To understand the wrangling over religion in public schools, consider these three questions.
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By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
OKLAHOMA CITY — Before I got my start in religion reporting 25 years ago, I covered education news for The Oklahoman, the daily newspaper in Oklahoma City.
Way back in 1997, I did a piece on the national debate over teaching the Bible in public schools.
In 1999, I delved into the hot-button topic of school vouchers. The question: Should parents be able to tap public funding to send children to religious schools?
A quarter-century later, the culture wars over such issues have not disappeared.
If anything, such fights have intensified.
Just this week, USA Today’s Kayla Jimenez and Murray Evans explored why GOP leaders in states such as Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas are pushing religion in public schools.
In a similar piece, Reuters’ Liya Cui and Joseph Ax tackled “How U.S. public schools became a new religious battleground.”
For my part, my background in education and religion writing came in handy as I profiled Ryan Walters for The Christian Chronicle. Walters is Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction, overseeing a $4 billion-a-year educational system with 700,000 students.
This summer, a week after Louisiana leaders directed every classroom to display the Ten Commandments, Walters ignited a national furor with a mandate requiring Oklahoma schools to incorporate the Bible into academic instruction.
For those seeking to understand the wrangling over religion in public schools, consider these three questions:
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
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