Question

you read about student and teacher responsibilities; How do you view the use of public funds to support certain activities in church schools? Where do you see the line needing to be drawn so as not to conflict with the Establishment Clause?

Answer 1

How do you view the use of public funds to support certain activities in church schools?

The government of each country, collects taxes, to be used for public welfare activities and overall macro economic expenditures that occur over a period of time.

This Taxation usually varies from developed countries charging relatively lesser from their people and developing or the underdeveloped ones usually charging a premium from their residents respectively, since this is necessary in the overall development of the country.

In the United States, public funds are collected by the government in the form of taxes and public donations which can be sent out to the government directly and are used for various projects. defense expenses etc.

In the case above, the concept of public funds, which are collected by church schools and used for enhancing education need to be discussed. Education is a major investment category when it comes to expenditure of the government.

Each modern government feels the need of having an educated society so that it can increase the overall production levels in the economy respectively.

In this case, as long as public funds, are utilized to improve the quality of education being imparted in these schools it should not pose a problem even to the establishment clause. Most public school spendings occur from donations as well as the government directly spending taxes which are collected for the betterment of the schools.

For the purpose of developing infrastructure, research and hiring more staff which are better equiped with giving students knowledge on various subjects, such expenditure is both necessary and important for developing a countries human resource so that it can grow in terms of the jobs it has and the employment opportunities which it can offer to the general public.

Where do you see the line needing to be drawn so as not to conflict with the Establishment Clause?

The government should closely monitor the expenditure which incurs in these schools and the purpose for which these have been spent in order to not conflict with the establishment clause.

The Establishment Clause in the United States has mostly been established taking into account that governments should not intervene with religious matters of people respectively. This is the sole purpose around which the clause has been built.

Therefore, monitoring transactions would enable the government agencies to judge whether the money was utilized for religious purposes or for developing the infrastructure of the school as a whole respectively.

Also, to a certain extent donations can be utilized by the school for religious purposes and the government should have no role in stopping the same as long as these were willfully handed over

On the other hand, the thin line to be drawn is in the government spending of funds in these schools that the purpose of expenditure should be clearly well defined respectively.

Please feel free to ask your doubts in the comments section.