Hortlund, public school and government are not there to instill Christian (or whatever religion you choose) values. That is what parents, private schools, and places of worship are for. Public school is to teach kids math, reading, science, social studies (oh, btw, ethics and civics are a part of this! and get this, you can teach someone how to treat other people nicely without bringing your God into it), music, physical education and a few other things.
Now I'd like everyone who thinks we're trying to drive religion out of public schools to pay very close attention to this... I do NOT care if little Johnny or Susie prays to whatever deity(ies) they want to in school. I do care when Principal Smith or Teacher X leads the children in a prayer to the deity of the school's (or individual teacher's) choice. THAT is what we are trying to remove from school. "Under God" falls under that too, it's government endorsement of the Christian faith (Eisenhower was a very strong Christian man, nothing wrong with that other than the fact he injected his beliefs into the Pledge of Allegience). Why am I making this distinction? Because a lot of pro-God types are thinking we are anti-religion. We (at least me) are NOT. First amendment provides for freedom of religion, YET for separation of church and state. Meaning you can practice religion as you want, yet the gov't (including a public school) should not be endorsing religion. I'm busy here at work getting school policies online. One of them caught my attention and it's why I came here to post this.
A moment of silence, not to exceed two (2) minutes, may be provided for students at the beginning of each school day.
That's fine, in my opinion. A child may pray, worship or whatever in those two minutes. As to why only 2 minutes? We pay taxes to teach children, not for them to pray or reflect on other things (such as that cute girl's butt in front of you...)
