WP,pg1: Bible Breaks at Public Schools Face Challenges in Rural Virginia

[DeepModem Mom]

Bible Breaks at Public Schools Face Challenges in Rural Virginia

By Carol Morello
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 23, 2005; Page A01


....For 65 years, weekday Bible classes have been part of the fabric of growing up in this town of 24,000 in Augusta County and in a score of other small towns and hamlets in rural Virginia. It is such an accepted tradition that 80 to 85 percent of the first-, second- and third-graders in Staunton participate (in a nearby church).

But now, the practice is being challenged by a group of parents who have asked the School Board to end or modify weekday religious education. Not only do they fear that their children are stigmatized for not attending, but in a decidedly 21st-century twist, they also argue that interrupting class for Bible study hinders efforts to meet state and national standards for test scores....

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Bible classes in public schools were once common across the nation. The first proponents in the early years of the last century were liberal Protestant reformers who believed Christianity would mitigate the evils of segregation and war, according to Jonathan Zimmerman, author of "Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools."...

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For decades, the lessons were conducted inside public school classrooms. But in its 1948 decision McCollum v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that the lessons violated the principle of separation of church and state. Amid criticism that it was atheistic, the court returned to the issue four years later in Zorach v. Clauson. That decision approved classes held away from school premises, ruling that the practice might be unwise from an educational viewpoint but that to prevent it would be hostile to religious freedom....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29266-2005Jan22.html