WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has actively encouraged parochial schools and faith-based groups to apply for federal grants to provide after-school programs under the nation's main education law, which was rewritten last year to allow direct government funding of religious organizations for the first time.
The Education Department has been contacting clergy and holding a series of free grant-writing workshops this summer to help religious and community groups compete for federal funds under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the latest version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The new law provides more than $1 billion for literacy, tutoring, counseling, and mentoring programs designed to boost student achievement.
The department has gone beyond outreach efforts and adopted a ''novice applicant'' rule, which allows Education Secretary Rod Paige to give bonus points to inexperienced bidders when they apply for federal contracts. People familiar with government grant-making say the regulation is unprecedented and could give new bidders a significant advantage in funding competitions.
John Porter, director of the department's Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives since May, said the initiatives have the dual aim of obtaining the best services for students and ''leveling the playing field'' for faith-based groups that he said are equipped to teach but have been disqualifed and discriminated against by government agencies because they were perceived as ''too religious.''
''So now we are trying to shift that attitude and change the culture in the Department of Education,'' said Porter, who expects at least 500 community and faith-based groups from the Midwest to attend a workshop Wednesday in Minneapolis. ''The question is no longer who are you, but what can you do to help children learn. ''
But First Amendment watchdogs raise other questions, including whether it is constitutional for a federal agency to recruit and directly fund religious groups. Skeptics wonder who will monitor the religious content and hiring practices of faith-based programs that receive education grants, and whether it is proper or wise to give an advantage to untested social-service providers.
''This is extraordinary,'' said Dan Katz, legislative director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an advocacy group. ''Beyond going out and holding recruitment conferences for religious groups, they are engaging in affirmative action. Do taxpayers really want government to seek out inexperienced people and promote amateurism?''
Porter, a lawyer who previously served on the board of a Christian school in Pittsburgh, said the novice applicant rule could benefit any new grant seeker and was not written solely to benefit religious or neighborhood groups. Still, he called it ''a valid preference'' that his office has vigorously promoted since it was put into effect late last year.
''We aren't giving any preference whatsoever to groups simply because they are faith-based,'' he said. ''It's a preference for groups who can deliver services well, but may not be slick grant-proposal writers.''
Porter said faith-based schools and programs would not be allowed to use federal funds for inherently religious activity, including proselytizing, worship, or Bible study. But they can use their own resources for religious instruction, he said, as long as the students are not required to participate.
The new education law, which President Bush signed in January, is unusual because it specifically invites faith-based and community groups to compete for education grants that by law or practice have traditionally gone to public schools. For example, religious groups no longer are barred from running 21st Century Community Learning Centers, an after-school program budgeted this year at $1 billion. Such groups are also eligible for grants totalling almost $250 million to provide tutoring, mentoring, migrant education and training in physical fitness, early reading, and technology.
In addition, the No Child Left Behind law allows parochial schools and religious and community groups to offer supplemental instructional services to needy children in some failing public schools. Earlier this month, Paige announced 8,600 public schools nationwide, including 259 in Massachusetts, failed to meet academic standards for two years. A portion of them - those with a three-year failure record - will be required to contract with reading and math tutors.
Porter says his office plays no role in awarding the competitive grants and has not tracked how many religious organizations are in the process of applying for the first round of federal funds, to be awarded Sept. 30. However, he said that since last fall at least 3,000 people from faith-based and community groups have attended workshops on funding opportunities and grant-writing in San Antonio, Pittsburgh, and Salisbury, N.C. It is not known whether any religious schools or groups from Massachusetts have signaled an intent to apply for the grants.
Porter and Paige also have visited churches and met with state education groups to promote the faith-based provisions in the new law. A June 21 memo to Paige from Laurie M. Rich, assistant secretary for intergovernmental and interagency affairs, reported on discussions with school officials in Louisiana about funding faith-based groups and a partnership with the Oklahoma Department of Education to contact every minister in the state.
Porter's outreach is one piece of President Bush's plan, set out in an executive order in his first month in office, to bring down the bureaucratic and legal barriers that have prevented religious charities and small community groups from getting federal money to deliver social services. While Bush's proposed legislation has stalled in Congress, the administration has established centers for faith-based and community initiatives in the White House and the departments of Education, Labor, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, and Health and Human Services.
Earlier this month, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao awarded $17.5 million in what she said were the first federal grants specifically to faith-based and community groups for job-referral centers. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson last month unveiled a $30 million Compassion Capital Fund to help train religious and community charities on accessing federal grants. HUD has appointed liaisons in its 10 regions to connect with grass-roots groups.
''We are really beginning to see the fruits of the president's initiative in terms of funds getting into communities,'' said Stephen Lazarus, senior policy adviser at the Center for Public Justice, a Christian think tank in Annapolis, Md.
Last year, an Education Department audit showed only 2 percent of all education grants went to faith-based and small, nonprofit groups, Lazarus said. Before the education law was rewritten, religious groups could indirectly obtain a small amount of funds from grants that went to public school systems.
The administration's outreach could produce political benefits as well. Bush received less than 9 percent of the black vote in 2000, and many Republicans believe that faith-based initiatives could build goodwill and political support in urban congregations and neighborhoods. The White House also is mindful of courting Catholic voters, who split evenly between Bush and Al Gore, and the president remains indebted to evangelical Christians, who overwhelmingly backed him.
Sharon Daly, vice president for social policy at Catholic Charities, praised the administration's encouragement of faith-based groups and parochial schools, but said there is no evidence they are more effective than large, established nonprofits in delivering services. She said she had not been aware of the Bush administration's novice-preference rule, which she described as ''affirmative action for small religious groups.''
''Aren't these the people who are against affirmative action?'' asked Daly, whose secular agency has done major government contracting for decades. ''It's kind of funny, but it's not consistent.''
Public school officials also have expressed concerns about how to ensure that religion is kept out of after-school instruction provided by faith-based groups and funded by the government. Civil rights advocates have challenged the Education Department's legal analysis that the new law allows faith-based groups to receive federal funds and still practice religious discrimination in hiring.
''This is a recipe for litigation,'' said Bruce Hunter, chief lobbyist for the American Association of School Administrators. He said public schools will have responsibility under the No Child Left Behind Act to ensure that after-school programs are not pervasively religious and do not violate students' civil rights.
Porter called the Supreme Court's ruling last month allowing parents to use taxpayer vouchers at private and parochial schools a ''tremendous boost'' to the president's faith-based initiative because, he said, the decision affirmed that religious educators maintain their identity and character. ''No Child Left Behind says we are not going to look at the cross, the pastor, or the sanctuary and say, `We can't fund that tutoring,''' he said.
The Rev. Johnnie Monroe, pastor of the Grace Memorial Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, said the new education law is ''a blessing'' to inner-city churches. He expects it to open doors to federal funds for his seven-year-old after-school tutoring and enrichment program, which serves 150 neighborhood children every day but never has received a government grant. ''There are certain things that the church can and must do that the public school system can't do,'' said Monroe, who instructs the students in morals, values, and biblical principles.