Trump announced that he will bring back prayer in the schools. This is a prize for his Christian nationalist base, who want the nation to be a theological, Bible-based state.
Trump recently appeared at the Museum of the Bible (who knew?) where he made clear his plans.
This is alarming but also amusing. Trump is probably the least religious man ever elected President. Sunday mornings, he is on the golf course, not in church. He has violated every one of the Ten Commandments.
President Donald Trump on Monday said that the Department of Education would soon be instituting new guidelines on the right to prayer in public schools.
Speaking from an event at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, Trump said there are “grave threats to religious liberty in American schools.”
“For most of our country’s history, the Bible was found in every classroom in the nation, yet in many schools today students are instead indoctrinated with anti-religious propaganda and some are punished for their religious beliefs. Very, very strongly punished,” Trump said. “It is ridiculous.”
Trump did not detail what the new guidance will include, but during the 2024 campaign he promised to “bring back prayer” to public schools.
In a statement to POLITICO, Savannah Newhouse, press secretary for the Education Department said, “The Department of Education looks forward to supporting President Trump’s vision to promote religious liberty in our schools across the country.”
While religion is not banned in public schools, the Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that state-sponsored prayer in public schools violates the First Amendment.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Of course, it is a mistake when anyone thinks Trump’s pandering has reached the bottom, he just moves the goalposts, er, the bottom to an even lower position and goes there.
It is interesting that he is taunting the SCOTUS to naysay him, which it must or its reputation is sunk even lower.
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In my teaching career, we went from Christmas Break to Winter Break and Easter Break to Spring Break abiding by separation of church and state. The gist is, “Only if students of all faiths can freely worship on the same terms without any coercion or favoritism from the government will the Constitution be upheld.” I had this entire conversation when I taught my students about the First Amendment. At the time, there was an opinion piece that schools should have the Nativity scene displayed. I turned to my students and said, “I don’t believe in the Bible. Now how does all of this fair to me? Will Wicken believers have their scenes displayed?” And if I am of Muslim faith and walk into the courtroom only to see the Ten Commandments displayed, do I get a fair trial? I went on and on with examples not unlike the quote from The Guardian article. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/07/texas-ken-paxton-christians-muslims
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Raised in small Kansas town. Very conservative part of the United States. At no time in my K-12 education experience did we have prayer in the classroom. Never.
As for the Bible. If it was in the school building it was never used in the classroom for our education.
So, I do not know where Trump and others are coming up with the BS that the want to return prayer and Bibles back to the public school classroom.
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I was in a high school in Georgia a few years ago where they started each day with The Pledge of Allegiance and a Christian prayer over the P.A. system.
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Sounds like my high school many decades ago.
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I taught at a rural school filled with children who went to church. Mostly Baptist, church of Christ, and the spare Methodist, these children were often in church Wednesday night as well as twice on Sunday. Teachers would ease up on Wednesday night homework. Students would debate religious topics.
I did not shy away from talking about religion, but I knew that saying the wrong thing would alienate some student who was particularly tuned in to some idea. Protestants can differ with each other with the same hostility they hold for Islam, even during the wars of Bush II.
I know that my experience did not mirror the experience of the urban teacher. Still there were times when I saw students pushed apart due to religion. One Protestant girl was not allowed to go home with a Catholic kid after the parents learned of their habit of having wine with a meal.
I am not sure we will get through all this. I see us becoming Franco’s Spain, complete with the kidnapping of babies and church-aided indoctrination.
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Roy, I always appreciate your insight. Yes, as a teacher, I was reminded to discuss subject matter, but not to preach. I found Theology fascinating and loved understanding the make up of religions. Most of my families were Catholic. When I was a kid, many of my fellow classmates were allowed to leave school on certain days for Catechism if they attended public school. And many other students simply attended St. Barnabus or St. Josephs. On Abbott Elementary, they had an entire episode devoted to inclusiveness where Barbara made it so a child of Muslim faith could sing in the Winter choir. I would discuss religion, but never preach. Once again, I do hope we get through this. Peace to you and yours.
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Thanks for the reply
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What the focus needs to be is this disturbing news. https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/11/national-test-scores-historic-lows-math-reading-skills/?utm_email=B59274634408248195B2D5B6BD&lctg=B59274634408248195B2D5B6BD&active=no&listId=%23Listrak%5clistId%23&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.mercurynews.com%2f2025%2f09%2f11%2fnational-test-scores-historic-lows-math-reading-skills%2f&utm_campaign=bang-multi_pubs-morning_report-nl&utm_content=manual
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Something you need to know about 12th grade scores on NAEP: they are meaningless.
