Justin Parmenter: North Carolina’s public voucher dollars are funding Christian Nationalist indoctrination in schools
Justin Parmenter has been tracking the North Carolina schools that are using taxpayer-funded vouchers to support a Christian Nationalist agenda. This latest post features several example.
With billions of dollars now on tap for North Carolina’s private schools, and 88.2% of those dollars going to religious schools, scrutiny is rising over exactly what our taxes are supporting.
Private schools are legally able to discriminate against children, and many of North Carolina’s Christian schools deny admissions to students based on religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or learning disabilities.
For example, Fayetteville Christian School, which pocketed nearly $2 million in voucher dollars this school year, expressly bans students who practice specific religions like Islam and Buddhism, and they also bar LGBTQ+ students–whom they brand “perverted”–from attending.
North Raleigh Christian Academy won’t accept children with IQs below 90 and will not serve students who require IEPs (a document which outlines how a school will provide support to children with disabilities).
If this public funding of widespread discriminatory school practices rubs you the wrong way, I have bad news for you.
It gets worse.
That harmful indoctrination Mark Robinson was howling about a couple years ago in his disingenuous attempt to generate political momentum? Turns out it’s real. It just isn’t happening in the traditional public schools Robinson was targeting.
The Daniel Christian Academy is a private school in Concord, NC. This school has received public dollars through school vouchers every year since Republicans launched the controversial Opportunity Scholarship voucher program in 2014-15 for a grand total of $585,776.
Daniel Academy’s mission is to “raise the next generation of leaders who will transform the heart of our nation” by equipping students “to enter the Seven Mountains of Influence.”
The Seven Mountains of Influence (also referred to as the Seven Mountains of Dominion or the Seven Mountains Mandate) refers to seven areas of society: religion, family, education, government, media, arts & entertainment, and business. Dominionists who follow this doctrine believe that they are mandated by God to control all seven of society’s “mountains,” and that doing so will trigger the end times.