The Debate Regarding Parents Control Of Their Children 's Education

Explain the tension between the establishment clause and the free exercise clause of the First amendment. Support your explanation with at least one example. First we must understand the purpose of each of these clauses of the First Amendment. A common misunderstanding of the Establishment Clause is that it safeguards individual rights. In reality the purpose of the Establishment Clause is to limit the government’s power in respect to legislating on matters that deals with "respecting an establishment of religion.". The Free Exercise Clause has only a sole purpose, the safeguarding of individual rights, specifically related to religion.

Freedom of religion means that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” (Jacobus 93). “Free exercise” does not always mean “free exercise”. The Supreme Court has been forced to put certain limitations on the practice of religion. (Wilson, Dilulio, & Bose, 95). For instance people are not allowed to

The Court, in its ruling in Yoder, applied the “Sherbert Test” and found that the compulsory education law was a substantial burden on their religious practices and the State’s interests were not compelling enough to disrupt the Amish way of life.

A more recent case which is similar to Everson v. Board of Education, is Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn. The taxpayers of Arizona were challenging the fact that a state law was providing tax credits to those who were donating to school tuition organizations in order for the schools to provide scholarships to those attending private/religious schools. The claim was that this was a violation of the Establishment Clause (Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, 2016.), which is the first of several pronouncements within the First Amendment within the U.S. Constitution, or the first ten amendments within the Bill of Rights, which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” (Bill of Rights, 2016.). The Supreme Court had ruled 5-4 and argued that the plaintiff did not have enough information and standing to bring to the suit. Justice Kagen, in her dissent, stated that “cash grants and targeted tax breaks are means of accomplishing the same government object; to provide financial support to select individuals or organizations.” (Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, 2016.). Although the ruling was made on “narrow grounds”, according to Peter Wooley, a political science and direction of the PublicMind Poll, the plaintiff in one “guise or another will be back another day” (Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, 2016.).

At the Supreme Court trial, with an 8-1 decision, Justice Clark wrote the majority opinion of the court. (Abington School District v. Schempp, 1963) The Supreme Court justices argued that "state-sponsored devotional Bible readings in public schools constitute an impermissible religious exercise by government.? (Chicago-Kent College of Law, 2015) The court also argued that the Abington School District violated the Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from being involved in religious

Individuals in America possess many freedoms that individuals in foreign countries like China, South Korea, and Afghanistan do not have access to. The liberties granted by the First Amendment gives people the right to express their personal and religious beliefs without interference from the Government. The protection given to the people by the First Amendment stops the Government from becoming too strong or monarchical, a fear that comes from the oppressive rule of Great Britain that the Founding Fathers desperately wanted to avoid happening again. The preservation of individuals expressing their political, religious, or personal beliefs is an important right of American citizens that should not be overlooked. A recent illustration of the First Amendment in use for individuals can be seen with the Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. The Court ruling directly impacts individuals by giving people the legal right to have same-sex marriages.

Board of Eduation. The issue of concern was whether New Jersey could reimburse transportation costs to the parents of schoolchildren, at both public and nonpublic schools. As a heavy assortment of the nonpublic schools were catholic, an anti-Catholic organization within the state challenged the program, arguing it violated the Establishment clause. In a 5-4 ruling, the court upheld the law, stating that transportation could be considered a child benefit. However, Everson’s legacy goes far beyond the upholding of New Jersey’s reimbursement program because it was the first case of its kind whose opinion dealt directly with the Establishment clause. Furthermore, the author of the majority opinion, Justice Hugo Black, invoked the Jeffersonian metaphor of “a wall of separation,” writing, “In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state.” Based upon this line of thinking alone, it is difficult to see why the court ruled in favor of the defendant. However, Justice Black also considered the requirements of Free Exercise clause, claiming that for the state to instate “public welfare legislation,” and then hampering citizens from receiving it on grounds of their religious beliefs would be a violation of the free exercise of the religion. Justice Black’s consideration of the Establishment clause in Everson therefore serves as demarcation point in the judicial history of education. Post-Everson, writes Hubert Morken, “many judicial challenges to educational policy have been couched in church/state

