Past U.S. Supreme Court rulings have held that schools and school employees must be careful to engage in religious activities while at school that could appear to endorse a particular religion above others or coerce students to engage in religious activities. However, the June 2022 Kennedy v. Bremerton School District opinion suggests that the…

In "Carson v. Makin," the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, if a state offers tuition assistance for students to attend private schools, then requiring that those private schools be nonsectarian violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Robert Kim discusses how this case aligns with other decisions related to the free…

Political dissent has played an important role in giving U.S. citizens a voice and promoting justice for all. But too often, Sarah Stitzlein argues, dissent is underappreciated, especially in schools. Stitzlein discusses the obstacles to teaching dissent, particularly political movements seeking to suppress curricula and ideas that are considered…

Although, at one time, many observers believed that the courts and the schools should have little to do with each other, Justin Driver argues that the public school has, in recent decades, served as the single most significant site of constitutional interpretation in the nation's history. He traces four reasons for this growing intersection…

Prior to the mid-1970s, over one million children with disabilities were excluded from the nation's schools. In 1975, as a result of intense litigation and advocacy, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA, P.L. 94-142), now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), mandating that public schools…

U.S. Supreme Court decisions handed down in June and July 1985 rejected the use of silent periods for religious purposes in the public schools, and restricted the use of public funds to support supplemental educational programs in parochial school settings. (PGD)

In recent years a growing number of state boards of education have established mechanisms to ensure dialog between public school policymakers and their nonpublic school counterparts. Outlines the methods used in four states: Florida, Louisiana, New York, and Ohio. (MD)

Twenty years after the Supreme Court's decision in "Abington v. Schempp," the public still needs help to understand the proper relationship between religion and public education. The "Schempp" case suggests guidelines; for example, certified school personnel should make decisions about the study of religion and such study…

Actions taken by the U.S. Supreme Court in two cases during December of 1981 tend to confirm that there is a difference in constitutional standards between K-12 and higher education when determining the rights of students to conduct prayer meetings and worship services on the premises of public institutions. (Author)

World events, increasing diversity in the classroom, and headlines about the latest court cases all ensure that religion will remain a sensitive and sometimes contentious issue in the public schools. Challenges readers to think about how they would respond to 12 hypothetical classroom situations involving religion. (Author/MLF)

Since the Supreme Court's 1992 "Lee v. Weisman" decision, holding that the First Amendment's establishment clause precluded school-sponsored graduation prayers, school officials have struggled to avoid lawsuits while satisfying community preferences. Efforts to circumvent this decision have resulted in "noncoercive"…

Prayer at school-sponsored events became significant issue in many communities, in wake of Supreme Court's decision in "Lee v. Weisman.""Phi Delta Kappan" survey was conducted to discover how school districts handled graduation prayer. Of 1,491 responding districts, 46% included some form of prayer at formal commencement…

Summarizes a complex case involving a reopened Minnesota elementary school serving children of the Brethren, a religious group that had earlier bought the school. Although no religious instruction occurred there, two taxpayers successfully sued the district. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed this decision, noting the secular nature of…

In September 2002, the children of parents Latasha Gibbs, Carmella Glass, Laverne Jones, Charlene Mingo, Deborah Powell-Jasper, Eunice Staton, and Keikola Valentine were attending New York City public schools that the state education department identified as needing improvement -- in other words, failing -- under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB)…

The good news is that the achievement gaps between racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. are smaller than they were several decades ago. The bad news is that progress stopped around 1990. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) continues to show large differences between the average scores of blacks and Hispanics on the one hand and…