Visiting the LBJ Ranch in the Texas hill country this weekend, our ad hoc tour group included a gaggle of high-school students from “south of Houston.” They generally seemed pleasant, self-conscious, goofy and teenager-ish. They also seemed entirely ignorant of the 1960’s,  even the basic timeline of 20th Century U.S. history. At least one couldn’t quite remember the name of the 36th President whose ranch this was. Standing in front of the Western White House (a lovely spot on the banks of the Pedernales, by the way, shaded by 400-year-old live oaks), this lad asked the National Park Service ranger, “When did he die? Was it 1993?” The ranger looked slightly puzzled, perhaps because he had already mentioned 1973 as the year of Johnson’s death and because all the biographical material in the park conveyed that key fact. So the kid decided to clarify the subject of his query: “The guy,” he said, evidently either unable to call LBJ’s name to mind or truly unaware of where he was and why he and his pals were taking this tour in the first place.

That was the first of a grand total of two questions posed by these dozen youngsters. The second came while we were inside the President’s office (the only room one can currently tour, considering that this building was Lady Bird’s weekend residence until her own death barely 18 months ago and the Park Service is planning gradually to open more of it to visitors.) “Was he saved?” inquired a girl. That was it. We were standing in a place in which were made any number of momentous decisions involving any number of key figures in U.S. history from 1964 through 1968. (The ranger had mentioned “Martin,” for example, as the epochal civil rights act was being planned.) But the only topic of evident interest to these kids was LBJ’s relationship to God.

Stained-glass Jesus photograph by MAMJODH on Flickr

It’s no secret that some of us (though not all of us ) at Fordham* think that "religious charter schools" is an idea worth exploring. I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel about this very topic  on Monday at the National Association of Charter School Authorizers conference, where, I must admit, I failed to convince the audience of my point of view. But an interesting twist came to light during the discussion: it turns out that some charter school authorizers—the quasi-public bodies that oversee these schools and are charged with holding them accountable—are themselves religious.

Exhibit A is the Minnesota Education Trust, the subject of a recent post by Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten .

"Minnesota Education Trust" sounds pretty generic, but the name seems to convey a clear sense of the organization’s mission. Or does it?

MET’s "principal goals" are set forth in its articles of incorporation, filed with the secretary of state in May 2007. The first goal listed is "to promote the message of Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims and promote understanding between them." Other goals include building a virtuous society and providing education to children and adults. The final goal is to "support schools, community centers, mosques and other organizations that serve the above goals."

Kersten is already in a kerfuffle about an "Arabic" school that appears to be crossing the church/state line, so she’s none too happy about this latest development. But Islamic groups aren’t the only ones getting into the charter game. In Ohio—the only state beyond Minnesota that allows non-profit organizations (such as Fordham ) to sponsor charter schools—at least one authorizer is religiously affiliated. Take a look at the history of Educational Resource Consultants of Ohio , which oversees 25 charter schools:

Christ Tabernacle Ministries of Excellence, Inc. founded Christ Tabernacle Learning Center in 2000 to give educational support for pre-kindergarten student in Hamilton, Ohio. The Learning Center opened for business with two students and now has over sixty students with a standing waiting list....With a mind for excellent performance in education, Christ Tabernacle Ministries of Excellence sought to expand beyond pre-kindergarten to kindergarten through 12th grade to continue academic excellence for higher grades. Educational Resource Consultants of Ohio, Inc. (ERCO) was the brainchild of these thoughts. ERCO was founded in February 2005. We are an educational consulting firm that specializes in authorizing community [charter] schools, and support school treasury and financial consulting... ERCO’s first year of operation saw sponsorship of two community schools. Two years later, our exponential growth is over twelve times greater with a sponsorship of 25 community schools...

Charter advocates in Minnesota are worried enough about this development that they are considering an amendment to state law barring churches from sponsoring charters. I understand the queasiness but don’t share the alarm. Under current law, what matters is that the schools are secular. There are plenty of school boards in the country dominated by religious individuals, but that doesn’t mean the public schools they oversee are religious. Still, isn’t it time for at least one state to experiment by embracing religious charter schools, and test the constitutionality and practicality of such an approach? I sure think so.

* This isn’t the only issue that Fordham staff disagree about .

Bobby Jindal may be wrong in trying to get religion back into science classrooms but at least he’s playing by the (text)book. MSNBC reported yesterday that a science teacher in Mount Vernon, Ohio, burned crosses into the arms of his students.

Apparently, this purveyor of literal messages was trying to demonstrate a classroom device to students... by using it on them.

