Florida Public School ducks responsibility for test scores, passes the buck to Jesus.

[Ian David]

A New Meaning to Prayer in Schools

Category:
Posted on: February 23, 2007 12:25 PM, by Ed Brayton

This is a strange story. The principal and several teachers from a school in Florida, apparently concerned that their kids weren't prepared for a state assessment test, decided to go classroom to classroom saying a prayer for their students to do better. In the process, they "anointed" all of the desks with oil because, apparently, God is more likely to answer a prayer if it's marinated in oil (presumably extra virgin oil, given His taste for virgins).

The principal, Mary LeDoux, reported it had been a difficult day with high levels of misbehavior, and the state's standardized assessment test was scheduled to be administered the following week...

"It was staff members on their own time who said, 'Do you mind if we say some prayers for the kids on the Friday night before FCAT, so the kids would do well?'" LeDoux told the Times.

Forget any church/state issues, there are several other questions that come immediately to mind. First, this whole notion of prayer is patently absurd. The only way the students will do well is if they know the material; either they know it or they don't. The only way this prayer could be answered is by God artificially "zapping" the correct information into the brains of the students. So let's think about that for a moment...

Rather than relying on good teaching to make sure their students are prepared for this test, these teachers and administrators choose instead to rely on supplications to supernatural beings to do what they, evidently, believe they themselves have failed to do. In essence, they are advocating divine cheating, asking God to make up for their failures as teachers and give students better marks than they actually deserve based on their own work. This is perverse.


"See? I told you... if you don't do well on the FCAT, Jesus will turn you into an ugly little dog!"

Second, I would love to hear their reaction if a group of teachers decided to go classroom to classroom burning incense and sprinkling chicken blood in the doorway to achieve the same goal. No doubt they would go absolutely ballistic and would consider it defiling the classroom. But what is the difference between believing that supernatural beings respond positively to a few drops of chicken blood and believing that they respond positively to a few drops of olive oil, or to the smell of burning goat flesh? No doubt these good Christian folks would consider anyone who thought the test scores could be increased with chicken blood and incense to have a screw loose; somehow they think their silly superstitions don't mean the same thing.

More:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/02/a_new_meaning_to_prayer_in_sch.php

[Atman]

1. Little Taco Bell is saying "AY CARUMBA! You splashed holy water in my eye!"

:rofl:

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. I have to wonder...

How many priests have had altar boys say the same thing (or something similar)?

[PLF]

4. holy gism

[Atman]

6. O. M. G!

That is sooooo wrong.

And sooooooo :rofl:

.

[Sanity Claws]

3. The nuns in my school didn't rely on divine intervention

for us to do well. They believed in the power of the yard stick to beat it into us.

[eFriendly]

5. Florida schools only teach the FCAT

...and apparently, they can't even do that right.

I have watched the schools change over the years since I went to school here, and I can tell you that these kids today are getting a shitty education.

[believerinchrist]

20. Have you ever looked at the FCAT test

or any other state or federal mandated tests? One of the biggest reasons education is sliding downwards is because our politicians are insisting children learn things before they are developmentally ready to learn them. Our politicians also do not take into account the individual struggles students have in their learning abilities. For instance, one of our ninth grade standards demands that students use parallel structures in their writing. My students struggle to understand the differences between nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, etc and to use them correctly in sentences. How in world do I teach them parallel structure!

Education seems to be headed toward being a business instead of a service. Some businesses complain about the quality of high school graduates, yet they get out of paying the taxes that would help increase the quality of schools. Ah, well, that's life. Meanwhile, in my classroom, I spend my days trying to help my students become engaged and to help them become life-long learners.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

34. I disagree, but only in part

I have taught in FL schools since 1978, and taught six years before that. When I first got here, schools had only recently been desegregated. And there was defacto segregation all through the district. The traditionally black schools got the short end of the stick: no AC, teachers with no degrees, lots of special "programs" where the money disappeared into somebody's pockets, and kids were promoted with no thought at all about whether they could read. I was no fan of Jeb Bush and the FCAT environment horrified me as much as anyone for the first few years. Then I began traveling to some of these schools I had been critical of for years. Suddenly, with the grading system, the books were new, the walls painted, the teachers literate. The FCAT HAS brought up the bottom, the "forgotten children" are now being drilled relentlessly until they actually can read. But they have thrown out the baby with the bathwater, because the middle and the top are bored and dropping like flies. But at least they can read. It is a least common denominator type of situation, in my opinion. Buy they don't give up on those kids anymore.

