Give kids the Muslim holidays -- and teach religious history in schools

When he was campaigning for mayor of New York City, where one of eight public school students are Muslim, Bill de Blasio pledged to add Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha — the two most sacred Muslim holidays — to the school calendar. So here’s a quick quiz: Can you identify and explain those holidays?I didn’t think so. Of course New York should close its schools for Muslim holidays, as it does for Christian and Jewish ones. But it should also make sure that schools teach students of every faith about Islam, as well as about other religions.Alas, most Americans believe-mistakenly-that the schools aren’t allowed to do that. According to 2010 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life, over two-thirds of those polled think that public school teachers are prohibited from teaching the Bible “as an example of literature.” And over half think teachers are barred from offering a class that compares world religions.

Wrong and wrong. In its 1963 decision on Bible reading in schools, the Supreme Court made it clear that it was only prohibiting the “devotional” use of the book. Instruction about the Bible-and about other sacred texts-remained fully constitutional, so long as it was “presented objectively as part of a secular program of education.”

After that, to be sure, some schools used ostensibly “secular” Bible courses to promote religious faith. In 1967, for example, a “Bible history” instructor in Florida boasted that his course had helped recruit over 100 new members into an after-school “Youth for Christ” student club.
And just last year, a watchdog group in Texas reported that Bible classes were taught in the public schools from an evangelical Christian perspective. Some teachers presented Creation and other Biblical stories as historical facts, the report charged, rather than as the faith claims of particular religious groups.

That’s a good reason to be vigilant about enforcing the secular purpose of public schools, which should never favor one religion over another. But it’s a lousy reason to neglect religion altogether, especially at time when our need to understand it has never been greater....