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Motivating Public Schools to Welcome Religious Expression

by Jorge Gomez • 2 min

First Liberty’s victories for religious freedom are having tremendous impact in public schools around the country, inspiring everyday Americans, leaders and organizations to restore faith and religious expression in their communities.

Training for Teachers

We are pleased to connect schools to the RESPECT PROJECT, a 30-minute online training that helps teachers understand the federal guidance on religious expression in public schools to support students of all faiths.

School districts have their staff go through the training to:

• Learn key elements of the U.S. Department of Education Guidance on Constitutionally Protected Prayer and Religious Expression in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools.
• Discover the research on the value of students’ religious upbringing as a behavioral and learning asset.
• Get links to classroom materials and videos teachers can use to appropriately welcome students to express their religious beliefs.

 An Often-Overlooked Asset 

Students’ religious faith is an asset for schools. Research shows religion has a positive effect on academic achievement. For example, Dr. William Jeynes of California State University, Long Beach, conducted a meta-analysis of 30 studies involving more than one million students to find the factors that best reduce the achievement gap. The study found, “of all the variables under study for their relationship with reducing the achievement gap, religious faith had the highest effect.”

Researcher Ilana Horwitz of the Stanford University Graduate School of Education also found that “being religious helps adolescents at the middle and high school level because they have learned the very habits that public schools are structured to reward: conscientiousness and cooperation.”

Religious students benefit because the faith community and the school community both build characteristics that help students develop. Both institutions want students to respect authority, be conscientious, cooperative, and kind. Both want students to have a sense of purpose in life. It is a benefit to students when they have others outside the school community helping them flourish.

As First Liberty has previously explained, government cannot and should not coerce any student toward religion. But it also cannot and should not inhibit religious freedom and expression. It’s perfectly legal and constitutional for the government to affirm the value of religious freedom for the many students who already attend religious services and for whom religious faith is important.

Bring the RESPECT PROJECT to Your Schools

The RESPECT PROJECT team is ready to contact the superintendent in your community and introduce the program. Click HERE to learn more. You can also contact Todd Richardson (todd@respectproject).