[HockeyMom]

7. Maybe they need more After School "Extra Help"

tutoring, rather than After School Bible Classes? I used to work in the public schools here. 99.9% of the teachers would stay after school to help any student having problems. When my own daughters were in school, they did just that many times. My younger daughter's Science teacher lived up the street from us. Her teacher told her to call her any time she needed extra help. My daughter went over to her house a number of times at night for extra help.

Is it really that different in Florida????

Incidentally, I went to Catholic school. They NEVER did anything like this. The NUNS never even lead a prayer before we took our State Regents Exams, let alone holy water, incense, etc.



:crazy:

[TlalocW]

8. The reason they did so bad was that the computers

that grade the tests couldn't read them because the tests were all oil stained from being on the desks during the test-taking in the first place! Damn morons.

TlalocW

[cosmik debris]

9. It seems strange to me that WHERE you pray matters.

Among all the other bizarre beliefs, they seem to believe that prayer inside the classroom has more influence on their god than prayer in church or prayer at home. I'll never understand those people.

[DeSwiss]

18. And more to the point....

...."And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." ~ Matthew 6:5-6

One must wonder what kind of test scores these teachers and the principal had when they were in school? Is this how they graduated and "earned" the right to teach? That would explain a lot. And it would seem that on top of everything else, they've also violated Christian teaching in carrying out these prayers in this manner. Not to mention the holy oil (although I'm sure BushCo would have preferred that they'd used a petroleum-based lubricant).

The bible says that they're supposed to go into a closet to pray in secret. And it made me realize that this is one closet for a group to live in that I can get behind....

[varkam]

10. If they're so damn desperate to improve their scores...

Why don't they focus more on instruction and less on appealing to god - after all, evidence shows that instruction tends to be more beneficial than asking god to will knowledge into people.

[NMMNG]

13. Attitudes like that are why Jesus doesn't help the children do better!

:P

[varkam]

14. Want to know my theory about why kids are doing so poorly?

Jesus is lazy. Just a thought.

[NMMNG]

15. I disagree

He's just so busy answering prayers for XYZ team to win, so and so to win the lottery, Mary Jane to get a hot date and such that he has no time to help the little kiddies do well in school.

[struggle4progress]

24. The school serves an economically-disadvantaged group of students:

median housing value in the Brookville is around $65K. In a lot of the US, that means piss-poor housingn Florida, the median housing value is around $189K.

In Florida, as in many other places, public school funding comes largely from property taxes. The average per pupil expenditures in the US is around $8K; Florida on average spends around $7K; Brookville is spending about $3K.

Poor area leads to low school funding and low salaries and bad facilities; then many good staff would really prefer to be somewhere else.

By iron economic process, Brookville gets what it can get with the money it has -- and turns out another generation of the underclass

http://www.publicschoolreview.com/county_elementary_schools/stateid/FL/county/12053
http://www.investmentu.com/IUEL/2004/20040927.html
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-taxes1207feb12,0,4599682.story
http://www.homes101.net/florida-schools/hernando-county-school-district-d5835/
http://www.nea.org/edstats/RankFull06b.htm
http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/pubs/npefs03/findings.asp

[varkam]

35. So does being in a poor district mean that

Jesus is more likely to aid in the improvement of test scores? If they event spent one second appealing to a higher power, I submit that the time could have been better spent preparing instructional materials for the students. Period.

[struggle4progress]

36. So essentially this is your view:

knowing nothing about the individual students in question or what needs they actually have, your diagnosis of the problem is that the teachers should spend more time producing instructional materials and feel entirely justified complaining that some did something else with their own time. Your complaint, moreover, is made without any knowledge of what portion of their own time the teachers are already spending to provide standard classroom support.

(1) I have already established that financial resources allocated to this particular school are exceptionally low, even by Florida standards -- and the slightest investigation would reveal that Florida ranks towards the bottom of the US in allocation.

