Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Yale Law and Policy Review
Publication Date
1996
Volume
14
First Page
169
Abstract
(Excerpt)
Education in America as we know it today draws its origins from the philosophical perspectives and political objectives of the common school reformers over a century ago. For them, mass education was a primary vehicle for defining ourselves as a nation. Schools would develop civic virtue and a national character through a shared set of values reflected in the school curriculum. The common school experience, offered to all regardless of social class or ethnic background, would assimilate the hordes of immigrants coming to our shores and meet the emerging needs of industrialization. Individuals across the economic spectrum, afforded education at public expense, would both realize their own potential and support civic purposes through their enhanced participation as informed citizens sharing a common public philosophy. In other words, education would serve individual interests founded in liberal philosophy as well as communitarian goals founded in both democratic and republican theory.
As we approach the end of the twentieth century, this model of education has come under increasing attack. Schools have become battlegrounds in what has been termed a national "culture war." The public school curriculum has served as the most visible target in these battles. Issues such as abortion, AIDS education, sex education, multicultural education, equality for women, and homosexual rights—the values of "tolerance" and "individual choice" themselves—are now tearing communities apart. While some of these challenges are founded in non-spiritual value-based belief systems, most are religion-based. Organized efforts to promote prayer or a moment of silence in the public schools have caught Congress and state legislatures in endless political maneuvering and have captured the attention of the media. Attempts by individual students to engage in private religious speech on school grounds during the school day have forced school officials and the courts to take a fresh look at the line where religion and personal expression intersect.
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