Saturday, March 16, 2013
This week's question centers around public funds going towards private schools that have explicit, severe anti-gay policies.
Earlier this year a group called the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) released a report indicating that some scholarship money generated through a Georgia tax credit program has been used at religious schools that ban gay, lesbian and bisexual students. The report states, At least 115 private schools participating in Georgia’s tax-funded scholarship program have explicit, severe anti-gay policies or belong to state and national private school associations that promote anti-gay policies and practices among their members. While SEF did not take issue with the policies of private religious schools, it did have a problem with tax dollars going to schools that discriminate against some people. Tax money, the group said in its report, should…
Thursday, March 7, 2013
The committee's vote comes weeks after an Atlanta education policy group suggested some scholarship money was used at a Woodstock religious school that ban gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual students.
The Georgia Senate Education and Youth Committee on Monday unanimously endorsed legislation intended to strengthen a state tax credit scholarship program that has been the target of weeks of criticism. Senate Bill 243 now goes to the Senate for a full vote. If passed, it would "give preferences to students with financial needs," according to a copy of the legislation available on the Georgia General Assembly's website. The committee's vote comes weeks after an Atlanta education policy group suggested in a January report that some scholarship money generated through the tax credit program had been used at religious schools that ban gay, lesbian and bisexual students, including Cherokee Chrisitan School. That group, the Southern Education …
Monday, February 4, 2013
Schools that "exclude, condemn, and demonize students for who they are and who they accept in their lives" should not receive public funds, according to a report from an Atlanta education policy group.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Patch has reached out to Cherokee Christian Schools and is waiting to hear back from the administration. Some scholarship money generated through a Georgia tax credit program has been used at religious schools that ban gay, lesbian and bisexual students, according to a report released late last month. One school in the report from the Southern Education Foundation, an Atlanta education policy group, is in Woodstock. At Cherokee Christian Schools, the Parent/Student Handbook for the 2012-13 school year states: "In accordance with the Statement of Faith and in recognition of Biblical principles, no “immoral act” or “identifying statements” concerning fornication, adultery, homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, or …
Sally Hansell
9:10 am on Thursday, March 28, 2013
Thanks to the Patch editors for posting this question of the week. I was astonished by the findings in the Southern Education Foundation's report and wrote a blog piece published yesterday in the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-hansell/antigay-private-schools-georgia_b_2952162.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices more ›