Religion in the Public Schools

School Administrator, Jan, 1999 by Charles C. Haynes

With a new legal consensus offering safe passage, school leaders have an unprecedented chance to build trust between educators and people of faith

Everyone knows the bad stories--the fights that end in angry communities and expensive lawsuits. Most school leaders can recite them in their sleep.

Who can forget a 1st-grader who is told by his teacher he can't read a Bible story to the class, even though all the other children got to read their favorite story? Or a teacher who leads her class in prayer and invites students to accept salvation?

Listen to talk radio or read direct-mail fund-raising letters and you'll hear the same horror stories about schools over and over: The assembly program featuring condom demonstrations that outrages many religious parents. The school district that won't allow the student Bible club to meet during lunchtime but permits other extracurricular clubs to do so. And the parade of horribles goes on.

Everyone's Nightmare

Conflicts like these may be the best ammunition for fighting the culture wars, but they are the worst nightmare for the public school administrator. Every school leader knows that no matter who wins the lawsuit, everybody loses--especially the public schools. The upshot of these battles is more distrust and division in the community and erosion of support for public education.

With all this hostility and controversy, it's small wonder that many school leaders will do anything to avoid dealing with religious issues in their districts. But even if it were still possible (it's not), avoidance is the worst possible strategy.

Fortunately, there's a better approach--one that provides educational leaders with a constitutional safe harbor for preventing the conflicts before they occur.

A Progressive Tact

Consider Evelyn Holman. She and many school leaders like her have discovered that questions concerning religion in public schools need not divide the community. On the contrary, by being pro-active and fair to all sides, Holman enabled her district to build bridges across deep differences and find common ground.

It all began when tensions about religion in the schools began to surface about seven years ago in the Wicomico County, Md., school district, where Holman was superintendent at the time. Rather than become defensive or ignore the problem, Holman acted quickly and wisely to address the underlying issues.

First she persuaded the school board to appoint a task force with representatives from across the religious and political spectrum. Then she made sure the task force committed itself to a fair process--one that included all stakeholders in the debate. Parents, teachers, administrators, religious leaders and others participated in communitywide discussions about the appropriate constitutional and educational role for religion in the schools.

Finally, after months of hard work and vigorous debate, the group reached consensus on how to treat religion in the curriculum and in the school culture. The resulting policy has broad support throughout the community. Even more important, however, are the new levels of trust and understanding among people on all sides.

Holman didn't stop there. She provided in-service training to teachers and administrators, identified good supplemental materials for teaching religious liberty in the classroom and distributed a brochure that answered frequently asked questions about the policy.

In her current district, Bay Shore, N.Y., where she has been superintendent since 1993, Holman has taken many of the same actions as she attempts to build understanding on these issues.

What's at Stake?

Public schools need many more of these good stories--and many more Evelyn Holmans. Finding common ground is essential to the future of public education.

Four years ago at a meeting between public school leaders and some of their most severe critics from the conservative Christian community, I opened the discussion with the usual litany of conflicts, ranging from religious holidays and prayers to school reform and sex education. Then I remarked that if we don't find new ways to address our differences on these issues, public education doesn't have much of a future.

As soon as 1 had spoken, Ernest Boyer, representing the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, hit the table, saying "I wouldn't put it that way." Everyone looked surprised, well aware of Boyer's strong advocacy of public education. "No," he said emphatically, "if we don't do better in addressing these conflicts, it's not just public schools, but our nation that doesn't have much of a future."

Boyer was right. If we are going to sustain the American experiment--E Pluribus Unum--then we can't afford culture wars in our schools that rend apart the fabric of our communities and undermine the education of our children. We need a fresh, bold approach to the conflicts--an approach that enables us to live with even our deepest differences.

Failed Models

First, however, we must be courageous enough to take the debate back from the extremes. On one end of the spectrum are those who advocate what might be called the "sacred public school" where one religion (theirs) is preferred in school policies and practices. Characteristic of the early history of public schools, this approach still survives in some parts of the United States, particularly in the rural South. The sacred public school is both unjust and unconstitutional.