Fordham has previously come out in favor of religious charter schools. Here’s Checker in 2003, here’s Mike in 2007. And here’s the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in 2008 ; the Wall Street Journal ’s op-ed, which describes an Islamic school funded with taxpayer dollars, is disquieting. We’ve previously covered in Gadfly Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, but we’ve done so, in my mind, in an unsatisfactory manner. (See our first mention here and our next mention, the following week, from Checker, here .)

To allow religious charter schools would set into action a wholly unsavory series of events, and we’d be confronted with all sorts of questions that don’t have easy answers, such as, what is a religion? and what are acceptable religious beliefs? And after reducing our stock of questions, we’ll eventually be left with these bits: Either we allow any and all religions to set up schools to teach any and all of their proclaimed beliefs, or we allow none. The latter seems healthier, so why not save ourselves all the trouble and put the kibosh on talk about religious charter schools?

Update: Via Eduwonk: Looks like the question phase has begun .

Photo by Flickr user corydalus .

This ongoing story is understandably unsettling to lots of people. The more one learns about this school, the more one is convinced it’s unlawful. Ritual washing and Friday prayers? I know Kuhner doesn’t like it....

Update: Mark Hemingway weighs in at The Corner.

Increasing numbers of U.S. Muslims are opting for home schooling. It’s a bad idea for one simple reason: They are segregating themselves from mainstream American society. A recent piece in the New York Times on the struggles faced by Pakistani-American girls in Lodi, California, highlights the problems caused by home schooling. Although many Muslim, as well as Christian, Jewish and secular parents view it as a necessary alternative to the social ills plaguing public schools, such as drugs, violence, promiscuity, and the celebration of the hip-hop/celebrity culture (to name just a few), the adverse consequences on their children are very real and usually last a lifetime. The biggest problem is that home schooling by traditionalist religious communities perpetuates the creation of social ghettoes, whereby students are often alienated and disconnected from the larger American culture. It fosters a kind of balkanization that, ultimately, is not good for America or for the students.

Take the case of the Pakistani-American girls profiled in The Times article. Coming from traditional Islamic families, many of the girls were forced to leave public school and study at home. This is because their parents want them to cook and clean for their male relatives and siblings. It was also done to prevent the girls from being exposed to liberating female cultural mores, such as wearing Western clothes and spending free time after school with friends.

“Some men don’t like it when you wear American clothes - they don’t think it is a good thing for girls,” says Hajra Bibi, a 17-year-old who is now studying at the 12^th-grade level. “You have to be respectable.”

Moreover, many of the parents insist the girls remain isolated so that they can intermarry with relatives or close friends from the same villages in Pakistan. The goal is to reinforce their ethnic and religious identity. This serves only to act as a bulwark against assimilation into American culture.

“Their families want them to retain their culture and not become Americanized,” said Roberta Wall, the principal of the district-run Independent School, which supervises home schooling in Lodi and where home-schooled students attend weekly hour-long tutorials.

It’s not just that these girls are being denied the opportunity to participate fully in American life. They are also the victims of a deep-seated misogyny, which seeks to reinforce the traditional Pakistani male-dominated culture. The Times piece points out it is the girls, and not the boys, who are forced into home schooling. Of the more than 90 Pakistani or other Southeast Asian girls of high school age who are enrolled in the Lodi district, 38 are being home-schooled. By contrast, only 7 of the 107 boys are being home-schooled-often due to academic-learning issues. Once the girls finish high school they are married off. Many of the boys, however, go on to university.

This may be acceptable in Pakistan; it shouldn’t be in America. I am all in favor of parental choice in education. And if some Pakistani-American parents in Lodi, or anywhere else, want to use home schooling as a way to keep their daughters isolated, educationally deprived and sheltered, that is their right. But it is their children who are losing out. Their educational development is being stunted; their professional prospects are being severely narrowed; and their integration into American society is being held back. Europe is already dealing with the serious consequences of large, unassimilated Muslim populations. America should not replicate that failure here.

The only way to reverse this trend towards voluntary religious segregation is to stress the benefits of assimilation. This should not be done through coercion or denying parents the right to home-school their kids, but the way millions of previous immigrants were successfully absorbed: social pressure and the cultural melting pot. For all of its flaws, the melting pot approach has served America-and its numerous waves of immigrants-very well. It can do the same for this generation’s Muslim newcomers.

To succeed, however, Americans must re-embrace it, and jettison the destructive ideology of multiculturalism. If we don’t, then we’ll gradually start to see a new apartheid emerging in this country-not a separation based on race (as in South Africa or the Jim Crow South), but on religion. This is a recipe for disaster.