I hope we agree that there are a number of important determinants of student performance, including: educational attainment of parents, a home environment supportative of educational success, stable living conditions (adequate student nutrition &c&c), quality and availability of school instructional personnel, quality and availability of instructional resources (equipped science and computer labs &c&c).

In poor neighborhoods, many of these determinants can be problematic: one may find less educated and low-paid parents, inadequately fed students, less educated and low-paid school staff, inadequate labs, &c&c.

At this particular school, for example, a majority of students receive nutritional support -- which means that many are likely to come to school without having eaten breakfast. It seems at least possible to me that ensuring students eat (for example) may be as important as producing additional instructional materials.

(2) Almost every elementary school teacher I ever met was overpaid and underworked. Many bring work home at the end of a full day and work into the evening, and many buy classroom supplies using their own limited salaries.

I should consider it offensive to tell any such teacher to work harder or to use their own time differently. In the case at hand, neither of us really knows how hard the teachers in question work or whether they ought to work harder.

(3) I do not know how these students performed on the test, but perhaps it is reasonable to expect they did not perform well.

I also think it reasonable to expect that your reaction to news of such poor student performance would be: of course! and the problem is the religious nuts.

But perhaps you are conflating cause with symptom.

It seems to me that the teachers in question are facing a bad situation: the students and the school itself faces common problems associated with lack of money -- and at the end of the day, some teachers tell themselves: We have done everything we could do but pray. If the religious practices described in the article do not belong to my own religious traditions and are not significant to my own religious views, still I bear nobody ill-will for harmless things they do on their own time.

The difference is this: when one seeks a solution to the student performance problem, you propose attacking teachers on ideological grounds, while I should be interested to examine school funding.

[varkam]

44. Do you know about the individual students or the needs they have?

Didn't think so - so don't throw that at me. My father is a school teacher, so don't be informing me of the struggles they face as I know them intimately.

You're quite right in claiming that there are many, many factors involved in how a child performs academically. The recommendation that I provided was just one example of things that could be done differently, and to be quite honest, I did not make it after long consideration. It was the first thing that came to my mind. I didn't realize that you were wanting to get into a serious discussion of how we should set about to solve some of the educational problems in our country. If so, then I would of engaged with you as such (and we should of probably gone out of the Religion & Theology forum).

I also think it reasonable to expect that your reaction to news of such poor student performance would be: of course! and the problem is the religious nuts.

Then you should re-examine your reasoning. Again, I recognize there are many influences on how a child performs academically. Guess what? None of them are how Jesus wants them to do. Funding, home life, SES, parents educational attainment, neighborhood, criminal activity, drug use, age, noise in the classroom, how well someone sleeps at night, medical illnesses etc. etc. on and on all have effects on how well an individual will perform. The last time I checked the research, prayer has had no discernible effect on, well, anything.

And I guarantee you that they had not done everything that they could do. There are conferences, workshops, books, instructional videos, etc. all on how to become a more effective instructor. I'm not saying that the problem is with the instruction - just that instructors sometimes have to pick up the slack when other areas come up short (I know, my father is a teacher). I still maintain that, if they wanted to improve their students test scores, their time could have been better spent.

I'm really not angry with the teachers. I think what they did was pretty irrational, but they did it on their own time. The thing that does bother me though is that they left the oil behind. Why not a couple crucifixes as well? Maybe some dead chickens? Perhaps God would enjoy a virgin sacrifice.

[struggle4progress]

45. No, I don't know about individual students' needs -- but neither did I make the claims ...

above that teachers at the school should "focus more on instruction" or that more time could profitably be "better spent preparing instructional materials for the students."

It has not been my intention to discuss educational philosophy or any educational matters: what interests me here is the discussion of religious matters -- which (for many people) involves interpersonal justice, but this should always be discussed in context

You can easily look up the most recent school test scores; as a group, the Brookville students never break into the top 50% of the schools in reading, writing, or math, as might be expected at a severely underfunded school. Any claim, that teachers at such school need to work harder, is potentially unfair and risks blaming the pupils and their teachers for a situation that neither pupils nor teachers created. In particular, it would clearly be unjust to ask the teachers to do nothing but work, beyond eating and sleeping, and yet if one claims that the proper solution is for teachers to attend more conferences or to prepare more instructional materials, or generally to do more work, one risks making such an unjust demand -- especially if one does not know how hard the teachers at the school are working, or what the students' individual needs are. It is precisely this demand on teachers' personal time that I called offensive in my prior post -- which is my religious view.

