Re: Idea: JET - Jewish Education Trust
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Posted by Al Gordon on 21:59:26 2007/08/04
In Reply to:
Re: Public and Catholic education is constitutional, others are not posted by Josh Green
Taxpayer funding of religious schools creates a lot of problems, including:
1. The end of any pretense that we have separation of church and state. The state will be in bed with the parishes, and pulling the strings of the more compliant and ignoring hatred and incitement in the more threatening and vote-rich.
2. There will be more fragmentation, as it is easier to convince kids that those of a different religion are "brothers of apes and pigs" and other despicable epithets when the kids are not learning and playing hockey together. It's tough to look at a kid who is just like you and believe such garbage. Increased religious school funding is spreading the manure in which extremism will grow.
3. There will be uncontrolled preaching of hatred and martyrdom in some schools, and it does not take many such institutions to have a 9/11 in Toronto or to further erode our tolerant culture through demands for accommodation and lawsuits for "insults" that are the normal discourse in Canada.
4. Massive increase in tax burden, leading to resentment of those groups who are living off the hard-earned tax dollars of those do not use the religious schools.
5. Canada will become an even more attractive magnet for those who seek to promote their particular sect through violence, because they know that their brainwashing will be paid for by the stupid taxpayers whom they plan to attack. The number of such immigrants and refugees will grow dangerously.
SOLUTION?
A Jewish Education Trust, or JET, may be an alternative. Within the Jewish community you have the normal range of material well-being from struggling to fabulously wealthy. If the community were to establish an education trust in which families would contribute according to their ability, then day school tuition could be affordable for all.
There is a strong economic case for JET. Universal religious school funding will increase taxes. Sticking with the Jewish example, a Jewish taxpayer would see a significant increase in his taxes. Probably 40% of that increase would be eaten up in bureaucratic overhead of the government department that would distribute the money and manage the certification, inspections, tribunals, etc.
Of the 60% that is left, it would be spent on all religious schools pro rata to population. The small Jewish population would mean that little would be left for the Jewish schools, likely 2-3%.
Compare that to Jews donating to JET, which would likely invest close to 100%, not 2-3%, in Jewish education, with no money going to a massive bureaucracy of CUPE employees (a union that is blatantly anti-Israel and probably anti-you-know-what) an not a cent going to Muslim, Sikh, Evangelical Christian, or other schools.
So why do some in the Jewish community want to spend more money to get less, and at the same time bankroll incitement of which they will be the primary victims, as well as expand the ranks of CUPE?
These statistics may not be precise, but the principle still stands. Would appreciate any thoughts on JET.
Al
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