ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS BEING UNCONSTITUTIONAL

ON PRAYER IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
©Chippy's Dad

It was during a trip many years ago that one of the major turning points in my intellectual life journey occurred. It was on the steps of the Kentucky state capitol building with my Grandmother that I came to the conclusion that the Supreme Court was wrong to ban prayer in public schools and that public education itself must be unconstitutional. I was a junior in high school.

Understand: my Grandmother was a very dedicated Christian. She was appalled by the ban. Up until that conversation with her, my view on the then recent decision was simply that the highest authority in the land had laid down the law. While the ban was intended to avoid an establishment of religion, in fact the decision was wrong precisely because it amounted to an establishment of religion. Before we can understand why a ban on prayer was an establishment of religion, we must answer the question "What is religion?"

Not all religions teach a single God such as Yahweh or Allah. Some religions teach many gods or no gods at all. So religion cannot be understood as belief in a god to which a person can appeal through prayer. I propose that religion can and should be defined as "THAT UNDERSTANDING OF ULTIMATE REALITY THAT IS ACCEPTED ON THE BASIS OF FAITH WITHOUT REASON." Ultimate reality is the basis of all other reality. This definition covers all known religions. With this definition, most people are religious, and I would suggest passionately so. Even those who say they are atheists and rely totally on reason forget that reason must start with a first principle: the major premise. I suggest that the original major premise is accepted on the basis of faith without reason. (And are not atheists passionate?) If an attempt is made to justify the first principle by logic or experience, that merely moves the first principle back to a more basic level. If the subject of this first principle involves ultimate reality from which no further appeal to reason or experience can be made, then it is the basic precept of that person's religion.

The viewpoint that out-loud, spoken group-prayer is unnecessary when embarking upon an important activity such as education is a religious viewpoint. It was this religious viewpoint that was established by the Supreme Court. It is this religious viewpoint that must insult any committed Christian person such as my grandmother (as well as any passionate Jew, Muslim, etc.). Of course it would have been equally wrong for the Supreme Court to have affirmed prayer in public schools as that too would have established a religion. Thus the Supreme Court was over a barrel; no decision could be made, UNLESS..... Public education itself must be unconstitutional in the first place. Since first reaching this view point in high school, I have never found a reason to change my understanding. Today, I have come to understand that the public schools of today are churches for the propagation of the established religion that serve the same function as the medieval cathedrals in Europe: buildings around which the community as a whole gathers and in which the people find identity and community pride.

Indeed, upon reading the Constitution, I find no warrant for the involvement of the central government of the United States in education. Education is therefore reserved to the states respectively or to the people. Furthermore, every argument I can find to support the establishment of a public school, can be used to support a public religion by simply substituting the word religion for the word school. Try it yourself with your favorite argument in support of public schools; and being honest with yourself, see whether such an argument is not equally persuasive. In a like manner, every argument I have found to oppose the establishment of a public religion can be used to oppose the establishment of a public school.

I suggest that many of the huge controversies regarding public education would go away if everyone were free to pursue education in the way he sees fit without having to pay for the established church err school. Controversies such as prayer vs. no prayer, creationism vs. evolution, sex education vs. no sex education, or even which heroes to use for edification would be rendered mute.

For these and many reasons, I cannot support public education. Rather, I support education freedom. Many to whom I have expressed this view are concerned that many parents do not care enough about education to see that their children are educated. To any who would make this claim, I leave it to her: If allowed educational freedom, would you leave yourself and your child uneducated?