1. Expanding Education Choice Initiatives
After 25 years of education reform, existing choice programs that allow Catholic schools to participate serve only 1.4 million students—a paltry 3.1% of the nation’s student population. Many state constitutions still contain Blaine Amendments, prohibiting any public funds from going to Catholic schools. While this relic of nineteenth century anti-Catholic bigotry has been largely invalidated by the Supreme Court, Blaine Amendments still effectually bar many Catholic schools from participating in existing education choice programs. Moreover, many states still have no such choice programs in place. CEP is committed to making real educational freedom available to Catholics in all fifty states.
2. Helping Catholic Schools Grow and Flourish
From voucher programs and tax credits to the increasingly popular Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), the landscape of education choice is rapidly changing and Catholic schools in many states finally have the opportunity to not just stop stagnation, but to truly flourish by utilizing their state's school choice options. CEP has the knowledge and the passion to help Catholic Dioceses to access these programs, helping to ease the financial burden of private schools while simultaneously increasing budgets of our Catholic schools, resulting in more resources and more equitable pay to the teachers and administrators who make our Catholic schools what they are today.
3. Protecting Religious Liberty
More pernicious than programs that simply exclude Catholic schools are ones that tacitly force a Catholic school to choose between funding eligibility and its Catholic principles. Without a Catholic voice in the policy-making process, many school choice programs attach strings for participation in the form of requirements in hiring and firing, curriculum, programming, and other criteria that are inimical to the mission and beliefs of Catholic schools. The threat of new barriers to the conscientious participation of Catholic schools in choice programs is likely to increase rapidly in the coming years. CEP will continue to advocate tenaciously for the protection of religious liberty and autonomy for Catholic schools in the implementation of new and existing education policy.