Covering the Intersection of Religion and Public Schools

Education reporters are faced with the particularly daunting task of covering local controversies or explaining politics, history, and the legal and financial implications of new efforts to blur the long-existed line between church and state in public schools. 

Though they face legal challenges and pushback, states are legalizing or even mandating the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools and the use of “Bible-infused” curricula. 

Iowa, Montana, Ohio and Texas recently jumped on the bandwagon giving parents the right to excuse their children from class for religious learning time in local churches – with some requiring public schools to award academic credit for the activity. 

President Donald Trump announced in September that the U.S. Department of Education will be issuing new guidance about prayer in public schools, so that could be a hot-button issue to track this academic year.

Additionally, some religious and legal groups are working to remove the long-standing boundaries between public school funding and religious teaching, as evidenced by the Catholic church’s attempt to establish the nation’s first religious charter school, which was only narrowly defeated by a deadlocked U.S. Supreme Court in May. SCOTUS is also now allowing parents to opt kids out of classes with LGBTQ+ book characters if it conflicts with their religious beliefs.

When religion and education collide, reporters will need to help their audience separate fact from opinion and understand the potential for significant change or legal precedent.

Amid Texas’s new requirement for posting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, The Texas Tribune’s Jaden Edison has been on the frontlines of reporting on the intersection of religion and education. As the public education reporter, Edison tracked which Texas school districts are using the newly available, Bible-infused Bluebonnet Learning curriculum.

“There has been more of a need lately to be more adept at the basic history of religion in this country,” Edison said. “We had a reporter on democracy, religion and extremism. We no longer have that reporter, so all of that’s falling on the shoulders of education reporters. Now, we are religion reporters. Now, we’re race reporters, too.”

Natural Tension Within the First Amendment 

The two religious clauses contained in the opening 16 words of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution are at the heart of every one of these controversial issues playing out currently in state legislatures and state and federal courtrooms: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“Today, what we’re seeing is a battle over those two clauses – with one side falling strongly on the side of separation of church and state and the other pushing for more religiosity in the schools, using the free exercise clause to make its case,” said independent journalist and author Linda K. Wertheimer during a panel hosted at the Education Writers Association’s 2025 National Seminar in May. “In the past, there seemed to be a clear line separating church from state in public schools.”

That seemingly clear line dates back to two rulings in the 1960s that led to the end of school-sponsored prayer and daily Bible readings. 

“The Supreme Court saw such exercises as coercive and wanted to protect those in the minority from being preached at in public schools,” Wertheimer said.

Over time, the case law on what should be allowed – and what shouldn’t – evolved. 

For example, the courts said clergy-led prayer at graduation and school-sponsored prayer over a loudspeaker at football games are not constitutional. But the courts also found that student-led prayer and religious groups being among those allowed on campus or providing instruction before or after school are OK. 

Between 2017 and 2022, a host of landmark rulings from the Supreme Court shook up the role of religion in education. 

They had the cascading effect of favoring free exercise or what some legal scholars refer to as “even-handed neutrality” – that secular and religious groups must be treated the same.

Here are the relevant court cases:

• Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, director, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, June 2017: The court held that the state of Missouri unconstitutionally excluded a religious preschool from a playground resurfacing program open to nonprofit organizations because of religion.
• Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, June 2020: The court found the Montana Supreme Court violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment by invalidating a private school choice program because it included religious schools.
• Carson v. Makin, June 2022: The court held that Maine violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment by excluding religious schools from a program that allowed parents to direct state funds to private schools.
• Kennedy v. Bremerton, June 20222: The court found the Establishment Clause did not allow a Washington school district to take a “hostile view of religion” in non-renewing the contract of a coach who prayed on the football field after each game and was joined by players and others, which the court viewed as the coach’s personal rights under the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses.

Opposing Legal Views

When covering legislation or litigation, it is key for journalists to understand there are opposing legal firms working on either side of the tension between the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses, Wertheimer said in an interview for this reporting resource.

Those advocating strongly for keeping church and state separate in public schools include:

• Americans United for Separation of Church and State
• Baptist Joint Committee
• Freedom From Religion Foundation
• American Civil Liberties Union 

Those advocating for a greater emphasis on free exercise include:

• First Liberty Institute 
• Alliance Defending Freedom
• Becket Fund for Religious Liberty

“When you cover the intersection of religion and public schools, realize that there are a lot of grays when it comes to what is okay and what is not in the classroom,” Wertheimer added. “It depends on what a court ruling says, and it may depend on laws, decisions in your particular state, too.”

Keisha Russell, senior counsel with First Liberty Institute, saw many of her legal cases on religious liberty in the headlines. 

Russell’s organization, which successfully represented the coach in Kennedy v. Bremerton, has been on the front lines of arguing that the concept of separation of church and state has been taken too far – to the point of being used as an “excuse” or means of discriminating against religious students and educators engaged in the practice of their religious beliefs.

While appearing on a panel at EWA’s National Seminar in May, Russell cited the recent case of a longtime Connecticut teacher who was suspended and then demoted for refusing directives to remove a crucifix from her personal workspace in her classroom. 

Russell said she views her work as a means of protecting religious freedom in public schools.

On the flip side of the coin are voices like Mark A. Chancey, professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He defines religious freedom as the ability to hold beliefs and convictions without interference, including from the government

Having public schools provide religious instruction violates religious freedom, Chancey said during the EWA panel. Promoting the Ten Commandments in Texas schools, for example, he said requires state-sponsored promotion of explicitly religious claims, such as reserving one day out of the week to keep the Sabbath.

His common challenge to this and many of these legal questions: When the government is forced to choose a religious viewpoint, which should it choose? And whose viewpoints are being left out when such a choice is made?

In his example of the Ten Commandments, he pointed out that in the Jewish tradition, the Sabbath is observed from Friday evening through Saturday evening while it’s Sunday for most Christians. 

Chancey has also been an outspoken critic of the Texas Education Agency’s Bluebonnet Learning K-5 curriculum, which offers districts a means of integrating academic content with religious texts, putting a heavy focus on the Bible. 

He said lessons in the curriculum are of poor quality, add details to stories that are not actually in the Bible and mischaracterize or idealize U.S. history.

Tips for Reporting on Religion and Education

Here is some reporting advice when covering these topics:

• Study existing laws and case law so that you can clearly differentiate opinion from fact for your audience. In legal cases, some parties will claim as fact that the law is on their side when they are actually advocating for their own position.
• Call expert historians and legal scholars to get your foundational questions answered, and quote them to add objective, third-party perspectives.
  
  “The academics at the universities have been really helpful,” said The Texas Tribune’s Edison, who has interviewed Chancey at SMU as well as W. Caleb McDaniel, a Rice University history professor. “My concern in framing this thing with balance is the fact that there is a clear history. Try to identify and get some of that background information from experts to be able to report with authority. Approach it with a sense of clarity on what consensus is among prominent historians.” 
• Define legal terms or specifically quote laws or statutes, such as the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses, in plain English.
• Remember that religions are not monolithic. “Be sure to ask sources which branch of Christianity? What about Judaism and so forth? Which Bible do they use, if you’re writing about a Bible mandate?” Wertheimer said.
• Remember what these stories are really about. Avoid focusing only on the arguments and court battles over new laws, mandates and curricula, or other controversies that pop up. Ask individuals behind policy proposals or book ban requests and those opposed to them why these issues are important to them or how they actually impact their lives or their children’s lives.
  
  “Realize that these are not just legal stories,” Wertheimer said. “They are people stories that affect parents and children on both sides of the issue. If the line separating church and state erodes, religious minorities and atheists will have fewer protections from proselytizing. But extremely religious families may get the right to excuse their children from objectionable instruction.”
• Remember, continuous education and improvement in understanding religious issues – or any subject you lack expertise in – is perfectly normal. The challenge can make you a better reporter if you reflect and persist.
  
  Edison said he and other Texas reporters should have newfound wisdom after reflecting on the shortcomings of their swift-moving religion and education coverage.
  
  “I started in June 2024, so I was coming in on the back end of Bluebonnet. Still to this day, there is still a lack of clarity and definitive reporting on exactly how Bluebonnet got to where it did,” he said. “Now, I know to always be thinking of [public] records requests early on. Texas is in [the] process of revising its social studies standards. Seeing what happened with Bluebonnet has informed me – whatever reporters didn’t do with Bluebonnet early on, now I can do with social studies.”
• Keep in mind that students have always been allowed to pray in school on a voluntary basis because that activity is protected by the First Amendment, so there is no need for new legislation on this subject, despite political rhetoric suggesting it is.
  
  “What is illegal,” Wertheimer noted for reporters, “is the state cannot sponsor prayer in any fashion – meaning teachers can’t lead students in prayer, shouldn’t join them in prayer, etc., at school. School districts, though, often don’t understand what religious liberty rights students do have. They can, as long as it does not disrupt class, pray in a group, for example.”