But we are perhaps simply going around in pointless circles -- because your view of religion requires you to spend time debunking a magical way of thinking, that I do not really care to bother with, and because you consider religion essentially fundamentalist, while I am interested in the interpersonal aspects.

So let us simply say I misunderstood you, and I accept your assertion that you are bothered by the fact that "they left the oil behind."

[varkam]

47. My comment was flippant, as I tried to imply in my previous post.

If I had intended to get into a serious discussion, then I would have offered other alternatives. Whether or not the "demand" is just or unjust, it still could have been better spent preparing instructional materials for the students. Are you disagreeing with that? Do you think that prayer will have any effect whatsoever on the test scores moreso than the teachers engaging in any instructional activity? If so, I would like to see some evidence. After all, it might revolutionize the way we teach if it pans out.

I don't think teachers should only work, eat, and sleep. I would like you to point out to me where I said that, if you would, because I seem to have forgotten. I also did not blame the teachers for poor performance. I make the same request on that, as well. And, again, I am not making any demands of the teacher's personal time. I'm not demanding that they burn the midnight oil (pun intended) - they probably already are. As I said, my father is a teacher and I realize that they do work very hard. The ONLY claim that I originally made was that the time could have been better spent elsewhere. The implication there is that prayer is not efficacious for improving test scores. Please stop twisting my words.


But we are perhaps simply going around in pointless circles -- because your view of religion requires you to spend time debunking a magical way of thinking, that I do not really care to bother with, and because you consider religion essentially fundamentalist, while I am interested in the interpersonal aspects.


Please, inform me as to what my view of religion is. I would really like to hear what I think. I do not consider religion essentially fundamentalist, though I do consider it to have dogmatic aspects. Fundamentalism is a level of religious zeal. Again, you are twisting my words from a previous discussion. Perhaps it's not intentional.


So let us simply say I misunderstood you, and I accept your assertion that you are bothered by the fact that "they left the oil behind."

Yes, lets. I am bothered by that because it was offensive to people at the school who didn't happen to be Christian. What I was originally pointing out, or trying to, was the futility of the teacher's well-intentioned endeavors.

[Dr.Phool]

11. And they wonder why edumacation in Florida slipped

From 42nd to 49th under Jeb "The Edumacation Governor" Bush.

[Ian David]

12. Rarely is the question asked, is our children annointed in oil? n/t

[DeSwiss]

19. LMAO!!!!!

:rofl:

[believerinchrist]

16. As a teacher and as one who has anointed things and people with oil,

I want to correct a few misunderstandings. First of all, teachers are faced every day with students who do not want to learn. Right now, I am teaching freshman standard English (not college prep). These kids have poor vocabularies and do not know what a noun or verb is, etc. Many of them have learning disabilities and are totally fed up with school. Now, as I have been working on my master's in curriculum, instruction, and assessment, I have been implementing the "best practices" and am working very hard to engage my students in learning. Since I only have them for a semester of 18 weeks, I get overwhelmed sometimes with trying to fit everything--my course has 92 indicators--and to help my kids master what they are expected to learn. Forgive me if I feel like I need some outside help. I pray for wisdom, understanding, and knowledge on how to meet my students where they are and help them make progress. I pray for my students that they will find the ability to overcome all the horrible circumstances in their lives and work to earn a good education.

I have been walking with God for a very long time and have seen the results of anointing with oil and of prayer. I can tell you of many destructive circumstances that I and my family have been able to overcome with these practices. Just like the flag, a symbol which we display with a love for our democracy, the oil is a symbol of the power of God's love. Unlike the blood of chickens, no one has to kill anything to anoint with oil.

Since those teachers prayed while the students were not in school, I do not see any issue with the separation of church and state. Even if the only result of these prayers is bringing the teachers peace, it will help the students do better. Students are very in tune with their teachers' "vibes," so if the teachers are calm, the students will likely be calmer.

My students have no idea that I pray for them because I try to never talk about my faith--if someone asks me about what I believe, I try to be honest and brief. I do not allow anyone to put down anyone else in my classroom; I don't care what my kids believe. Each and every one of them is precious to me, and above everything else, I want them to fall in love with learning.

