Onward Christian Soldiers

by Curt Guyette
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How Gov. John Engler and the Radical Right are Campaigning to Make Taxpayers Fund Religious Schools

Documents dating back to 1990 reveal that one of Gov. John Engler's closest advisers, attorney Richard McLellan, has played a key role in planning an amendment to the state constitution that would allow public funding of religious schools.

Strategic plans created for TEACH Michigan, which has been at the forefront of reform efforts, reveal that Engler's charter school laws weren't an end goal but rather a step toward parochiad.

TEACH Michigan is planning a new campaign to initiate a pilot school-voucher program in Detroit and several other cities. The state constituion must first be amended to allow parochiaid.

• DeVos (includes various individuals and foundations connected to Amway)
• Cook
• Prince
• Merillat

Michigan Family Forum:
$1,185,500

TEACH Michigan Education Fund
$440,000

Mackinac Center for Public Policy
$400,000

John Engler & Michigan GOP
$201,000

For the years 1990-1994.
Source: Campaign financial statements and the Internal Revenue Service reports

Related link
More details: The Big Four

Related link
Right on top
How the right-wing politics rule the state school board

Related link
Textbook case

Related link
A who's who in the
push for parochiaid

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FIRST IN A SERIES:

The big MAC attack
How special interest groups and their think tanks waged the real Engler Revolution.

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SECOND IN A SERIES:

Political Casualties
Inside Gov. John Engler's war against worker's compensation

SERIES HOME PAGE

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

Sitting in the bright, airy family room of his rural Ingham County home, Paul DeWeese leans forward in his easy chair, eager to talk about the subject that has consumed him for the better part of a decade. Dressed in khakis and a polo shirt, the soft-spoken physician fits right into this country-club setting, a place where the picture windows behind him frame acres of lush, green turf dotted with broad-limbed shade trees. It is a world far removed from the blight and decay that characterize Detroit's most troubled neighborhoods, but at the moment, as he talks to a reporter about the future of education in Michigan, that's where DeWeese's thoughts are- on the inner city and its beleaguered schools.

Since 1990, DeWeese's TEACH Michigan Education Fund has been at the forefront of the push to radically change the state's education system.

It is, he says, "a matter of social justice." Why, he asks, should the rich be allowed to send their children to private schools or move to districts with well-financed public schools, while the poor are left with no options?

"This is about empowerment," insists DeWeese. "By breaking up the educational monopoly, we are going to help poor kids."

There's only one problem with that argument, say critics.

It's all a smoke screen.

Rather than a broad-based grassroots effort by parents hoping to give their children needed options, the charge to reform Michigan's schools is a carefully orchestrated campaign that's being financed in large part by a handful of interest groups with ties to the religious right, they say.

And while aiding the state's most underpriviledged children is the multimillion dollar campaign's public goal, its own working papers acknowledge that the far, far bigger prize DeWeese and his backers hope to win is public funding for religious schools.

Think that can't happen here? Think again. According to a draft copy of the TEACH Michigan strategic plan obtained by the Metro Times, Detroit is ground zero in this well-funded campaign.

"THE state's parochial schools have been trying to get their fingers into the coffers of public schools for a long, long time," contends Dick Lobenthal of the Anti-Defamation League and the Council on Parochiaid, a broad-based coalition opposed to public funding of parochial schools. "This is all part of a long, well-thought-out program."

The program dates back to at least 1990, when John Engler launched an assault against Michigan's public schools during his first gubernatorial campaign, vowing to offer more "choice." Since Engler's election, four foundations and the individuals who control them- all major financial supporters of fundamentalist Christian organizations- have quietly provided millions of dollars to TEACH Michigan and two other groups leading the fight to open up Michigan's public education system to private and parochial schools.

Which means the ultimate battleground in this fight is the Michigan Constitution, a document that contains one of the nation's strongest bans on what is referred to as parochiaid. If the state's private schools, 80 percent of which are parochial, are going to get public funding, the state's constitution must be altered.

And that's exactly what DeWeese has been trying to do for the past seven years. Less than a week after Engler's election, DeWeese mailed a draft copy of a proposed constitutional amendment to the executive director of the Michigan Association of School Boards.

That amendment, which would eliminate the ban on public funds for private and religious schools, was drafted by attorney Richard McLellan, a longtime Engler confidant who headed the governor's transition team during his first term in office.

The governor, however, has been consistently vague on his long-term goals. Even now, with a renewed campaign to amend the Michigan Constitution fomenting, he waffles when asked about school vouchers.

"There's no position to take," says Engler spokesman John Truscott. "They are not an issue."

"This isn't an issue the governor will be out in front on," confides DeWeese. "But he personally supports (changing the constitution). I know he does."

But even a governor as strong as Engler couldn't muscle such a radical change through the Legislature without broad support. That meant the public, which had resoundingly defeated a school voucher proposal in the late 1970s, would need to be well primed before a statewide referendum could begin.

