A group of ministers, who are members of the Interdenominational Ministers Action Council, want to make unannounced visits to Wilmington’s public schools to make sure students are getting the education they need to avoid lives of crime. They want the schools to give them access to the classrooms so they can monitor teachers, administrators and overall school performance.
What the frack?
As my former professor at Widener Law, Alan Garfield, says, “the mere presence of ministers in public schools would give the appearance the state is surrendering its authority to the church.”
Indeed, if the schools (which are a state actor) allow the visits, not only is the appearance made, but they would be directly entangling the state with the church. It matters not that these ministers are interdenominational (which, by the way, usually refers only to the various denominations of the Christian faith). It matters not that their intentions seem to be in the right place.
“It doesn’t sound like the best way to go about it,” Garfield said. Failing schools is a genuine problem that needs to be fixed, he said. But if they form collaborations with churches and have church members monitor teachers to report on how well they are doing, it could be seen as though government is endorsing religion.
“That sounds like a very dangerous message to be saying,” he said. “It’s as if saying the school answers to the church.”
Precisely. Now, I know the delusional nuts like David Anderson believe we all must answer to the Church, including the state; that’s not the way our Founding Fathers set up our Constitution. Because they knew religious freedom is impossible in a country where the state answers to the Church.