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 […]
Education
Exploring the world of education from a secular, nonreligious perspective.
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 […]
Posted inEducation
5 Satanic shirts kids can now wear to school in Hays, Kansas
Reading Time: 2 minutes Wearing Satanic shirts to school shouldn’t be such a big deal, but in Hays, Kansas, it kind of is. That’s because the school district recently ordered that the dress code, which stated anything related to Satanism couldn’t be worn, was discriminatory. At a recent school board meeting, Mary Turner, a parent and member of The […]
Posted inEducation
A Satanist got a Kansas school to rethink its anti-‘Satanism’ dress code
Reading Time: 3 minutes Most school districts have rules about how students’ clothing shouldn’t be revealing, or sex-related, or suggestive of “gang affiliation.” No surprise there. But the dress code for Hays Middle School in Kansas specifically bans references to “Satanism.” Similar language is used in the district’s middle and elementary school handbooks. (The high school doesn’t have the same […]
Posted inLaw
31 former students sue Seventh-day Adventist school for child abuse
Reading Time: 3 minutes Dozens of lawsuits have just been filed against Miracle Meadows School, a Seventh-day Adventist-run alternative school in Salem, West Virginia that has become synonymous with abuse and neglect. It comes after a previous group of students sued the school for similar reasons and came away with a hefty settlement. Miracle Meadows first made headlines for […]
Posted inEducation
Anti-LGBTQ writer claims she’s being ‘silenced’ for her Christian faith
Reading Time: 4 minutes The only decent thing I can say about this essay in the New York Post is that it’ll give people hope that any awful article they write can get published if they just aim low enough. Sophia A. Nelson implies that the most persecuted religion in the country is… Christianity. It starts with the headline—”Christians […]
Posted inMusic
The lived contradiction of atheist choir directors
Reading Time: 6 minutes After I put out a call for atheist public school choir directors to interview for a research article, I received an email from a colleague: “The choral music education program of any school must include music from the masters, which of course will include some sacred music. It is a part of our culture.” I […]