Separation of church and state? Religion in public schools is being tested by Christian conservatives

Officials, educators and parents are being confronted by what amount of religious-infused lessons they want children to have access to in public schools.

As the Texas State Board of Education prepared to vote last month on whether to allow public school districts to opt in to a new elementary school curriculum featuring Bible-based lessons, board member Staci Childs asked her pastor for prayer.

“I’d think that learning some things about the Bible on a historical account is not necessarily bad. But if I’m saying less Christianity, what kind of Christian am I?” Childs said last week. “This was conflicting for me.”

The material won narrow approval in a Republican-led 8-7 vote, although three Republican members, including Childs, joined the four Democrats on the board in opposition.

“In the law, there is a clear separation of church and state,” Childs, an attorney who represents the Houston area on the board, said of her decision.

If the constitutionality of mixing religious doctrine with public school education had seemed to be largely decided, with U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the 1960s and ’80s limiting how religious activity and teachings can be enforced, a wave of new laws and mandates in states, particularly in the South, is stirring debate and testing the bounds of what may be legally permissible.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bible-in-public-schools-church-state-religion-rcna181934

---