[struggle4progress]

23. Some separation issues may be involved:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=113309&mesg_id=113393

[believerinchrist]

27. If they are being that pushy, yes, it is out of line.

There are other outlets than public schools for sharing faith. We are paid to teach our children to learn, even to learn things we may not agree with. There is a big difference between praying privately and making a big show over it. Anything that pressures someone to believe a certain way (even including secular beliefs) has no place in our schools. We need to help our children construct their own knowledge by teaching them skills and strategies--that's when learning becomes intrinsic.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

32. I pray for my kids daily

I have a notebook I use for recordkeeping and I have their pictures in it and as I mark down each grade or comment, I say a prayer for the child. Nothing formal, no big words. Not even "to Jesus." I just ask for good things and success for each child.

I don't use oil, however. But I have been annointed with oil, and recently, as part of the sacraments of my church.

[heidler1]

46. An olive is a living thing, if you squeeze out its oil it dies.

"Unlike the blood of chickens, no one has to kill anything to anoint with oil.

[ulysses]

17. ...annointed the desks with oil...

:freak:

Wonder what an oil-soaked answer sheet is going to do to the scantron machine...

[struggle4progress]

21. 'Oily fingerprints' upset ex-teacher at elementary school

By ANGELINE TAYLOR [e-mail]
Published: Feb 22, 2007

... when school staffers came to <Brooksville Elementary School principal Mary> LeDoux asking if they could hold Saturday prayer meetings in an effort to better unite the demographically diverse school, she agreed.

She made sure no students would attend and that it would not be held during regular school hours ...

On the night of Feb. 2, a prayer meeting may have gone too far. A former teacher at the elementary school said he felt “uncomfortable” because the desks in the fourth-grade classrooms had “oily fingerprints” over them ...

<Christopher Becker, who now works in the Citrus County school system> said if the group had cleaned up the oil, he wouldn’t have complained. The teacher, who said he was not a Christian, said he understood that the group met outside school hours ...

http://www.hernandotoday.com/MGBD3SV0IYE.html

[struggle4progress]

22. Brooksville school faces ruckus over FCAT prayers

St. Petersburg Times

... Becker, the union representative to the Hernando Classroom Teachers' Association, e-mailed a complaint to Superintendent Wendy Tellone about the incident, but said he never received a response.

"The teachers in my wing were offended; they were scared," he said, describing a school culture in which teachers who oppose such displays are isolated and criticized.

Joni Whitehead taught at the school for 20 years, including 11 as music teacher, before resigning last spring. She said she was appalled by the religious content of a holiday program organized last year by another teacher. "They were praying; it was all religious, all Christian," Whitehead said. "If we had a faculty meeting, there was a Jesus prayer."

Former technology coordinator Martina Smith said staff members' participation before school in the National Day of Prayer made her and others uncomfortable, particularly when she heard discussions at school about which teachers skipped the event ...

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070224/LOCAL/702240303/-1/news

[struggle4progress]

25. So for a school where many pupils arrive hungry, we have a thread about some oil on desks

My own religious practices don't include any use of oils -- but I'm amazed at the excited denunciations that occur here, without any effort to understand context.

It's poor school in a poor area: pupils apparently come to this school hungry every day, and lots don't do well.

Perhaps, at the end of the workday, some tired teachers got together to pray, seeing nothing else they could do. Whether one thinks that is effective or not, it is certainly harmless -- though one naturally wishes they had wiped any oil completely away when done. Other separation issues at the same school (see my links supra) may be more serious -- and more informative.

But I'm amazed that: nobody in this thread expresses any curiosity about the pupils or school or neighborhood; nobody in this thread wonders what are these religious demonstrations a symptom of?

[cosmik debris]

26. You sure know how to piss on a thread.

This is the R/T forum. It is clear that the OP wanted to discuss religious activity in a public school. If you wish to discuss hunger in a public school, feel free to find the appropriate forum and post your thoughts. But there is no point in expressing your amazement that most of us followed the OP's post and discussed religious activity. Most of us had no desire to piss on this thread.

[struggle4progress]

28. The thread also provides an example of how the RW controls religious debate

The OP links to a blog concerned about a bit of oil smeared on desks. The blog in turn links to the rightwing WorldNutDaily, where the version of the story given again concerns a bit of oil smeared on desks. WorldNutDaily in its turn links to a St. Petersburg Times article.

