A commission of educators appointed by the American Association of School Administrators to study the problem of religion in public schools, issued a report here today endorsing the Supreme Court decision banning prayer and Bible reading in public schools and opposing any amendment to the Constitution which would permit such practices.
The commission, which includes public school superintendents and principals representing “a wide range of experience” and “denominational persuasion, ” said that the Supreme Court decisions offer “new hope for a larger and deeper place for religion in our culture.”
Among the suggestions offered by the commission aimed at accommodating the “religious pluralism that exists in the nation’s public schools, ” were the elimination of any “religious orientation” of Christmas observances and the accommodation, whenever possible, to the religious obligations of students and teachers in the school calendar and in personnel policies.
The commission also urged public schools to cooperate with other agencies, including churches interested in the education of children and to minimize conflicts with these agencies in scheduling activities for children. The report said that baccalaureate services should be left to the individual churches in place of combined mass services which have religious bases.
DENIES PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE IRRELIGIOUS, FAVORS OBJECTIVE STUDIES
The commission, which is headed by Sidney P. Marland, Jr., superintendent of schools in Pittsburgh, stressed in the report that although the public schools must be neutral, this does not mean that they are against religion.
“To say that the public schools are irreligious, ” the report declares, “merely because they do not follow the prescribed prayer of a religious segment of the population or because they do not recognize officially the distinction, practices or creed of any religious segment is to say that government is irreligious or even anti-religious. This is not true. There is no threat to the individual, to religion, or to the common good in the removal of religious exercises from schools. “
The commission declared that knowledge about religion cannot and should not be kept out of the public schools, since “knowledge of religion and society go hand in hand.” However, it stated, the teaching involved must be objective.
The commission stated it “strongly favors, ” possibly with the help of foundation grants, the production of material “of the highest educational and technical excellence in the history of religion and comparative religion.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
