Reassigning Americorps

Last Tuesday, a federal appeals court overturned a district court’s decision that would have significantly restricted the presence of teachers from AmeriCorps—a government funded service organization—in religious schools. As it stands, tax dollars will continue to be used to fund volunteer teachers at parochial schools. We strongly believe that this is a misallocation of government resources. The first educational priority of the government ought to be improving the current public school system rather than contributing to non-public programs. As a result, AmeriCorps should be forced to direct its resources solely into the public realm.

The American Jewish Congress (AJC) initially brought suit against AmeriCorps in August 2004. In that case, a federal judge ruled that AmeriCorps workers may not teach religion or attend religious services during the school day. This ruling came in light of AmeriCorps’ policy requiring workers to fulfill 1,700 nonreligious working hours annually. The decision did, however, allow volunteers to work in parochial schools with a court-approved monitoring system. The appeals court reversed this ruling Tuesday, claiming the government is in no way promoting religion and thus AmeriCorps can continue as is. Legally, we disagree with the appeals court. By sending teachers to religious schools, AmeriCorps is entangling the federal government in the practice of religion. While no specific religion or school is explicitly promoted by the program, the abundance of Catholic parochial schools (relative to other varieties of non-public schools) in the country creates the appearance of religious favoritism. In light of these events, we strongly urge the AJC to appeal this most recent decision to the United States Supreme Court.

Beyond the legal issues at stake, AmeriCorps should focus its resources on public schools to most effectively improve the current educational system. Similar to our stance on vouchers, we believe funding non-public schools (whether or not through AmeriCorps) is the wrong approach for improving American education. Money and energy should be pumped directly into the neediest public schools. Or, at the very least, they should be spent researching new ways to improve public education. Every dime spent outside of the public sector through AmeriCorps is a dime that could be solving real problems instead of avoiding them. As for Americorps, rather than reallocating funds, it should simply reallocate instructors. That way, the government will be absolved of any religious entanglement, and public schools will benefit from the increased presence of volunteers.

Regardless of any Supreme Court decision, the federal government should take steps to reform AmeriCorps, even beyond the original guidelines set by the federal district court. Monitored teachers in parochial schools will not produce the desired improvements to the national educational system. The way to fix public schools is to give them the support they need, and AmeriCorps should do just that. Religious schools serve an important role in the realm of American education, but programs aimed at improving the educational system should not be aimed at directly improving religious schools.