Is the charter school movement changing the way we think about religious education in the United States? Prof. Aaron Saiger of Fordham University Law School discusses this topic from a historical and legal framework, demonstrating how various religious communities have adapted to more market-oriented approaches to public education.
Our conversation begins with a summary of what the K-12 educational landscape looked like circa the 1970s. This allows Prof. Saiger to lay out the historical origins of what he calls the “Progressive model” of public schooling that originated at the turn of the 20th century. This educational model was premised on the idea of “common schools,” meaning they were open and free to all, and that they shared a common curriculum designed to craft citizens. This model developed a design preference for top-down expertise to guide school curriculum. During the mid-1900s, a variety of court cases such as Engel v Vitale and Abington Township v Schempp injected secularism into this model, leading to the public school/private school dichotomous system that most folks like Tony and Aaron (who grew up in the 1970s) identify with today.
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