Separation of Church and Pre-K?

Florida voters face a referendum this fall on whether or not to repeal the state’s Blaine Amendment, a state constitutional provision that prohibits direct state aid to religiously affiliated schools. All but 11 U.S. states have similar constitution al provisions (which are called “Blaine Amendments” after former Maine Senator James Blaine, who sought and failed to pass such an amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the 1870s). The Florida Supreme Court struck down a private school voucher program in 2004 because it violated the amendment, so school choice advocates are seeking to repeal the provision in order to clear the way for voucher programs in the state.

The Florida vote raises questions about the role of faith-based providers in publicly funded pre-k programs. Faith-based providers play a major role in delivering pre-k under Florida’s universal pre-k program, and Patricia Levesque, who pushed to put the Blaine referendum on the ballot this fall, has told reporters that the Blaine amendment could imperil these arrangements. Others, including the head of the Florida ACLU, disagree with this interpretation, however, saying that social service providers--including pre-k providers--who offer largely secular services in a nondiscriminatory fashion are legally in the clear. So far, no one has used the Blaine amendment to challenge Florida’s universal pre-k program, and such a challenge is highly unlikely.

Faith-based organizations play an important role in providing child care, including nursery school programs, in the United States. So as states have sought to build systems of publicly funded pre-k that integrate existing and community based providers, faith-based organizations have been a part of that. This reflects a contrast between the child care field, where faith-based providers play a central role and are generally viewed as non-problematic recipients of public funds, and K-12 education, where provision of public funds to religiously affiliated schools is highly controversial. Because most state pre-kindergarten programs have grown out of the state’s existing child care infrastructure, inclusion of faith-based providers has been largely uncontroversial. But as pre-kindergarten becomes increasingly universal, increasingly integrated with K-12 education, and increasingly taken for granted as a part of the public education system, this perspective may change.

Prevalence of options and respect for parental choice are important positive feature of the child care and early education fields that the K-12 public school system would do well to adopt more of. Many faith-based providers have long records of delivering quality early care and education services, and policymakers should preserve these options for parents in building new publicly funded early education systems.

However, policymakers do need to think about the extent to which religion and public funding need to be separated in state pre-k programs. In his book The Sandbox Investment, David Kirp takes a close look at Florida’s universal pre-k program and finds examples of faith-based providers, receiving state funding, who rely heavily on religiously-oriented curricula and discriminate against potential students who do not share their faith. These examples are particularly problematic. Rather than ignoring thorny questions about the role of faith-based providers in publicly funded pre-k and other early education programs, state policymakers need to engage with these questions, with frequent reference to evolving debates about school choice in K-12 education and the role of religiously affiliated providers there. Putting in place policies and practices to prevent against potential abuses is the best way to prevent problems down the road and ensure that faith-based providers can continue to play a valuable role in early education as states build their preschool and early childhood education systems.