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KSTP-TV is reporting that the Minnesota Department of Education is starting an investigation into the TIZA charter school. Tiza was first highlighted by Strib columnist Katharine Kersten in this column. Here's what KSTP is reporting:
A Star Tribune newspaper column has prompted a state investigation into a charter school. A substitute teacher said a school in Inver Grove Heights is blurring the line of separation of church and state.
Being a charter school Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, or TIZA, is supported by tax dollars. The teacher told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the presence of religion she observed at the school took her by surprise.
TIZA Executive Director Azad Zaman insisted the school follows with state and federal laws. "TIZA does not endorse any religion," he said.
Substitute teacher Amanda Getz thinks otherwise:
"I've been in a lot of schools and I've never been in a school where they had washing rituals, or they had prayer, or where they had a room where you had to take your shoes off," Getz said.
Of course, Imam Zaman denies Ms. Getz's allegations:
"It is most likely that this substitute teacher was sadly mistaken," said Zaman. He said the school follows state and federal guidelines when it comes to religion. "We're required under the federal guidelines to allow students to pray when they wish to do so. And as Muslim students, they're allowed to pray around 1:30 p.m., so we allow them to do that," Zaman explained.
With all due respect to Imam Zaman, I don't think that Ms. Getz is "most likely...sadly mistaken" with this much specificity:
Arriving on a Friday, the Muslim holy day, she says she was told that the day's schedule included a "school assembly" in the gym after lunch. Before the assembly, she says she was told, her duties would include taking her fifth-grade students to the bathroom, four at a time, to perform "their ritual washing."
Afterward, Getz said, "teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day," was preparing to lead prayer. Beside him, another man "was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered. The prayer I saw was not voluntary," Getz said. "The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred."
The notion that "TIZA does not endorse any religion" is laughable on several levels. They share the building the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society, which has its headquarters there. There's also a mosque housed inside the building. Let's remember that MAS-MN is an anti-Semitic organization. Here's some of the content on its webpage:
The following statements are found on the MAS-Minnesota site, www.masmn.org:
- "The Holy Prophet (and through him the Muslims) has been reassured that he should not mind the enmity, the evil designs and the machinations of the Jews..."
- "In view of the degenerate moral condition of the Jews and the Christians, the Believers have been warned not to make them their friends and confidants."
- "If you gain victory over the men of Jews, kill them."
- "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, 'O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.'"
- "May Allah destroy the Jews, because they used the graves of their prophets as places of worship."
- "A Muslim must always worship Allah and wage jihad until death in order to reach his ultimate goal... Regularly make the intention to go on jihad with the ambition to die as a martyr."
Are we to believe that a school that serves only halal food, that has an imam conduct daily prayer sessions and that is 'sponsored' by Islamic Relief, a Muslim 'charity' associated with Hamas, isn't a religious school? Here's a central teaching of MAS-MN:
"Muslims...must work on reforming their government so that it may become a truly Islamic government. ... By Islamic government I mean a government whose officers are Muslims who perform the obligatory duties of Islam, who do not make public their disobedience, and who enforce the rules and teachings of Islam.
It takes alot of audacity to claim that this isn't a religious school. If given the facts, I can't imagine how the Minnesota Department of Education can't rule that it's a religious school that shouldn't get state funding. In fact, the Minnesota Department of Education should rule that any state funding paid to the school should be repaid, including the building of the school.
It's the only reasonable thing to do.
Comments welcome at LFR. |