As DeWeese admits, it quickly became clear that this would be a long fight. A 1993 strategic plan prepared for TEACH Michigan lays out in broad terms a campaign intended to culminate in the year 2000 with an amended constitution and "universal educational choice."

To reach that goal, the groups promoting "school reform" have mounted a relentless attack on the state's education system.

"Destroying support for public schools is a necessary step in all this," observes Howard Simon of the Michigan American Civil Liberties Union.

But that alone wouldn't be enough. To galvanize Michigan parents and taxpayers behind the idea of school choice, the reformers needed a Trojan horse that could effectively blur the lines between public and private education: charter schools.

"THE battle for charter schools began in earnest in the fall of 1993, with Engler leading the charge. But he did not enter the fight without a well-stocked arsenal to mount the campaign. His allies were a trio of supposedly independent groups that in fact are all funded in large part by the same sources.

According to Internal Revenue Service forms obtained by the Metro Times, four nonprofit foundations and related individuals financed the reform campaign. During a five-year period, the four gave more than $2 million to the three organizations leading the fight for school reform.

Writing the checks were various individuals and foundations connected to the Amway Corporation, the Prince Foundation, Cook Foundation and Merillat Foundation. We'll call them the Big Four.

Although all four support philanthropic causes that range from hospitals to zoos, their tax forms reveal an extraordinary interest in fundamentalist religious organizations. Together, the Big Four support the entire litany of religious right issues: national and statewide groups opposing abortion and gay rights; groups that advocate the teaching of creationism and abstinence-only sex education; and groups that advocate "Christianizing" American politics. They also contribute millions of dollars to fundamentalist schools.

In Michigan, the four foundations and their patrons underwrote the education "reform" efforts of three groups that led the assault against the powerful forces of Michigan's education establishment. All three groups either deny or downplay any conection with the religious right.

First, there's TEACH Michigan, which received donations from the Prince, Cook and DeVos foundations. Founded by DeWeese, TEACH Michigan deals exclusively with the issue of school reform. From the outset, the group's attorney has been Richard McLellan, a man frequently identified as one of Engler's closest advisers.

Along with money from the religious right, TEACH Michigan is backed by a host of corporate interests.

"A lot of people think we're funded by the ultra-right wing," says DeWeese. "But it's more just run-of-the-mill corporations that support us."

Then there's the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which focuses on free-market economic policy and carefully avoids hot-button political issues such as abortion and gay rights. But its interests coincide with the religious right when it comes to schools. With Engler and McLellan among the group that founded it in 1987, the Mackinac Center has been a leading force in the push for school vouchers.

"To say that we are connected to the Ralph Reeds and Pat Robertsons would be a real stretch," says Lawrence Reed, president of the Mackinac Center. "You don't have to come from a religious point of view to support school reform."

Finally, the Michigan Family Forum (MFF) is the local affiliate of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, one of the nation's most powerful conservative Christian forces. According to MFF founder Randall Hekman, the group devotes about 60 percent of its efforts toward school reform. It spends the rest of its efforts supporting other causes including attacks on abortion and gay rights. Despite Hekman's claims that MFF "is not a Christian group per se," the organization has formed an alliance with the Christian Educators Association International, operates boot camps designed to teach recruits who can "impact our culture in a balanced, Christ-honoring way," and supports the repeal of no-fault divorce laws by promoting legislation that "combines sound research with biblical truth."

Besides their denials regarding their ties to the religious right, these three groups have a few other things in common. Between 1990 and 1994, they received more than $2 million from the Big Four, according to IRS files.

And they're in good company. The Princes, DeVoses, Merillats, Cooks and related individuals contributed at least $226,000 to Engler and the state GOP between 1989 and 1994.

ENGLER officially launched his statewide school reform movement by unveiling his charter school legislation in 1993. By then, the ground troops were ready to capitalize on the anti-public education campaign they'd been waging since 1990.

Their first line of attack: A barrage of studies and opinion pieces produced by the Mackinac Center, a think tank with deep ideological ties to Engler (See "MAC Attack: How interest groups and their think tank waged the real Engler revolution," MT, March 27-April 2, 1996). From 1990-1994, the center received a total of $400,000 from the Big Four.

In the fall of 1993, just as Engler began pushing for legislation that would allow formerly private schools to contract directly with the state to provide public education, the Mackinac Center cranked out a series of position papers and opinion pieces that either promoted "school choice" or hammered at the Michigan Education Association.

But the think tank served as only one tine in the three-pronged attack. At the same time, TEACH Michigan was in the fourth year of a public relations campaign dedicated to "educating the public" about the need for charter schools and, to a small degree, directly lobbying legislators.

