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BETSY DEVOS WILL ALLOW RELIGIOUS GROUPS TO APPLY FOR CHARTER GRANTS
One of the hallmarks of the Trump Administration is the never-ending fight for America’s children. In education, that fight has been for religious freedom in K-12 and on college campuses, defining sex in K-12 as a male or female, encouraging patriotic education in K-12, granting due process for anyone accused of sexual harassment, and the list goes on. One of the Trump administration’s most fundamental goals has been to give parents the right to choose where their children could attend school, a goal on which they have never wavered. Now the Department of Education is making a giant leap to make school choice a reality.
At a forum in Kentucky, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos dropped a bombshell when she declared, “Prohibiting religiously affiliated public charter schools is unconstitutional.“ More recently, she stated that she would no longer enforce the decades-old prohibition associated with the use of taxpayer money for religious charter schools. Recent Supreme Court cases have given hope for religious charter schools. The administration is willing to seize this window of opportunity to move forward with giving parents the option of school choice for their children.
Secretary DeVos is not afraid of a fight and most likely will have one on her hands. She has proven her mettle by weathering over 455 lawsuits since taking office in 2017. Besides being a fighter, she has several Supreme Court cases and at least three Supreme Court justices in her corner to help with her vouchers and school choice proposals.
In June, with a five-judge majority, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in favor of a Montana mother using a tax credit program to pay for her children’s education in a religious school. Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue paved the way to pass new voucher programs and defend them against legal challenges. The second case involved a religious private school in Missouri. The court ruled that Missouri could not bar religious private schools from receiving public money for playground resurfacing because they were religious. In a third case, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), the Supreme Court held that school choice scholarships were constitutional and could be used for religious schools and other private schools.
The majority of states have Blaine amendments in their constitutions that prohibit taxpayer money for religious education. Justice Clarence Thomas has never favored the Blaine Amendment and has stated, “This doctrine, born of bigotry, should be buried now.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Samuel Alito have expressed their objections to the Blaine Amendment as a relic of religious bias since its purpose was to prevent Catholics coming to America in the 1800s from using tax money to finance their schools.
It’s no surprise, the two prominent teachers’ unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, are vehemently opposed to school vouchers for any purpose. AFT president Randi Weingarten, one of Joe Biden’s possible appointees for Secretary of Education, criticized school choice when she said that under no circumstances should taxpayer money be diverted away from public education resources.
Regardless of the dissenting voices, education in America is undergoing significant changes. In Indianapolis, candidates on the November ballot who favored charters and school choice won all four seats for a local school board election. Tax-credit programs like the one in Montana are now in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, and New Hampshire. Parents are now more aware of diverse ways to educate their children and are demanding alternatives to failing public schools.
Now is an opportune time for President Trump and Secretary DeVos to stand for vouchers and school choice. The fight ahead may be rigorous, but the outcome will be healthier families and a better America.
About the Author: Nancy Huff is an educator with a mission to equip believers to pray strategically for the Cultural Mountain of Education. She has authored Taking the Mountain of Education: A Strategic Prayer Guide to Transform America’s Schools. She leads prayer groups to pray at key educational locations across the US. Currently, Nancy serves as the Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network (HAPN) Lead Prayer Coordinator for the Mountain of Education. For additional information go to: https://takingthemountainofeducation.com/author/nancyahuff/
Share your prayers in the comments below for healthier families and better schools. . .
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I am very committed to encouraging prayer. As a homeschooling mom, I realized the starting place is attitudes. Making learners starts with parents being teachable. To help, I prepared a-31 day perpetual calendar, praying specific character qualities for my children and home based on scripture. A hymn is shared for heart impact throughout the day.
http://www.mothersprayercalendar.com/Preview.html
Lord, give Betsy Your wisdom to know how to take gradual steps forward in helping parents make their own choices about their children’s education. I pray You’d put Your hand on this whole area and move huge numbers of kids out of our public government run schools into private schools where they will not be brainwashed in evolution, gender confusion and history that has been re-written. Raise the standard in Christian schools. Call many Godly people into the education field and help them understand exactly what You want them to teach. Purify them from the socialism and other liberal brain washing they have been exposed to and give them a pure message based on You and Your word. Bring our education field to a whole new level and I pray the students would thrive in these classrooms and grow in their hunger for You. Raise up ‘Godly teachers to take back the education field in our nation, from pre-schools to kindergarten, to primary school to middle school to high school and in our universities and colleges and graduate schools. Bring the fear of God and teachers who understand Your ways and Your word so they will impart a Godly world view to our students and train students in Godly principles instead of socialism and all the other demonic things that have permeated the education. Expose the government run public schools as the total failures they are, and cause a mass exodus out of them. Amen!
Stand firm. The gates of he’ll can not prevail against the church. Keep speaking it!
National repentance.
Please use the following prayer at least once daily until 31 days after the General Election is certified.
