From the Panel: Schools Must Avoid Imposing Religion If They Teach About It

-- Samuel Rodriguez, president, National Hispanic Leadership Conference

How much theology should be taught in our nation's public schools? None, zip, nada. And imagining it should be otherwise is as wrong-headed as banishing the story of religion's influence over our nation's founding and subsequent history.

But sadly, those are too often the only choices with which we are left by the zealots of both faith and secularity who make such decisions their business. In the Texas case, though, it seems that the fiercest ideologues are all on the side of turning our public schools into Christian academies. . . .

Religion has animated many causes in our nation's history, and our children are entitled to hear the entire story in all its complexity. That is what it means to study the history of religion and its influence in America, which we should do, and not teach either theology or devotional religion in our public schools -- which, the last time I checked, was against the law.

-- Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, president, National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership

God has never been kicked out of the public schools. Teaching about religion in the classroom is among many appropriate ways religion can be included in the school day. But, of course, the devil (excuse the pun) is always in the details of how to teach about religion.

The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized the constitutionality and even desirability of teaching about religion, going back to the prayer and Bible-reading decisions in the early 1960s. A wide array of religious leaders and church-state experts fashioned a statement on teaching about religion 15 years ago that was incorporated into federal Department of Education guidelines that both the Clinton and Bush administrations embraced. . . .

So, yes, teaching about religion is constitutional and even desirable; so much so that it's worth the risk and trouble trying.

-- J. Brent Walker, member of the Supreme Court Bar and executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee