Suchergebnisse

Jeffrey Miron


This article appeared on Substack on June 13, 2023
The state of Oklahoma has recently approved a charter for the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, whose curriculum will include religious teaching. Taxpayers will fund the school, so a battle will ensue over whether such funding is desirable or constitutional.
Economic reasoning suggests three possible justifications for government support of education.
First, one person's education might benefit society more broadly. Economic productivity might be higher, for example, if everyone has mastered "the three Rs." Some individuals, however, might ignore this "spillover" and therefore choose too little education relative to the social optimum.
Second, people for whom education would be productive (by raising their future income) might underinvest due to myopia, suggesting that even without spillovers, the laissez‐​faire level of education might be too low. Some parents, in particular, might choose too little education for their children unless policy makes education cheaper.
Third, people for whom education would be beneficial, with or without externalities, and even without myopia, might have insufficient income to pay for private education and face difficulty in borrowing to finance such an investment (credit constraints).
Reasonable people can debate whether these arguments are convincing. Each has some plausibility, yet each is easily overstated.
In Libertarian Land, governments play no role in education, whether via mandatory schooling, public schools, funding for vouchers or charters, state colleges and universities, or subsidized student loans.
The reason is that, while government support might have the benefits described, this support requires government to define what constitutes education, as the Oklahoma controversy illustrates. Government definition of education limits variety and innovation, and in the extreme facilitates thought control. It is no accident that totalitarian regimes exercise extreme control over their educational systems.
If one nevertheless takes as given that, for the foreseeable future, government will fund education, and have the power to determine what kinds of education receive this support, should taxpayer funding be available for religious schools?
Assuming such education meets the curricular standards that government imposes on all schools, public and private, the answer is yes.
Why? Because religious schools can generate the three benefits that potentially justify government support of education. This is the standard reasoning for allowing private religious schools (or home schooling) to satisfy mandatory schooling laws.
Stated differently, allowing taxpayer funding to religious schools that meet the criteria for funding under the state's general rules (e.g., teaching the three Rs) is the neutral position for government with respect to religion. This neutrality is the natural interpretation of the Constitution's establishment clause, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Thus libertarians would prefer little or no government involvement in education. If government does fund education, however, it should not exclude religious schools a priori but instead determine funding based on the criteria that might justify such intervention in the first place.

A far-reaching debate concerning the proper relation between Church & State in France has been occasioned, since the Liberation, almost entirely by the need on the part of religious Sch's for financial aid from the State. Participation of lay & religious org's in the 1951 electoral campaign constitutes probably the most important electioneering on the part of pressure groups to date under the Fourth Republic. In September 1951 the National Assembly finally created a fund to assist parents in educating their children in both public & religious Sch's (the Loi Barang4). The lay forces have pledged an unremitting struggle to repeal this law. The issue of State aid to private Sch's, in driving apart the SFIO & MRP, renders exceptionally difficult a lasting union on the part of the democratic Left, & contributes greatly to cabinet instability. AA-IPSA.

This study examines the effect that private religious schools have on self-esteem. Using data collected from 21 Catholic, evangelical and secular private schools in Guatemala, comparisons are made to determine if there are differences between these school types in students' self-esteem and academic confidence. Hierarchical linear models are constructed to further examine school differences in the presence of controls for gender and gender ideology, family influence and various religious measures. Contrary to many previous findings, results in this study show that Catholic school students generally have lower levels of self-esteem and academic confidence than students at other types of private religious schools. These lower Catholic school findings persist for measures of reflected appraisals and math confidence even in the presence of relevant controls. Full models also show that gender ideology, family background, and religious beliefs and practices have a significant effect on student self-esteem and academic confidence. Overall, results highlight the key role that religious beliefs and religious saliency have on student self-esteem.

The Article defends against various objections, the practice of funding religious schools and other faith-based social service providers, but only on condition that they comply with various public regulations and requirements. Critics of conditional funding—including Moshe Cohen- Eliya—argue that conditional funding is coercive and unfair to poorer religious parents, is often divisive or ineffective, and it threatens the autonomy and integrity of religious communities by putting a price on (or increasing the cost of) some of their religious practices; it would be better simply to prohibit the disfavored educational practices targeted by funding conditionalities. I argue that typical funding conditionalities are not objectionably coercive as long as they are designed to advance defensible public purposes. Unfairness to the poor should be addressed by general redistributive policies. The Article allows that funding conditionalities might undermine religious communities' integrity, and cause social divisions, but that these concerns are speculative and not an adequate basis for disallowing in advance conditional public funding of faith-based institutions.

This report provides an overview of madrasas, their role in the Muslim world, and issues related to their alleged links to terrorism.