Board of Education (1947) was a New Jersey case that rose to the Supreme Court and lead to a landmark decision. The Board of Education was reimbursing students for taking public transportation to and from both public and private schools. A taxpayer objected to the use of public funds to reimburse any student attending a religious school. The Supreme Court found the state statute allowing the reimbursement valid, in part because the reimbursement was paid to the parents of the students and not a religious institution, and the payments were available to everyone, not only those attending a religious institution. The decision was significant for two reasons. First, the Supreme Court ruled the establishment clause would now apply to the states. Secondly, Justice Hugo Black, in writing the majority opinion, stated, “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.” This is one of the most egregious cases of judicial activism, trying to accomplish what from the bench what the Legislature could not accomplish in 1876. It is particularly troublesome because the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution or any federal statute, and the addition of the phrases, “that wall must be kept high and impregnable” and “we could not approve the slightest breach” drastically changes the context in which it was written. Additionally, since

Yoder, the Supreme Court thought about a conflict between Amish religious feelings and state academic necessities. Three families having a place with two Amish groups - the Old Amish religion and the Conservative Amish Mennonite Church- - declined to send their youngsters to government funded school past the eighth grade. In spite of the fact that state law required all kids to go to class until age 16, the guardians of Frieda Yoder, Barbara Miller, and Vernon Yutzy demanded that their religion denied them from enabling their kids to go to secondary school. The Amish felt that presenting their kids to the standard, "common" qualities instructed there, for example, rivalry and realism, would undermine the religious lessons vital to their elective way of life and world view. They favored rather to set up their kids at home for the farming and residential interests that anticipated them as grown-ups in the Amish people group. Accordingly they looked for exclusion from state law under the Free Exercise

In the First Amendment the free exercise clause states that congress can not make a law respecting an establishment of religion. In the supreme court case, Employment Division v. Smith (1990), Oregon could deny unemployment benefits to someone fire from a job for illegally smoking peyote during a religious ceremony. The free exercise clause does not excuse people from obeying the law. This shows that there does need to be limitations on one's religious beliefs. Religions can be good and bad for anyone, but doing illegal things for your religion is not part of anyone's First Amendment

The First Amendment to the Constitution prevents the government from impeding the free exercise of religion, disavowing intervention when a religion disagrees with the policies of government. This fundamental liberty has recently come under attack in response to the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage in June, 2015. In response, individual states and the federal government have passed religious freedom laws protecting religious liberty for business owners. The free exercise of religion is a fundamental liberty that should not be abridged by government, and the implementation of religious freedom statutes is necessary to protect the values of the First Amendment.

As educators, we spend a great amount of time looking for different ways to implementing curriculum, meeting school and district deadlines, assessing, planning, and grading. But do we ever take time to really get to know our students and their families in a personal level? Without event knowing, we hold different biases towards students and their parents; we expect them to have certain knowledge about their community and culture depending on their demographics and socioeconomic status. We completely ignore the fact that many parents can make positive contributions to our classrooms. In the book Funds of Knowledge edited by Norma Gonzalez, Luis C. Moll, and Cathy Amanti, we can see how many families have abundant knowledge that the schools/teachers do not know about and therefore do not use in order to teach academic skills.

The first amendment states "Congress shall make no law respecting religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech..." The Supreme Court determined that free speech does in fact have limits. For years the first amendment only applied to the federal government, that was later changed in 1925 in the 'Gitlow v. New York' court case. The Supreme Court said that this applied to other levels of government which included public schools. 44 years later in 'Tinker v. Des Moines' The Supreme Court ruled that if a student "materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others" that the First Amendment does not protect it. Then in 2007 in the 'Morse v. Frederick' case, the

While the first amendment endows several paramount freedoms, it can, at times, be onerous to understand. Both the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause is imperative to our freedom, the Supreme Court has historically argued various ways regarding these two clauses. Our founders, such as Thomas Jefferson, saw the importance of creating a separation between church and state. As such, no national religion was to be declared, and still has not been. As such, there are varying approaches to establishment. By examining the historical decisions regarding these clauses, I have found that while it is crucial to separate the church and state, these two entities can still, in some capacities, intermingle. In this specific context of the Missouri Scrap Tire Grant Program, it is acceptable for Trinity Lutheran Church, and more specifically, their Learning Center, to receive financial support in order to renovate their playground for safety reasons.

The debate on religion in the public school is complicated by the fact that there are two clauses dealing with religion in the First Amendment (Warnick, 2012). The Establishment Clause, which disallows the establishment by the government of any particular religion, and the Free Exercise Clause, which prohibits the state from proscribing the practice of religion, are a source of