Should parents be allowed to use a public education scholarship to pay tuition for their children to attend a religious school?

That is one of the questions that has been raised in the debate over Utah HB 215 – Funding for Teacher Salaries and Optional Education Opportunities. The bill would allow for adjustments to the state’s current approach to funding education by raising teacher salaries and providing scholarships that some parents can use for alternatives to public schools, including sending their children to private schools they determine will provide the best educational opportunities for their children.

Some object to the idea of taxpayer dollars going to religious schools. A news report on the hearings for HB 215 noted that opponents of the legislation were concerned that many of the private schools at which parents could use scholarship money are religious. Some legislators have expressed similar concerns.

A specific objection raised in one op-ed is that allowing parents to use scholarship money at a religious school could be unconstitutional. The author says: “I have no issue with the existence of religious schooling. However, I do foresee issues with the separation of church and state if the government becomes involved in subsidizing religious education.”

That concern is misplaced. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that parents cannot be excluded from publicly funded scholarship programs solely because they send their children to religious schools. The court held: “A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

The court noted that there is a long history of public funding of religious schools:

In the founding era and the early 19th century, governments provided financial support to private schools, including denominational ones. … Local governments provided grants to private schools, including religious ones, for the education of the poor. … Congress provided support to denominational schools in the District of Columbia until 1848 and Congress paid churches to run schools for American Indians through the end of the 19th century. After the Civil War, Congress spent large sums on education for emancipated freedmen, often by supporting denominational schools in the South through the Freedmen’s Bureau. (citations omitted)

Just last year, the court reiterated that holding in a case involving a Maine law that excluded religious schools from its scholarship program.

Not only is the constitutional concern misplaced, but preventing parents from choosing a school that is best for their children solely because it is religious is likely only to shortchange students.

There are unique secular benefits to society from religious education that would justify a parent’s choice of that option for their children and would also vindicate public support of that choice.

There is research that indicates that “students attending religious schools generally achieve at higher levels academically than students attending nonreligious schools.” Higher academic achievement is associated with better economic outcomes for individuals and families, which benefit communities and society as a whole. 

These schools also provide other benefits. One study found that students “educated in Protestant secondary schools are considerably more likely than other young people to continue to volunteer” and to vote as adults. In other words, religious schools are contributing to the education system’s civic mission of producing citizens who are properly prepared, motivated and able to constructively participate in and understand the responsibilities of American democracy.

Other research links religious school attendance and later stable family life. They are “more than twice as likely to be in an intact marriage” and “50% less likely … to have a child out of wedlock” and “about 60% less likely” to ever be divorced. A larger proportion of stable families means steadier, stronger communities that are better situated to help and support those in their communities who do experience the life disruptions of divorce or single parenting.

Our system of pluralism is premised on the recognition that we often must allow others to make choices we may not agree with or even understand. Those choices may end up pointing to a new and different way that will benefit others. At the very least, our tolerance of the decisions of others can establish a precedent that benefits all who make choices that are not widely accepted.