wfn.org | Churches & Public Education Project in Pennsylvania

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
Email: news@ncccusa.org  Web: www.ncccusa.org

QUALITY, EQUALITY OF U.S. PUBLIC EDUCATION TO BE ADDRESSED
IN ECUMENICAL PILOT PROJECT IN PENNSYLVANIA

67NCC6/4/99 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 June 4, 1999, NEW YORK - Pennsylvania will be the "learning 
lab" for a new ecumenical campaign to increase the quality - and 
equality - of U.S. public education for all children.  The 
Pennsylvania Council of Churches, Harrisburg, Pa., in cooperation 
with the National Council of Churches, has been awarded a $77,000 
grant from the William Penn Foundation to operate the eight-month 
planning project, "Quality Public Education for All of Our 
Children."

Project goals during these first months include a substantive 
information and organizing effort among Pennsylvania's faith 
communities, including issues education and congregational programs 
exploring the importance of public education from the perspective of 
the faith community.

"It is exciting for us to encourage people in our pulpits and 
pews to think about public education, then follow through in 
practical ways to encourage our legislators to make the hard 
decisions needed to make Pennsylvania's public education fair 
statewide," said the Rev. K. Joy Kaufmann, the Pennsylvania Council 
of Churches' Director for Public Policy and Acting Executive 
Director.

The Rev. Kaufmann described Pennsylvania's multiplicity of 
school districts "and great inequity in the funding of those 
districts."  

The state's contribution to each child's education has dropped 
from 55 to 36 percent over the past 25 years, she said, and a lot of 
poorer districts "just don't have the tax base it takes to provide 
the `thorough and effective' education mandated by the Pennsylvania 
Constitution."  

 "The grant will enable us to hire a staff person and pull 
together a team from around the state representing the 22 
denominations included in the Pennsylvania Council of Churches," she 
said.  Roman Catholic, Jewish and other faith communities will be 
drawn into partnership to the fullest extent possible "so that we 
can begin substantive conversations about greater equity in public 
education. 

The eight-month planning project is meant to lay the 
groundwork for a two- to four-year implementation phase - and serve 
as the "learning lab" for a multi-state program.  

Said the Rev. Dr. Eileen Lindner of the National Council of 
Churches, "We at the NCC will provide the Pennsylvania Council with 
technical assistance as they need and as we may have.  And we will 
be watching this project with care to see what we can learn about 
broader project in the future."

 The Pennsylvania pilot project is launched as the NCC 
considers a new policy statement on "The Churches and The Public 
Schools at the Close of the Twentieth Century," which received a 
first reading by the Council's General Assembly in November 1998.  
Currently circulating among the NCC's 35 Protestant and Orthodox 
member communions for review and feedback, a final text is expected 
to win approval during the NCC's 50th anniversary assembly in 
Cleveland this November.  

The policy statement asserts that "public schools have been a 
cornerstone of our democracy" and points to the disparities in 
funding of public schools.  Public education has long been America's 
most effective anti-poverty program.

It also spells out the NCC's theological basis for its 
position. "As Christians, we are mindful of both Jesus' 
extraordinary care and concern for children, and of his admonition 
that those who put stumbling blocks in the path of children would be 
better off if they were thrown into the sea with a millstone tied 
about their necks (Mark 9:36-42)," it reads. "In our society, to 
fail to provide a child with the best kind of education available is 
to put an almost insurmountable stumbling block in the path of that 
child."

 Commented the Rev. Dr. Lindner, "There's probably never been a 
time in the history of this republic that public education is 
undergoing such rapid change and challenge from within and without.  
Much of the challenge has to do with equity of funding, which is in 
the first instance both a civil rights matter and an educational 
opportunity matter.

 "What's at stake is not only every generation of young 
children, but the republic itself.  This nation has always operated 
on the basis of an educated citizenry and by and large the public 
schools have been the basis."

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