An Ohio nonprofit that provides off-site Bible instruction to public school students during classroom hours says it will triple its programs in Indiana this fall after new legislation forced school districts to comply.
To participating families, nondenominational LifeWise Academy programs supplement religious instruction. But critics in Indiana worry the programs spend public school resources on religion, proselytize to students of other faiths and remove children from class in a state already struggling with literacy.
LifeWise founder and CEO Joel Penton told The Associated Press that many parents want religious instruction to be part of their children’s education.
“Values of faith and the Bible are absolutely central to many families,” Penton said. “And so they want to demonstrate to their children that it is central to their lives.”
Public schools cannot promote any religion under the First Amendment, but a 1952 Supreme Court ruling centered on New York schools cleared the way for programs like LifeWise. Individual places of worship often work with schools to host programs off campus, and they are not regulated in some states.
Well that’s interesting. When I was a teenager in Indiana, a bunch of us Jewish students asked if we could take Hebrew as our language elective off-site and were told no. I was an atheist (and still am), but I felt it was worth learning for the sake of my heritage more than Latin or German. It was going to be secular instruction. We were still told no.
I have a feeling Jewish kids would still be told no.
TST time
Nah, keep it Hebrew and really make them question their support for Israel. If talking about Israel is a controversial subject, make them explicitly say Hebrew studies isn’t allowed.
TST is fun to rile up the thumpers but having a real geopolitical hot potato land like a bomb in Terra Haute would be amazing. They aren’t ready for so much spice.
TST is a style imo, anyone from any religion can use the same framework