Public School Policies

Along with cold weather and hot cocoa, the “holiday season” brings with it a renewal of a roaring, ongoing debate. The debate that December consistently reignites is between those who believe that public schools should be allowed to teach religion, as long as all major religions are covered, and those who argue that public schools should refrain from any discussion of religion whatsoever.

What Some Say: We Should Teach and Celebrate All Religions in Public Schools

Some argue that public schools should be allowed to display religious imagery and teach students about the beliefs and customs of various religions, as long as the school celebrates and acknowledges all of the major religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and atheism, as well as any other religions that are a major presence in a given school community).

Many public schools seem to subscribe to a version of this argument during the holiday season. It is not uncommon to find elementary school students learning in December about Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, and Ramadan. Teachers and administrators often believe that by teaching about various holidays, they are honoring the diversity of religions that their students may practice at home, as well as teaching all students a valuable lesson about religious inclusiveness.

This was the line of thinking that Indiana public school officials followed when they taught second graders a song for a holiday performance that required the students to sing the line “Allah is God.” Fox News Radio reports that the principal

You'd better watch out for the offensive classroom Christmas tree. You'd better not pout about prohibiting reindeer images in class. You'd better not cry about banning candy canes for your students - and we'll tell you why. Santa Claus is no longer...politically correct.

Over the past several years, the public has been divided over whether words and images related to religious holidays, such as nativity scenes, Santa, candy canes, and menorahs, are appropriate in public schools. The debate shows no sign of stopping, and recent events in Connecticut and Oregon underscore the fact that emotions can run high when it comes to discussions about politically correct winter celebrations.

Christmas Party Changed to "Celebration of Winter" in Connecticut

In Waterbury, Connecticut, an elementary school principal drew fire from school board members when he replaced the school's annual Christmas party with a "celebration of winter," according to Connecticut's Hartford Courant. The principal defended his choice to remove Christmas from the winter celebration, stating that he runs a public school and that he has to "do things that include every child."

However, two members of the district's school board took offense to the politically correct winter celebration. One of them complained that "there seems to be a war specifically targeted against those of the Christian faith," with the implication that the removal of Christmas words and images from the winter party constituted another battle wound in this war.

This video shows how to hold a politically correct holiday party.

Songs such as “Silent Night” and “Joy to the World” have long been considered staples of the annual holiday concerts performed by school bands, orchestras, and choirs. However, friends and family of students in New Jersey’s South Orange Maplewood School District no longer hear these songs at their annual holiday concerts. Across the nation, school districts are changing their policies, banning music with religious themes at school-sponsored events.

One parent in the South Orange Maplewood district has been engaged in a legal battle with the district since 2004 aimed at restoring Christmas carols to holiday concerts, but he has been unsuccessful thus far. Michael Stratechuck, the parent in question, filed his initial lawsuit against the school district in December 2004. In his initial complaint, Stratechuk argued that that district's policy banning music with religious themes (including instrumental versions of religious songs) from being played at the school's December concerts was a violation of the First Amendment's protection of freedom of worship.

Stratechuk appealed the district's court's ruling in favor of the school district, and the United States Appeals Court for the Third Circuit reheard the case in September 2009. Unfortunately for Stratechuk and his supporters, the appeals court recently issued a decision opinion affirming the lower court's ruling and declaring that the school district's policy does not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

The Case in Favor of the Christmas Carols
Government Must Not be Hostile Towards Religion

The New York Times reported that

Teaching salaries may no longer depend simply upon tenure or the type of degree an educator holds. Instead, their compensation as teachers may be based upon how well their students perform on tests!

In 2012 former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg recently declared that student test scores would be a deciding factor in determining which teachers should be awarded tenure and which should not. Considering that tenure influences a teacher’s pay, this declaration inherently ties together test scores and compensation. Bloomberg also made a speech in Washington, alongside the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, in which he called upon the NY state legislature to require all school districts in the state of New York to use "data-driven systems" to evaluate teacher and principal performance.

Although such proposals for performance-based pay for teachers have historically been fiercely opposed by teachers' unions, they are gaining ground in a number of states and seem to be part of a general larger trend towards increased school accountability.

This video from PolicyEd discusses the issue of performance-based teacher pay.

Supporters: Performance-Based Pay Will Benefit Students

The ranks of performance-based pay advocates have been growing in recent years. As the New York Times reports, Mr. Duncan said during Bloomberg's recent Washington press conference that "Everyone agrees the current system is broken." Those who support basing teacher evaluations on student test scores tend to say that performance-based

While the unjust days of official segregation ended 40 years ago, public schools today are struggling against another type of segregation: racial isolation. Public schools in both urban and rural areas have been experiencing racial isolation, which occurs when one district is densely populated by a predominant ethnic group.

To combat these geographically-induced segregation trends, public school leaders have created integration programs to develop more diverse student populations. While the concept of mandatory racial integration may sound strange to an unfamiliar ear, schools across the country have implemented “reassignment” programs to increase diversity. In many cases, public schools have enforced specific race-based quotas – and these practices have ignited controversy on both sides of the debate.

From the Library of Congress: "The massive effort to desegregate public schools across the United States was a major goal of the Civil Rights Movement. Since the 1930s, lawyers from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had strategized to bring local lawsuits to court, arguing that separate was not equal and that every child, regardless of race, deserved a first-class education. These lawsuits were combined into the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case that outlawed segregation in schools in 1954. But the vast majority of segregated schools were not integrated until many years later. Many interviewees of the Civil Rights History Project recount a long, painful struggle that scarred many students, teachers, and parents."

Chicago Public Schools: Mandatory Racial Integration

Gaining a major