Religious Leaders Assail Kennedy On School Aid

WASHINGTON – Fierce resistance is emerging from America’s religious communities to efforts by Senator Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, to block federal aid from reaching parochial-school students displaced by Hurricane Katrina.As part of its relief plan for the Gulf Coast region, the Bush administration pledged last week to reimburse public school systems taking in Katrina refugees, promising federal funding for 90% of a school district’s per-pupil expenditure, capped at $7,500 per child. The secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, has also said the administration seeks to include in its aid package $488 million for more than 60,000 students who were attending private and parochial schools in the Gulf Coast area who choose to attend similar schools upon relocating.The offer of federal funding for religious-school tuition was denounced in the New York Times over the weekend by Senator Kennedy and the presidents of America’s two largest teachers unions. Mr. Kennedy was quoted as saying he was “extremely disappointed” at the president’s providing relief “using such a politically charged approach,” adding: “This is not the time for a partisan debate on vouchers.”Representatives of some of America’s religious communities, however, pushed back yesterday, labeling Mr. Kennedy’s opposition to the relief plan “religious discrimination.”According to press accounts, around 50,000 children in Louisiana who attended Catholic schools were displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and many have been taken in by Catholic schools in neighboring communities and states. A spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Mary Ann Walsh, said yesterday that Catholic-school enrollment in the diocese of Baton Rouge increased by 24% after Katrina.Reimbursing public schools undertaking similar acts of hospitality while leaving parochial schools to fend for themselves without federal aid would place an undue burden on religious institutions, Ms. Walsh said. “There’s grave concern that anyone would discriminate against Catholic-school students,” she said. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, too, lambasted Mr. Kennedy for his opposition to the president’s plan. The director of public policy for the Orthodox Union, Nathan Diament, said earlier this week that the Orthodox Jewish community is “offended by Senator Kennedy’s call for what amounts to religious discrimination in the wake of Katrina.”

Religious Leaders Assail Kennedy On School Aid

Religious Leaders Assail Kennedy On School Aid

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