Madfloridian's Journal - Why does the Department of Education have a Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Center?

Has this department always had a faith-based initiative? Or is it something new. I have made no secret that I am distressed at the direction our country is going as we turn to more testing and more charter schools.

I just read this, and I don't see a need for a faith-based initiative person in the Department of Education which in my mind should be a department that functions more secularly.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan appoints director of the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Center

Colorado Senate President Peter Groff was appointed Friday to a post in the U.S. Department of Education.

Groff, who has made education a hallmark of his Senate leadership, will serve as director of the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Center in the office of Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Groff will “help empower faith-based and community groups, enlisting them in support of the department’s mission to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence for all Americans,” the Education Department said in a statement.

Empower faith based and community groups to ensure equal access to education? I thought everyone in this country had equal access to education...public education. Not religion based education. I thought that access already existed.

I am not happy that President Obama is basically expanding the faith-based initiatives that were begun by President Bush. I think government has to rise above the factions of faith and religion, and I think there should be a wall between government and religion.

I did a search on this topic, and I can find nothing. Why would there be a department within the education department to "empower faith based and community groups to ensure equal access to education?"

They already have that access, so I wondering what is going on here.