Federal Ban on School Prayer Widely Ignored

[The Straight Story]

Half a century after the U.S. Supreme Court banned prayer in public classrooms, religion is nonetheless very present in schools these days.

....

Students were free to say grace in the cafeteria, meet outside class to study the Bible, Quran, or Torah, and participate in religious after-school programs on their campuses.

“We’ve gone from virtual silence about religion in the curriculum and virtually no student religious expression in many schools,” Charles Haynes, a scholar at the First Amendment Center and head of the Religious Freedom Education Project in Washington, DC, told the Christian Science Monitor, “to today, when social studies and other standards are fairly generous to religion, and students are expressing their faiths in many different ways in many public schools, if not most.”



Consider the following facts:

Good News Clubs, organized by the Child Evangelism Fellowship, hold Sunday school-like classes in some 3,200 public elementary schools for 156,000 students.

One million to two million students participate in “See You at the Pole” prayer services every September beneath their campus flagpoles.

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes has more than 8,000 chapters on junior and high school campuses across the country.

Campus Crusade for Christ has about 200 clubs, almost all of them in public schools.

Youth for Christ, an evangelical missionary organization, has on- and off-campus clubs at 1,200 schools, most of them public.

http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/federal-ban-on-school-prayer-widely-ignored-130621?news=850356

[dawg]

1. The Supreme Court never banned prayer in school.

It banned teacher or administrator-led prayer in school.

Students are free to pray, or not pray, as they wish. And that includes voluntary clubs and events like the thing at the pole.

[Nye Bevan]

2. I don't really get the point of this article.

My understanding is that it's teacher-led or school-sponsored prayer that has been deemed unconstitutional. I don't think kids have ever been banned from saying Grace in the cafeteria and praying voluntarily.

[The Straight Story]

4. I think the point is that the law didn't really impact religion in schools

the way people thought it would.

The group mentioned in the article (more info):

The initiatives of the project, directed by Charles C. Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, include:

Working with religious, political and academic leaders to educate the public on the meaning and significance of religious liberty at home and abroad.

Sponsoring public programs at the Newseum focused on the critical religious-freedom issues in the United States and the world.

Advising Face to Faith, an innovative schools program sponsored by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation that enables students across the globe to learn from, with and about one another.

Developing consensus guidelines on religious-liberty issues to help Americans and people of other nations address differences and avoid conflict by working toward a common vision of the common good.

Assisting local communities and public schools in addressing controversies and divisions involving religious and ideological differences, with the aim of developing a shared understanding of the role of religion in public life.

http://www.religiousfreedomeducation.org

Which is a part of:

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org

[premium]

3. Only teacher led or school sponsered,

students are free to pray.