Bennett letter: Religious schools

The Republican-dominated Idaho Legislature is once again busily at work harming education.

Not content to put guns on campuses so an unstable student can intimidate the faculty, now Republicans want to gut Idaho’s science standards while sending public money to religious schools whose beliefs most of us don’t share.

Caught between the constraints of the tax-avoiding ultra-rich who own the Republican Party and the torch-and-pitchfork mob in the “base,” Idaho Republicans have apparently chosen to follow the Pakistan model on education. To avoid the expense of public schools and to mollify their religious zealots, Pakistan decided to have religious schools. From these religious schools (“madrassas”) have come poorly educated, scientifically illiterate zealots who have killed American troops and Pakistanis.

If present trends continue, public education in Idaho will be replaced by religious schools that dumb down students, turning them into potential future recruits for the right wing “militias” who are threatening to overthrow our democratic government. Think Malheur was bad. Wait until some gun-totting, cross-wearing Idaho kid points a gun at you and tells you that evolution is a lie, that the planet isn’t warming and that you’d better “believe or else.”

This story was originally published February 12, 2016 at 11:13 PM with the headline "Bennett letter: Religious schools."