wfn.org | NCCCUSA On Public Schools

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
Email: news@ncccusa.org  Web: www.ncccusa.org

29NCC3/16/99 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 "SPEAKING UP FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS" - NCC CHRISTIAN CENTURY 
ARTICLE

 NEW YORK CITY - The Rev. Oliver Thomas, National 
Council of Churches Special Counsel for Religious and Civil 
Liberties, takes on the "dump-public-schools movement" in 
his article "Speaking up for public schools" in the March 
10, 1999, issue of "The Christian Century."

 "No doubt there are school districts where the 
religious rights of students are denied and the role of 
religion and faith is ignored in the curriculum," said the 
Rev. Thomas.  "With over 15,000 school districts nationwide, 
it's no surprise that some get it wrong..Most schools, 
however, are struggling to get it right." 

The Rev. Thomas helped draft the new consensus 
guidelines on appropriate religious expression in the public 
school, distributed by President Clinton and endorsed by 
such diverse groups as the National Association of 
Evangelicals and People for the American Way.  An ordained 
minister and a lawyer, he works extensively with school 
districts on how to implement the guidelines.

"In fact, I haven't been in a single district - from 
L.A. to Long Island - where schools are promoting atheism 
and moral anarchy," he continues in the Century.  "To the 
contrary, the majority of educators are fighting for the 
moral as well as academic lives of their students.

"In a time when parents practice drive-by divorce, 
Hollywood offers gratuitous sex and violence, and prominent 
preachers and politicians model greed, dishonesty and 
disrespect, most teachers are working overtime to sustain 
what is best understood as a countercultural movement."

The Rev. Thomas points to the NCC's proposed policy 
statement, "The Churches and the Public Schools at the Close 
of the 21st Century," set for the second of two "readings" 
in November 1999, as its "alternative to Exodus 2000."

"Instead of withdrawing in the face of increasing 
problems, the NCC is calling on Christians to get involved" 
by:

  creating partnerships with neighborhood schools 
through, for example, tutoring, literacy and after-
school programs for latch-key kids.
  organizing to provide increased and more equitable 
funding for public schools.
  standing against "the siren song of tuition vouchers 
as a cure-all for the ills of failing schools."  
"Rather than focusing on the relative handful of 
children who might be helped by a voucher program, 
the statement urges Christians to focus on the vast 
majority of students who - with or without vouchers 
- will remain in public schools," the Rev. Thomas 
says.

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