Almighty Everliving God, we – the citizens of America – come to you with humbled and contrite hearts. We repent of our tepid faith, our poorly-developed and fruitless works, and our indifference to You and to our neighbors. We are resolved to return to You, to submit to your Will, and to become again “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” From the doors of our homes, from the gates of our communities, from the seat of our governments, and from the depths of our hearts we return to You for you alone are compassionate enough to heal and restore our Nation. Bless our leaders and everyone in authority – including those who develop, enforce, and adjudicate laws – so that they serve with morality, compassion, integrity, wisdom, and justice so we can all live together in Peace. We stand against those who follow the ways of evil and anarchy, threatening to destroy our Nation and to set aside the blessings and wisdom you gave to our founding fathers. We will return to serving God, Country, and family so that your Name may be glorified. We ask this in the name of Jesus our Lord. AMEN.
May God be with this entire administration!! Whatever the final results are.. this will always be the American Dream Team. Thanks to President Trump and to all the leaders he picked that stayed loyal. You will be rewarded!!
LORD Father,
Thank you for what you have done and will do even among all the negative in this world. I pray for parents to wake up and become aware of what is going on in our public schools, and why, and take action to get back to Gods morals and principles putting you first. May we never forget where our rights and freedoms came from. In Jesus name
I don’t disagree with religious school, but there are at least two things that need to be considered: that public’s schools have enough money to educate the children left in public schools and religious schools are regulated. I saw a YouTube of one school where they were teaching the children to sing songs of hate toward America.
Please Lord give guidance to educator leaders in each state and Betsy DeVos and provide plans of oversight. In Jesus Name. Thank you Papa!
America’s children received immensely better education in little prairie schoolhouses with barely any money at all.
Do you have to be a 501C3 secular religious non Christian corporation controlled by the state to get a grant? Of can free non state churches who actually serve God Almighty/Jesus get a grant?
Lord we pray Your mighty hand of protection be on those elected officials who’s stand by your word and ways
You are a shield for those who live with integrity so that He may guard the paths of Justice and protect the way of His faithful followers
-Proverbs 2:7
Father, You have given us the command, “Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Please forgive us for being lax in this and suffering great loss because of it. Please grant that the leadership that preserves this freedom and endorses our responsibility to educate our children will be promoted and maintained. Please let this generation of believers rise up and declare Your praises as we speak freely of all You have done for us through Jesus in whose name I pray. Amen!
Amen and amen !!
Lord Jesus we Thank President Trump and Betsy DeVos for being obedient to You. I Pray that You, Lord would put the children’s education system in the United States of the in You protective hand. Let the evil and falsehoods of the agendas of the teachers unions and the un-American history they are trying to force down our throats (1619 Project), the outright un-Christian sex educational program, be found out.
Lord Jesus, help us to understand what this means and to be able to talk about it. I know in my heart this is an area that needs our prayers and Your guidance.
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
2 Corinthians 10:4 ESV
Father God,
We pray that Secretary DeVos
continue to be strong in You.
That You would grant her skillful and godly wisdom and that You will keep her and deliver her from the opposition.
We thank You that so many of the Founding Fathers of our nation were strong about the role of religion and morality in the shaping of our education foundations. But we have moved so far away from that foundation today and we are paying the price for the loss of morality in our young people’s lives.
Bring a revival of godliness and a movement of the Holy Spirit among those who can influence and change harmful policies and destructive curriculum.
We thank You for the favorable Supreme Court decisions and ask that You continue to go before Secretary DeVos in battle for the sake of our children and young people in this nation. Amen
I would say when the toothpaste is out of the tube it ain’t going back in! We have not stood up to the enemy when prayer, reading scriptures in our schools and the ten (tender) commandments where considered unnecessary we lost our light and saltiness and now we are weeping the consequences. Duet. 30:19..this day I call Heaven and earth as a witness against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. NOW CHOOSE LIFE SO, THAT YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice and hold fast to Him! Oh Lord have mercy on our sins of omission they are as grevious as our committed ones! Our public schools should be as safe as private ones and could be if we are vigilant and proactive against the Devil’s schemes to deceive, rob, destroy the fruit of our wombs. Even that haven has been invaded for what fifty years? At our lack of watch and courageous action is any child truely safe…wake up, repent, and pray God will give us a new tube of toothpaste, a new beginning, resurrect the dead, new life is His specialty if we return to Him. He gave a party for the worldly prodigal and I think there has been some major prodigal in us all. I pray for Betsy DeVoss and all who have influence to help transform our schools into safe, wise education skills for our children are the future for good prayerfully and not evil. They are very impressionable, vulnerable and moldable by example. Forgive me Father when I failed to be proactive for the public school system in the past.
Thank You God for these people standing for right and these freedoms! Please protect them and allow them to continue! May all children be able to know Your love and Who You are!!