by Roger Crain

Created on: June 05, 2010   Last Updated: June 09, 2010

The effects of religious intolerance came to a head in 1963 when Madalyn Murrey O'Hair became the leading proponent to have prayer taken from our nation's public schools.  Consequently, a rash of private schools and academies came into existence because of parents who wanted their children to have religious instruction; yet, providing all children with the type of instruction that had been sorely lacking in the public schools.  An adherence to this procedure created problems for the private schools and academies because of their dependence on private donations and/or corporate gifts.

Furthermore, private schools and academies were not earmarked for public funding by virtue of their being private.  This meant that they had to satisfy their curriculum standards through a board of esteemed members.  Yet, what that board of esteemed member didn't foresee was how to make education accessible to all children.  One vital quality of African American parents is their tendency to religiously educate their children.  So when prayer was taken from public schools, African Americans enrolled their children in the private schools by the thousands.  That enrollment included Catholic or parochial schools.

What those private schools and/or academies didn't foresee were how to maintain quality education among a diverse student body.  The end result presented problems for the private school teacher in not knowing how to handle an interracial classroom.  So white parents began snatching their children out of those private schools and starting more private schools with an evangelical twist. 

Consequently, this made private school funding to take a sharp decline; so, to compensate for that decline, the private school began to seek public funding.  The private schools received their funding on condition that they comply with federal guidelines:  They needed to recruit and enrolled black students to achieve racial balance in their school if they wanted to continue to receive federal funding. 

Thus, the faith or religious faith of black parents created problems in society by those private or parochial schools not knowing how to accomodate the needs of their black students.  Our children deserve the best education that a school can provide to them, be that school public or private.  Anything less would void crudely upon the educational philosophy of that school.  Hopefully, we have progressed from those segregational days and our children are indeed getting the quality of instruction that they deserve.

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