Section 30 says, “No appropriation shall be made to any charitable or educational institution not under the absolute control of the Commonwealth, other than normal schools established by law for the professional training of teachers for the public schools of the State, except by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each House.” Therefore, though I’m no lawyer, I believe Article III, Section 15 would have to be repealed or amended to allow “parents’ tax money” to follow kids to church-run schools. That’s quite a hurdle.

As for the “pricey Catholic education” comment, I researched local Catholic school tuition several years ago. All of the local Catholic schools charged tuitions significantly lower than the per-pupil costs of local public schools. Part of that lower tuition was the result of giving by various benefactors. Unlike public schools which can raise revenue to cover costs by raising taxes, private schools must make ends meet via tuition plus charitable giving.