Joining the program
Criteria for the program include being a legal resident in Indiana, between ages five and 22 and accepted for enrollment into a participating Choice Scholarship school.
The value of the Choice Scholarship is the lesser of three amounts:
1) Tuition and fees charged to the student at the eligible school
2) $4,700 for grades 1-8
3) An amount based off the per-student state funding for the student’s school corporation of residence
Bill Nye and Ken Ham’s debate last week at the Creation Museum in Kentucky has reignited the debate of teaching creationism in the classroom.
Since the ruling against Everson vs. Board of Education of the township of Ewing in 1947, it has been against federal law to teach religious ideas or creationism in public schools.
This ban does not apply to private schools, however, because they don’t receive money directly from the state. At least one Indiana lawmaker said the state’s school voucher program indirectly allows tax dollars to support religious teaching.
State Sen. Sue Errington of District 26, which includes Delaware County, opposes creationism in science courses in public schools and the voucher program.
The voucher program, in spirit, is mixing the state and religion, she said.
“I don’t believe it should be taught as a science,” Errington said. “Not to say it doesn’t have value — it’s just not a science.”
Errington said it could be taught in public schools in a philosophy or history of religion class, but not in a science class.
In August, President Jo Ann Gora took a stance against teaching intelligent design after Eric Hedin, an astronomy assistant professor, was accused of teaching it in one of his classes.
Gora said creationsim and intelligent design are not sciences and have no place in a science course.
In 2011, Indiana legislators passed Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program to provide scholarships to offset the costs of attending a private school to eligible Indiana students.
Heritage Hall Christian School in Muncie participates in the state’s voucher program and teaches creationism and intelligent design to its students.
“We teach evolution not as a fact, but a theory; God is the fact,” said Dennis Ice, headmaster of Heritage Hall Christian School. “We believe in a young Earth that was created by God.”
Ice said 60 students attend the school as part of the voucher program where they receive full- or half-scholarships.
“It’s giving parents the opportunity to choose how to educate their child — they have that right,” Ice said. “It allows them to come to a private school that teaches [creationism] because before they couldn’t because of income.”
He said he disagreed that the state is funding religious teaching because the money follows the child and the family chooses how to use it. This belief echoes a previous Indiana Supreme Court decision.
In March 2013, the Indiana Supreme Court stated in a unanimous decision that Indiana’s voucher program could use tax dollars to pay for private school tuition because the money goes to families, who can use the vouchers as they choose, rather than to predefined specific schools.
Errington doesn’t agree with this decision.
“Almost all of the voucher program schools are religious,” she said. “As a tax payer, I don’t like my money supporting religion.”
The Indiana voucher program currently provides for 19,809 students statewide for the 2013-2014 academic year, according to the Indiana Department of Education.
The larger problem with the voucher program for Errington is that she sees families not attending a public school first before using the scholarships.
“[The voucher program] has been changed so much since it was first introduced that students can go directly to private school without ever having experienced public school,” she said.
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