The Coalition Against Religious Discrimination

OPPOSE THE SCHOOL READINESS ACT OF 2003 BECAUSE IT REPEALS CRITICAL CIVIL RIGHTS PROTECTIONS FOR HEAD START TEACHERS AND PARENT VOLUNTEERS

Dear Representative:

We, the undersigned religious, civil rights, labor, education, health and advocacy organizations are writing to urge you to oppose the School Readiness Act (H.R. 2210) as voted out of the Subcommittee on Education Reform because it repeals longstanding civil rights protections designed to protect over 198,000 Head Start teachers and staff and over 1,450,000 parent volunteers from employment discrimination based on religion in federally-funded Head Start programs.  

Since 1981, the Head Start program has included this nondiscrimination provision, an important civil rights protection against employment discrimination for Head Start teachers and volunteers.  The legislation received strong bipartisan support from both the House and Senate at the time of its passage in the 97^th Congress.  President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Head Start program, which contains the very same civil rights provision that H.R. 2210 now seeks to repeal as applied to religious organizations.  This twenty-two year old provision has worked well since the inception of this program, allowing religious organizations to participate in programs while maintaining Constitutional and civil rights standards.

We recognize that religious organizations participating in the Head Start program make an invaluable contribution to the education of thousands of students.  These religious organizations have complied with Head Start's existing civil rights requirements.  However, if the repeal of the existing civil rights protection were to become law, teachers or parent volunteers working in any Head Start program run by a religious organization could immediately lose their jobs because of their religion.  Students participating in Head Start therefore could lose not only their teachers, but also the close programmatic connection with their own parents volunteering in the program.  We strongly believe that allowing discrimination based on religion would significantly impede the important goals of Head Start, send a damaging message to Head Start students, and harm their education by separating students from their own teachers and parent volunteers.

We urge you to reject this unjustified assault on civil rights protections in federally-funded Head Start programs, especially a program such as Head Start, in which the education of younger children is so dependent on parent participation and on ongoing, close relationships with Head Start teachers.

Sincerely,

American Association of University Women
American Civil Liberties Union
American Friends Service Committee (Quaker)
American Humanist Association
American Jewish Congress
Americans for Religious Liberty
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Anti-Defamation League 
Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs
Central Conference of American Rabbis
Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America
NAADAC The Association for Addiction Professionals
National Council of Jewish Women
National Education Association
OMB Watch
People for the American Way
Secular Coalition for America
Union of American Hebrew Congregations
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
United Church of Christ, Justice & Witness Ministries
Women of Reform Judaism