Reading Time: 5 minutes Earlier today, the Hays USD 489 Board of Education in Kansas voted to repeal a ban on “Satanism” from its elementary and middle school dress code. It’s the right move, though it comes weeks after a Satanist mother made the request and the ban appeared to be on the way out, and days after the […]
Education
Exploring the world of education from a secular, nonreligious perspective.
Posted inEducation
Religious liberty and critical religious education: What Justice Alito got right and wrong
Reading Time: 4 minutes Religious liberty is important, but so too is critical education about religion. I’ve spent much of my career making this point, including in a comment on the Supreme Court’s recent ruling about religious liberty. So, I was curious to read what Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito suggested about religious liberty when he spoke at an […]
Posted inLaw
Fargo School Board nixes Pledge of Allegiance due to ‘under God’ phrase
Reading Time: 2 minutes In a sensible move that’s sure to infuriate conservatives, the Fargo School Board in North Dakota voted this week to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance to open their meetings. The board only began saying the Pledge back in April, but the faux-patriotic ritual didn’t go over well with some members of the community who […]
Posted inLGBTQ News
Kindergartner kicked out of Baptist school after adoption by lesbian couple
Reading Time: 4 minutes A Baptist school in Louisiana kicked out a child who was about to enter kindergarten because she was recently adopted by lesbians. It’s the latest example of Christian love in action. The story is even more tragic when you realize what the child has been through. Five-year-old Zoey already lost both of her biological parents, […]
Posted inEducation
Chart: Educational attainment by religious affiliation
Reading Time: < 1 minute Half of all adult nonbelievers have a bachelor’s degree or more. This is second to the Jewish population, at 64%, and on par with other non-Christian religions at 49%. The religiously unaffiliated are on par with Catholics at 31%. Only 16% of Baptists have a bachelor’s degree or more, the lowest of any group.
Posted inEducation
A NC high school football coach is converting kids to Christianity
Reading Time: 3 minutes When the Supreme Court ruled that a public high school football coach was allowed to pray silently after games (even though he was actually showboating at midfield for effect), the question in the minds of many church/state separation advocates was how far other coaches would stretch that decision. How would they subvert the new rules so […]
Posted inEducation
Public libraries face new attacks from conservative Christians
Reading Time: 4 minutes A few stories about conservative Christians coming after public libraries: Voters in Jamestown Township, Michigan chose to defund the library, depriving it of 84% of its 2023 budget. Unless that decision is reversed, the Patmos Library will be forced to shut down sometime next year. The reason the vote failed? Because conservative Christians in the […]
Posted inLaw
Kansas school board upholds anti-‘Satanism’ dress code
Reading Time: 5 minutes Two weeks after initially signaling that they would revise their dress code to remove a discriminatory ban on “Satanism,” the Hays USD 489 Board of Education in Kansas has unfortunately chosen to leave the ban in place. The issue surrounds the dress code in the district’s middle and elementary school handbooks. (The high school doesn’t […]
Posted inLaw
Former students allege “violent” abuse at Saskatoon Christian school
Reading Time: 3 minutes A Christian school in Saskatoon, Canada was a hub of physical and emotional abuse for several years, according to 18 former students. Several of them recently shared their stories with the CBC, arguing that, no matter what happens legally, the government needs to stop giving subsidies and tax breaks to the private religious school. All […]
Posted inEducation
Why letting veterans teach without degrees is a bad idea
Reading Time: 2 minutes As reported in MilitaryTimes on Tuesday, Florida’s Department of Education announced that in an attempt to fill 9,000 teaching vacancies, veterans can now receive a five-year voucher to teach without a degree. This is part of Florida’s statewide expanded career and workforce opportunities for military veterans that is budgeted at $8.6 million. These vouchers would […]