No Child Left Behind Except.......

16 October 2003

No Child Left Behind Except.........

- Mary Elizabeth Hansen

Amid the current budget battle in the U.S. Congress over reconstruction costs for post-war Iraq, another item in the budget is soon to be offered for approval to President Bush. Indonesia, home to the largest concentration of Muslims in the world, is set to receive $250 million from the U. S. in order to strengthen Western-style ideas in 178,000 state schools and 12,000 Western-tolerant Islamic schools throughout the country. By shoring up these schools, it is hoped that enrollment numbers in schools run by radical Islamists will drop. This is according to a recent news report in the Western Australian. Australia will contribute another $12 million to the effort and may increase its funding in order to diffuse the growing influence of radical Islamists in Indonesian schools.

The desired results of this funding are in doubt. According to the Western Australian, Greg Feeley, a leading expert on Indonesian issues, observed that most Indonesian parents send their children to the radical Islamic schools by choice, not by economic considerations. He also questioned the lack of accountability and safeguards in place in order to closely monitor the distribution and results of this money giveaway to the Indonesian government.

Recently passed laws by the Indonesian government support Mr. Feeley's misgivings. In June the Indonesian Parliament decreed that schools with 10 or more students of a particular faith had to be given religious instruction by a teacher of the same faith. The law negatively impacted Christian schools, forcing them to fund Islamic teachers for their Muslim students and to build mosques on the campuses of Christian schools. Since Christian schools traditionally offer a high quality of education, many Muslim parents send their children to Christian schools. This law was a real victory for Islamists in the Indonesian government.

Who will be the winners in this slush fund to Indonesia, if approved by President Bush? The Indonesian government will benefit from this infusion of U.S. money, relieving it of some budget constraints resulting from its ailing economy. The Islamists will also be winners. They can continue to pressure the Indonesian government, with the help of their brothers in the Indonesian Parliament, to expand their brand of intolerance into every aspect of Indonesian society, including the educational system. This time the pressure will include a demand for a generous slice of the U.S. funds earmarked for tolerance training.

Who will be the losers in this educational jackpot? Already financially reeling from the new government regulation to fund Islamists in their schools, the Christian school system will lose again. No U.S. funds are slated to go to Christian schools. Yet, it is in these schools that tolerance, openness and other Western ideals" are being taught on a daily basis.

Oh yes. Another loser will be the U. S. taxpayer. With little or no accountability for the $250 million, Americans will be funding another generation of people ready and willing to support the demise of the West.