A Victory for Christian Schools

By Ellie McGrath

Basics and the Bible are freed from state control

It is 8:30 a.m. on a wintry Michigan day. In a classroom decorated with a large Scripture verse and accordion-pleated angels sit 27 third-and fourth-graders. The mood is quiet and serious. Lessons start with the Pledge of Allegiance, then a stanza of America. The students pray aloud for relatives; they thank God for Bobby's new glasses. For 45 minutes, their teacher, Joel Allen, 28, leads the students through Bible study. "Who made you?" he asks. "God made me. Job 33:4, "the children answer. During the course of the 6 1/2hour day at the Bridgeport Baptist Academy, the students, ages four to 18, are drilled in the basics and the Bible. Says Allen: "We don't consider it a job working here. We consider it a ministry."

The independence of that ministry was resoundingly upheld last week. In a strong, unambiguous decision, a Michigan judge reaffirmed the First Amendment guarantee of separation of church and state by exempting private Christian schools from state supervision of their curriculum and teachers. Ministers, teachers and parents of the Bridgeport Baptist Academy and the Sheridan Road Christian School, both near Saginaw, had charged that attempts by the state's board of education to supervise curriculum and teacher qualifications violated their religious freedom. Judge Ray Hotchkiss agreed, ruling that the board, by imposing its secular standards of education on religious schooling, "interfered with plaintiffs' constitutional right to freely exercise their religion." Said Hotchkiss: "This court fails to see a compelling state interest in requiring nonpublic schools to be of the 'same standard' as public schools in the same district. Such a scheme does not ensure even a minimum degree of quality of education." Hotchkiss, however, did uphold the state's right to impose on the Christian schools health and safety requirements, to which they had never objected.

The fundamentalists were jubilant at their victory. Said Sheridan Road Principal Bill Swain: "We knew our position was strongly supported by the Bible. We thought we had the Constitution on our side. But I didn't expect to get a favorable decision." William Bentley Ball, a leading constitutional lawyer who argued for the two schools, called the judgment "very strong on religious liberty, clarifying the right to teach and the right to learn."

While the decision applies only to Michigan, it may influence other states. As independent Christian schools have proliferated over the past decade--with an estimated enrollment of 600,000 students nationwide--so have conflicts with state authorities. In Nebraska, the Rev. Everett Sileven of Louisville was jailed four times in 1982 for defying a court decision requiring him to hire state-approved teachers for his Faith Baptist School. In Massachusetts, Assistant Attorney General Maria Lopez has asked a civil court to impose a $100-a-day fine on two ministers who operate the Grace Bible Church Christian School in Dracut until they agree to report the names, ages and residences of their 30 students. In Maine, a major case will be tried in February. The issue: whether the teachers at the Bangor Baptist Church School and some 20 other Christian schools need to have state approval and whether the schools must maintain and report educational records.

These cases involve a conflict between two important democratic values: religious liberty and the state's obligation to ensure that children have access to a free, adequate education. All 50 states have compulsory attendance laws, and ten of them require their private schools to use state-certified teachers. Catholic, Lutheran and Jewish schools for years have accommodated state requirements. But the Protestant fundamentalists who run the new Christian schools interpret both the Bible and their mission more rigidly. The Rev. Gerald Somero, 42, minister of the Sheridan Road Baptist Church, believes that by complying with licensing requirements "we are saying to the state 'you have a right to choose whom God has called to the ministry of teaching.' "

States generally require that teachers be college graduates with a certain number of education credits and practice-teaching hours. In contrast, teachers at the Bridgeport Baptist Academy must be "born again," regard teaching as a spiritual calling and live by biblical standards. They must have some college training, preferably at a Christian institution, but a bachelor's degree is not essential. Nonetheless, some teachers at these schools are highly qualified by any secular standard: Allen, for instance, not only has a teaching degree but a master's in divinity, both from Christian colleges.

In the Michigan trial, the issue of teacher certification turned out to be more of an embarrassment to state officials than to the Christian schools. Education experts could not agree on which standards the Christian teachers needed to follow, nor could they prove any link between certified teachers and good education. Noted Judge Hotchkiss, a former public school teacher: "The over whelming evidence shows that teacher certification does not ensure teacher competency and may even inhibit it." Since each student who leaves a Michigan public school to attend a Christian academy deprives the local school district of about $2,000 in state aid, the judge also observed that state officials were hardly disinterested guardians of education. He called state regulation of private schools "an incredible conflict of interest."

Many parent sponsors of the new Christian academies have a deeply rooted animosity toward public schools. In their view, the schools have adopted a godless philosophy of "secular humanism" by requiring classroom discussion of such touchy subjects as sex education and feminism. Be cause secular humanism is in conflict with the Bible, as these parents see it, it is a sin for them to send their children to public schools. Says Blanche Reinbolt, who has three children at Bridgeport Baptist Academy: "I've seen what certified public school teachers have done for my kids, and it wasn't good."

Among other things, discipline at the academy is strict. Behavior "condemned by the word of God," such as profanity, smoking, lying, fighting, gambling and cheating, is considered grounds for corporal punishment and even expulsion. Be fore their children are accepted for enrollment, parents must sign a letter authorizing staff members to paddle students for continual offenses. (The letter explains: "Following the administering of the strokes, the staff will pray with your child, assuring him or her of their love.") Says Howard Riles, father of a sixth-grader: "What I hope is that when my daughter goes off to college, she'll have some character."

The Bridgeport parents pay from $900 for one child to $1,750 for three or more children. Talented students are motivated to excel; those with less ability at least learn the basics. Like many Christian schools, the Bridgeport Academy uses a core curriculum of social studies, science, math, English and spelling interspersed with Bible teachings. The results make a strong case: at Bridgeport, eighth-grade students taking the Metropolitan Achievement Test averaged tenth-grade levels. At Nebraska's Faith Baptist, pupils scored a year ahead of their public school counterparts on the California Achievement Test.

Michigan officials intend to appeal Judge Hotchkiss's verdict. Says Assistant Attorney General Richard Gartner: "The state now has no process to approve non-public schools." Part of Michigan's compulsory education law says that parents must send children to state-approved schools. According to Gartner, there is now a legal doubt as to whether the compulsory attendance requirement is legal.

Nationwide, there remains much confusion over the constitutionality of state education laws. Says Maine's Deputy Attorney General Rufus Brown, who will argue a similar case in February: "A number of state and federal courts have recognized the legitimacy of minimal standards for teacher qualifications and for curriculum." But Dean Kelley, head of the civil liberties division of the National Council of Churches, maintains, "The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the right of parents to send their children to schools other than the public schools." The Supreme Court may have to make another decision -- this time on what requirements states can impose on both public and private schools. -- -ByEllie McGrath. Reported by Barbara B. Dolan/ Detroit

With reporting by Barbara B. Dolan/ Detroit This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.