WASHINGTON (AP) - An Education Department team is quietly traveling the country helping religious groups compete for more than $1 billion in federal grants for afterschool and tutoring programs.
The effort to promote one of President Bush's priorities promises to have an impact on public schools as early as this fall, even as state lawmakers continue debating whether to allow public-school students to use tax monies to attend religious schools.
"I meet these armies of compassion and I hear their stories," said John J. Porter, who heads the department's Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. "I hear about the work they're doing in these cities and in these troubled areas — it's almost like this huge cry for help is going up."
The landmark education bill approved by Congress last year funnels $1.25 billion in federal aid for afterschool programs and millions more for tutoring services to schools, businesses and "community-based organizations." As far as Bush is concerned, that includes churches and other religious organizations, though that's not spelled out in the law.
Civil liberty groups don't like it, but there's nothing specifically barring such groups, leaving it to the administration — and possibly the courts — to sort it out.
In the meantime, the American Civil Liberties Union and others complain that the administration isn't insisting that religious groups comply with laws about whom they can hire. So, for instance, a Catholic church that gets federal funds to provide tutoring can refuse to hire Baptists, Jews or Muslims, even though nonreligious groups couldn't discriminate in that manner.
"The Bush administration is trying to push the envelope and not necessarily make it clear that you can't discriminate," said the ACLU's Terri Schroeder.
Education organizations also fear that religious groups could use the access to children to proselytize on the public's dime.
"You always have concerns when you're starting to blur the line between church and state," said Randall Moody, a lobbyist for the National Education Association. "You just never know. How do you police that? How do you regulate that?"
Porter, an attorney from Pittsburgh, rejects the idea that church groups be required to hire workers from other faiths, saying this discriminates against such groups "for trying to be true to their character."
He said the administration would monitor programs' spending — they can't buy Bibles with federal funds, for instance — and added that school-related sessions must be free of proselytizing. Students also must be allowed to opt out of religious sessions.
But Porter admits he's asking religious groups to tread a fine line by demanding that they separate their academic and spiritual offerings.
"The kids who come to this ... the ones who are eligible, are the ones who are in desperate need," he said. "And as President Bush says, they need to do more than learn how to read and write. They need to have dignity, they need to be loved, they need to see responsible, caring adults and positive role models. They need hope."
The administration has launched similar efforts in four other Cabinet-level agencies, saying religious groups are well-suited to provide social services to the poor.
Bush has tried to open a host of new federal programs to religious groups, but that effort has stalled in Congress. The Republican-led House passed the legislation, but the Democratic-controlled Senate balked. Senate negotiators hope to have a deal by next week on a compromise version that gives new tax breaks to encourage charitable giving and makes it clear that a group's name or symbols on its walls don't make it ineligible for federal dollars.
Surveys have shown that congregations are largely unaware of the new opportunity. Religious groups also remain wary of government money, fearful they will become burdened by regulations that could restrict their religious practices. And they often aren't adept at breaking into government contracting.
The Rev. Richard P. Wilson of Detroit's Tried Stone Baptist Church said he hopes to use a federal grant to strengthen his afterschool program for children in sixth grade and up, "so that they can see opportunities to be more than just the simple, basic cooks and waiters."
Wilson said the average household income of his parishioners is about $14,000, with 60 percent of households made up of grandparents raising their grandchildren because parents are drug-addicted or otherwise can't raise the children.
Porter said such communities will benefit from the grants, ignoring "abstract and theoretical" church-state considerations.
"That's an inside-the-Beltway, partisan, theoretical debate that extremist groups engage in," he said. "And particularly in the African-American and the Hispanic community, they just don't get this thing about church and state."
He said 1,100 people turned out for a grant-writing workshop in San Antonio, and 1,300 came to a session in Salisbury, N.C.