Essentially nobody in this thread was been curious enough to track links back to the SP Times article. That's too bad because: first, it means that here at DU we have a discussion being conducted on the basis of a rightwinger's edited version of a news article; and second, that article contains some serious examples of separation issues at the same school, as I indicated elsewhere in this thread.

[struggle4progress]

29. "What are these religious demonstrations a symptom of?" isn't a legitimate question?

[struggle4progress]

30. Social justice, in your view, isn't an R/T issue?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

33. One thing I am proud of is that

in our district no child is hungry. Free lunch, free breakfast, free snacks. Seconds allowed. I am sure it is the only food some of them get. They are allowed to take home apples and oranges and anything left from the day. Kids who stay after school are also fed.

[PassingFair]

37. And SURELY you would find it EQUALLY harmless

if it were found that a group of black-hooded teachers were found
in the basement, chanting rhymes to SATAN, and dancing around a
chalked PENTAGRAM, no CANDLES, of course, as THAT would constitute
a FIRE-HAZARD.

It COULDN'T HURT!

Keep RELIGION OUT of PUBLIC EDUCATION.

CLEAR ENOUGH?

Sorry for the shouting, but REALLY!

[struggle4progress]

38. I believe in separation -- and don't want the RW choosing the terms of the debate

as I have made clear in earlier posts in this thread.

Why not fight the real fights? There is some evidence, at the school, of some genuine separation issues at the school. So if, for example, you intend to support separation, pay attention to these real separation issues at the school. Instead, thanks to rightwing filtering, the real separation issues are stripped away -- and we engage in a silly babble about a bit of oil smeared on desks after hours. If we fight these fights on intellectual or factual territory chosen by our opponents, we'll generally lose.

Two of my posts in this thread yesterday:

Some separation issues may be involved
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=113309&mesg_id=113394

The thread also provides an example of how the RW controls religious debate
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=113309&mesg_id=113410

[PassingFair]

39. Silly babble?

The thought of teachers SNEAKING through my children's school after
hours smearing their little desks with "anointed oils" CREEPS ME OUT!

I DO consider this a real fight.

I guess we don't agree on this.

[Meshuga]

40. If they smear my kid's desk with oil

I would not worry about it unless these teachers are preaching stuff to my kid and forcing him to pray. I'd be pretty pissed if that was the case and would make a fuss about it. But if the teachers went there after school to smear oil on kids desk I think the joke is on the teachers. Anyway, better "anoited oil" than other nasty stuff (like semen or fecal matter).

Sneak in there and add some holy water for all I care. As long as there is no religion being imposed on my kids.

[struggle4progress]

41. I eagerly await your link on "teachers sneaking through the school"

[PassingFair]

42. From the linked article:

snip>"She told the newspaper she found nothing wrong with what she and "four or five" colleagues did: they went from classroom to classroom, praying and blessing the students' desks with oil.

It happened late in the evening on Friday, Feb. 2, after the school was closed for the weekend."



A teacher is LEAVING because of this.

What IS the difference between this and inviting a bunch of
Santerians in to burn chicken feathers and kill a goat?

:crazy:

[struggle4progress]

43. Gosh, a WorldNutDaily quote! Uh, which teacher is leaving, by the way?

[PassingFair]

48. Gosh! I just followed the link from the OP....

Why don't you read the article yourself.

Nah....just take it on faith that anything those
christian teachers do is A-OK, as long their fingers are
greasy with Jesus-Juice!

[struggle4progress]

49. Not a word about "sneaking" there, though some "late night" claims not

in the SP Times article from which it derives -- and still no evidence whatsoever provided by you for your claim that "people are leaving because of this."

And oh! how very clever of you to suggest I click through to WorldNutDaily -- after I have already provided you a link to a post arguing that it is a mistake to view the story through the RW filter of WorldNutDaily and that by clicking through further to the SP Times article one gains more information on which a better argument about separation issues could based

[TallahasseeGrannie]

31. Advocating cheating because they prayed?

Now that's kind of a stretch to me.

I say as long as the kids weren't in the school, pray away. If they were there, then that is a big problem.