I was on the governing board of NAEP from 1998-2004. We held extensive discussions about the seniors and why they just didn’t care about how they did on NAEP. They doodled on the answer sheets, they checked off answer A to every question. They don’t care.
Why? They understand that the scores don’t count. They have no motivation to participate.
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Diane, now that you mention it, my old brain remembers just trying to get kids to school to take the tests. My kids were basically “meaningless” to most and when test time came around, they just stayed home. In my case, they tested my kids on subjects they never studied (we were a credit recovery continuation program) all in the name of being fair. It would be my fault if my team and I didn’t get the 95% of kids to take the test not so much how they performed on it; they all knew that. Plus, others that I tutored asked me, “Hey Charvet do these tests really count? Or should I focus more on my SAT or ACT tests?” Now I remember to motivate them they told many they followed them to college. Well, something like that. Yeah, thanks for reminding me.
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AMERICA’S FOUNDING FATHER James Madison, whom our nation honors with the title “Father of Our Constitution” said: “The religion of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man. [Government] MUST NOT PREFER ONE RELIGION OVER ANOTHER OR PROMOTE ANY RELIGION OVER NONBELIEF.”
WHOSE TEN COMMANDMENTS? The official Catholic Ten Commandments are documented in The Catholic Catechism is different from the Ten Commandments in the Bible because it doesn’t condemn the presence of “graven images” in Catholic churches.
If Protestant Ten Commandments are posted in schools, Catholic children could become the objects of taunting and ridicule by their classmates as idol worshipers.
The Catholic perspective is based on the plain fact that in the Hebrew language in which the Ten Commandments were written in the Bible, the word used to refer to “graven images” is “pesel”, which means carvings or images that ARE SPECIFICALLY CREATED TO BE WORSHIPED. On the other hand, the Hebrew word “matzevah” which also means “graven images” is used to refer to carvings and images to commemorate the memory of people who are loved or honored for their good qualities.
The carvings and images in Catholic churches are “matzevah” and are not worshiped, but only serve to commemorate Mary, the Apostles, and Saints for their holy qualities.
Catholics don’t “pray to” Mary, the Apostles, and Saints any more than everyday people “pray” to their friends and relatives when they ask those friends and relatives to pray to God on their behalf. The popular “Hail, Mary” prayer is an example; it begins with: “Hail, Mary, full of grace [the biblical words of the angel who told Mary she would be the mother of Jesus]” and goes on to request “pray for us sinners.”
So — whose Ten Commandments will be posted in schools?
And whose interpretation of the Bible will be taught? Because Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, United Presbyterians, Methodists, and other Christian denominations all share dogma that says that the stories of creation in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are not to be taken literally and that evolution is how the human body was formed.
So — whose interpretation of the Bible will be taught?
Plus, the Catholic Bible contains different “books” than the Protestant Bible. Whose Bible will be taught? Will they all be taught? If so, children will end up asking questions about whose Bible is the “right” one. That’s not what those who wrote these laws intended to have happen.
Will public school districts be forced to pay to send Catholic students to parochial schools because Catholic students become targets of ridicule by other students?
There are going to be a great many lawsuits over whose Ten Commandments and whose Bible is taught.
THAT’S the kind of fighting between Americans that our Founding Fathers intended to avoid when they wrote our Constitution with its prohibitions against government involvement in religion.
THAT’S WHY our Founding Fathers TWICE voted overwhelmingly to not even mention God in our Constitution, let alone Christianity.
THAT’S WHY our Founding Fathers wrote The Establishment Clause into our Constitution to prevent cities, states, and the federal government from requiring any kind of religious requirement for people to hold public office.
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Thank you for the insight-generating clarification of the difference between pesel and matzevah! I fancy myself a bit of a scholar of religion, though I have no Hebrew (I have been studying ancient Greek, both classical and koine). Never too late for an old dog to learn some new tricks. I so, so, so appreciate your learning and reasoning, quickwrit!!!!!
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Why so many hateful, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, anti-semitic, anti-LGBTQ+ etc. American white Christian nationalists never learned that “you reap what you sow” (including Kirk) is way beyond my comprehension.
Instead of trying to force prayer and the 10 Commandments on America’s young public school students, who are of many different religions (as well as of no religion at all), they should be reading and adhering to what it says in their own bibles themselves. Nowhere in there does it say anything like “Hate thy neighbor –especially if he is different from you!”
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