Working with the Michigan Chamber of Commerce (where Engler ally McLellan was a member of the powerful executive committee) TEACH Michigan, along with a spin-off nonprofit called Michigan Center for Charter Schools, served as a mainstream catalyst for change.

Along with the corporate contributions, TEACH Michigan received $440,000 from the DeVoses, the Princes and Cooks between 1990 and 1994. But that's hardly an accurate representation of the generosity of those conservative philanthropists. The families were in a position to help secure other funding.

For example, TEACH Michigan's largest corporate contributor between 1990 and 1994 was Michigan National Bank, which donated $105,000. During that same period, both the late Edgar Prince and Jay Van Andel, the co-founder of Amway with Richard Devos, were on the bank's board of directors.

At the same time that the Mackinac Center and TEACH Michigan were attempting to shape public opinion and influence legislators, the Michigan Family Forum- which received nearly $1.2 million from the Big Four between 1990 and 1994- was rallying the faithful behind the governor's proposal.

When MFF's Randall Hekman appeared on a "Focus on the Family" radio spot promoting charter schools, "an avalanche of calls" poured in to MFF's Lansing offices, Hekman reported. And when the plea went out to MFF members to put on a show of force as legislators were deciding the charter school issue, 1,000 people rallied at the Capitol steps. Sample letters to the editor were mailed out, and coalition members were urged to contact lawmakers and express support for the legislation.

As part of their efforts that year, TEACH Michigan and Michigan Family Forum joined a coalition of like-minded school reformers, most notably Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and Beverly LaHaye's Concerned Women for America (see sidebar).

Taken together, these groups produced a relentless drumbeat, pounding out their anti-public school rap.

"Why are public schools failing?" asks Linda Bruin, legal counsel for the Michigan Association of School Boards. "According to groups like TEACH Michigan and the Michigan Family Forum, the answer is simple. Religious influence has been taken out of public schools. School systems are excessively bureaucratic, and public schools are operated as monopolies with no competition."

By December 1993, with Engler leading the band, the Michigan Legislature was ready to launch charter school legislation. The chartered schools, which would be publicly funded, could circumvent the public school bureaucracy by functioning independently with regard to issues like curriculum and parent involvement. With lobbyist McLellan, who DeWeese says drafted the law, adding last minute changes to his initial work as a compromise was hammered out, the charter school legislation passed just before Christmas.

Supporters complained that the Democrats in the Legislature were able to "water it down." The Mackinac Center called it the "Christmas Eve hijacking."

For a time, though, it looked like everything was going full speed ahead.

CRITICS like those at the ACLU charged that even the "hijacked" version of the charter school legislation was merely "window dressing" for a larger plan to divert public money to parochial schools.

They didn't have long to wait for proof of their accusations. The first school chartered following passage of the legislation was the Noah Webster Academy, which was housed in an Ionia County log cabin built on land leased for $1 a year from an Illinois-based Christian group called the Institute in Basic Life Principles.

The school's headmaster previously worked at a series of private Christian schools, while the dean of administrative services worked for an international missionary group. The lawyer who co-founded the school had long championed the cause of Christian homeschoolers and was instrumental in founding the Michigan chapter of the Rutherford Institute, the right-wing equivalent of the ACLU.

Not really a school, Noah Webster planned to leap into the digital age by providing computer-linked classes to homeschoolers.

The religious connections and the novelty of having a handful of teachers for thousands of homeschoolers quickly enveloped Noah Webster in a swirl of controversy. Finally, state Superintendent of Schools Robert Shiller denied the school funding, forcing it to drastically scale back its plans.

Operating without state aid, Noah Webster is currently a private school with five homeschooled "distance learning" students.

Noah Webster hasn't been the only charter school blurring the line between church and state. Earlier this year, the Muskegon Chronicle ran a series of stories about the TriValley Academy, which received a charter, and the public funds that come with it, in 1995. According to the paper, the school's board was appointed by Bishop Nathaniel Wells of the Holy Trinity Church of God, the teachers were being paid with church funds and church equipment and personnel are routinely used to operate the school.

"Charter schools are simply private schools with new packaging," said Howard Simon, head of the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, at the time. "(They're) an effort by those who have always opposed and resented public education to accomplish through the back door that which they cannot do openly- diverting public dollars from public education to the coffers of private schools."

The state's courts apparently agreed. The law that brought Noah Webster and the other early entries in the race to charter schools twice flunked court challenges: In 1994 a circuit court judge declared it unconstitutional, a decision affirmed last month by the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Not even waiting for the court of appeals' decision, the Engler administration pushed for a second charter law that provided the oversight courts said was lacking in the original. The second law, along with the 1994 change from property tax-based school funding to sales taxes, opened the door to the establishment of charter schools across the state.

Key to the chartering effort has been Central Michigan University. While the trustees of the state's other major universities are elected, CMU is directed by a board appointed by Engler. So far, CMU has chartered 28 of the 44 public school academies currently chartered in Michigan.

Although taxpayer-funded, charter schools exist outside the framework of the traditional school structure. Instead of an elected school board, a chartering agency is responsible for oversight.

The argument is that, without the burdensome bureaucracy that afflicts other public schools, charters are free to experiment. Also, unlike traditional public schools, charters can lower costs by hiring nonunion teachers.

And reformers scored one more 1994 victory: The establishment of a state grant of up to $5,500 that follows students to the public school of their choice.

"We have broken the educational monopoly," trumpeted DeWeese in a 1994 letter to supporters.

And, he might have added, opened the door to parochiaid. According to Wendy Wagenheim, legislative affairs director of the ACLU, nearly 50 percent of the schools chartered to date were previously private institutions.

"This is not education innovation," claims Wagenheim. "It's a clever ploy designed to avoid the prohibition on using public funds for private or parochial schools."

BY THE end of 1994, DeWeese appeared ready to lead the final assault.

"TEACH Michigan Education Fund now stands poised to lead a second revolution in education policy in Michigan," he announced. "We believe the infrastructure has been created which will ultimately allow private and religious schools to be chartered while remaining independent of government control.

"I believe we have now arrived at a promising moment in Michigan's history where a focused effort and well-executed plan will create a solid opportunity to amend our state Constitution. We have that plan ready now."

In retrospect that pronouncement seems to have been premature. But a new plan is under way.

According to a draft copy of the plan obtained by the Metro Times, TEACH Michigan's ultimate goal remains striking down the state constitution's prohibitions against private and parochial school funding. This time, however, there's a new twist on the horizon: vouchers.

The voucher plan envisioned by DeWeese consists of direct grants to parents, who could use the money to pay tuition at whatever private school they choose.

According to the newest set of plans, a major effort to put a voucher initiative on the November 1998 ballot will be launched next spring.

"What we are proposing is a pilot program, focused on Detroit and a few other urban areas," explains DeWeese.

The plan might have been torn from the Christian Coalition's strategy book. Vouchers are a key element in its Contract with the American Family, but the coalition is finding that implementing vouchers on a broad scale is an almost impossible task.

"What they've learned over the years is that pilot programs are the way to go," says Deanna Duby of People for the American Way. "The only way they've been successful in getting the public to accept them is on the local level with limited scope."

And, by starting in Detroit, the effort can be cast as an education reform movement aimed at providing choice for the state's poorest parents.

But there's one catch: Although the pilot program DeWeese is pushing would initially affect only Detroit and other urban areas, the plan can't be initiated without a constituional amendment that would open the door for vouchers throughout Michigan.

So DeWeese is on the move, trying to drum up support for vouchers within Detroit's African American community.

"Their support is crucial," he says.

Voucher advocates argue that parents should have the freedom to choose any school they want- private or public.

"Why shouldn't they be allowed to send their children to religious schools if they want to?" asks DeWeese.

They should, answer critics, but not at taxpayer expense.

"School choice is basically a new slogan for promoting aid to parochial schools," contends John M. Swomley, emeritus professor of social ethics at the St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. Referring to what he calls the "propaganda" of school reformers, Swomley maintains that vouchers will cripple public schools and further fragment society.

"Vouchers will take money away from public schools to subsidize special interests with their own dogmatic views on a variety of issues," he argues. "The problem with vouchers is they don't help poor people. They are just a way to funnel money into parochial and private schools. The end result is public schools are left with even less money than they have now."

Even the Michigan Partnership for New Education, which cooperated with TEACH Michigan in its efforts to promote charter schools, is drawing the line at this next step.

"We've reached an intersection," says JoAnna Trierweiler of the Michigan Partnership, which began under the Blanchard administration in 1990 and receives both state and private funding. "In terms of charter schools, we aligned with TEACH Michigan because of a common need. But we are absolutely opposed to vouchers that would mix the issues of church and state separation."

DeWeese says his critics are overly concerned with the religious aspect.

"I'm being accused of wanting to subsidize religious schools, but that's not my motivation," says DeWeese. "I have no interest in making America a Christian country.

"They see this as trying to provide money to religious schools, but that's just a side effect. What I see is an empowerment issue and an economic justice issue."

Yet religion remains a constant part of TEACH Michigan's subtext.

"There is no good reason why independent schools, including those which are religiously affiliated, should not be able to participate in a publicly funded, publicly accessible and publicly accountable educational system," wrote DeWeese in an article for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.

The way DeWeese sees it, with the passage of charter school legislation and the other changes achieved so far under the Engler administration, much has been accomplished.

"If nothing else happened, I would be very gratified," he says. But the fight isn't over.

The state constitution, after all, still prohibits using public money to pay for religious education. The roadblock to universal school choice still remains. And DeWeese still wants to see it removed.

"I don't think we've ever given up that goal," he says.