
{"id":28115,"date":"2012-10-04T10:04:36","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T14:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=28115"},"modified":"2012-10-04T10:04:36","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T14:04:36","slug":"talking-religious-expression-in-our-local-public-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/10\/04\/talking-religious-expression-in-our-local-public-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking religious expression in our local public schools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Taylor Sisk<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153As classes get under way, public school students across America will form religious clubs, pray together in their free time, distribute religious literature to classmates, share their religious convictions in class discussions and in many other ways belie the myth of the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcgodless public schools,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Charles Haynes, director of the First Amendment Center\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Religious Freedom Education Project, recently wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Religious expression and study has made a comeback in public schools, Haynes asserts, a slow, steady comeback over the past two decades, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153owing to court decisions, legislation, and broadly supported guidelines issued by religious, educational and civil liberties groups.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Haynes believes that an increasing number of public school administrators \u00e2\u20ac\u0153understand and apply the First Amendment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when addressing the role of religion in their schools.<\/p>\n<p>The subject of religion in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools has recently arisen with the application and subsequent initial approval for charter of the Howard and Lillian Lee Scholars Charter School, a K-8 school that if given final approval by the state board of education will join the local school system for the 2013-14 school year.<\/p>\n<p>The school will be co-managed by the for-profit, Michigan-based National Heritage Academies (NHA), which operates more than 70 charter schools across the country, including five in North Carolina.<\/p>\n<p>NHA has faced litigation in the past for allegedly presenting creationism as a scientifically based theory and promoting religious activities. In 1998, parents of children enrolled in Vanguard Charter Academy, an NHA-run school in Wyoming, Mich., claimed their kids were exposed to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Christian influences.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A U.S. district court judge ruled that NHA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s moral focus curriculum did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.<\/p>\n<p>The ACLU claimed though that as a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a8result of the lawsuit, the school discontinued\u00e2\u20ac\u00a8 practices that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153promoted religion,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d including praying in the classrooms; the display\u00e2\u20ac\u00a8of religious signs; allowing the distribution of religious literature;\u00e2\u20ac\u00a8providing a church rent-free access while charging other groups; and\u00e2\u20ac\u00a8organizing a teacher training that included prayer, religious music and a \u00e2\u20ac\u00a8Baptist sermon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Teaching religion<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Lee school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s charter application states that, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Moral Focus program will equip students with the behaviors and attitudes they need to be successful in high school, college, and beyond.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Values are fundamental to a great education and will be an integral part of the curriculum at Lee Scholars,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d David Palumbo, the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chief academic officer, told The Citizen in a July email.\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our Moral Focus emphasis is one of the central parts of the school culture at all schools operated by NHA.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>An early draft of the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s charter application included a section on religious freedom and teaching religion that was removed from subsequent versions, leading some community members to wonder if an attempt was being made to mask an agenda.<\/p>\n<p>NHA founder and chair J.C. Huizenga has at times made his views on education known. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Relativism seems to have labeled the celebration of virtue as some sort of cultural bias that needs to be eliminated if balance and objectivity are to guide the pursuit of knowledge,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Huizenga told the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in 2002. <\/p>\n<p>In 1999, he told the Wall Street Journal, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Personally, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe a gay teacher is an appropriate teacher for a child.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcLost in the weeds\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/strong><br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153To me, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually in any school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interest, given the significance of religion, to teach students about the major philosophical worldviews in ways that are constitutionally permissible and educationally sound,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Sam Chaltain, an education activist and former director of the Washington, D.C.-based Forum for Education and Democracy. <\/p>\n<p>Chaltain said he believes the questions raised about potential religious undertones in the NHA curriculum present the community with a great opportunity to have a conversation about the role of religion in public education.<\/p>\n<p>Schools often \u00e2\u20ac\u0153end up shying away from religion altogether because they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Chaltain believes there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a middle ground, what he calls the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153civic public school,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in which students learn about all religions and the role they play in how people see and understand the world.<\/p>\n<p>Schools that take this middle ground, he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153recognize that not only is it OK to teach about religion but that if kids want to explore those things, as long as those directing it are just creating a space to pursue whatever they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re interested in,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d they should be allowed do so. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If a Muslim kid comes and says, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to pray five times a day, can I use your classroom when no one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in there?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s OK under the free-exercise clause.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But if a Muslim kid comes and says, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI pray five times a day and think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty cool, can I lead everybody in prayer at the beginning of English class?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not OK.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We want kids to decide if they believe in one god, 30 gods or no god,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Chaltain said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and the best way to do that is to recognize that one of the most central things we can learn about as human beings is the role religion has played in history.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Chaltain observes that concerns today regarding public school curricula are predominantly focused on reading and math scores. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Right now, conversations about education are divorced from conversations about learning,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When we talk about education, we talk about how to boost test scores, as though that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a complete proxy for how we ensure how children do a better job of learning and growing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t often talk about religion in curricula \u00e2\u20ac\u0153because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lost in the weeds of percentile gains and third-grade math scores,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Chaltain said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a lot of work to do.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Getting religion right in schools matters because getting religious freedom right in America matters,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Charles Haynes writes.<\/p>\n<p>Questions put to the Lee school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s local board of directors regarding the proposed moral focus curricula and the religious language in the early draft of the charter application have gone unanswered. All requests to the board by <em>The Citizen<\/em> for interviews have gone unanswered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153As classes get under way, public school students across America will form religious clubs, pray together in their free time, distribute religious literature to classmates, share their religious convictions in class discussions and in many other ways belie the myth of the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcgodless public schools,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Charles Haynes recently wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28116,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28115\/revisions\/28116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}