Before School Ends, Time to Make the Matzo (Religion in Education)

[brooklynite]

from today's New York Times

The children filed out of yellow school buses and descended the stairs to the basement of a Jewish community center in Queens, where they put on plastic aprons and paper chef hats in preparation for a lesson on how to make matzo.

But the trip was not really about baking. It was a dose of religious education, offered free to public school students — during school hours, outside their school’s buildings — under a long-running program known as “released time.”

Established some 70 years ago in school districts nationwide, the program allows children to leave public school early one day a week for religious instruction. It has survived constitutional challenges and dwindling enrollment. In the 1950s and 1960s as many as 100,000 New York City public school students took part; it had just 11,507 participants last month, about 1 percent of the school population, according to the city’s Department of Education.

...snip...

Released time in New York City happens every Wednesday, from 2 p.m. until 3 p.m., which generally leaves instructors with little more than 40 minutes for religious education, accounting for travel time between school and wherever the class is held, be it a church, mosque, synagogue or community center. Teachers whose students participate in released time are advised not to teach any new material during that time. If a test is scheduled, makeup dates should be offered.

I'm aware things like this happen in the Bible Belt, but I was stunned to find it was happening here. Does anyone understand how this possibly passes constitutional muster, especially holding back education for non-participants in the name of fairness?

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. I think it would pass muster because 1) the teacher is not the one

doing the instructing; 2) the students are not forced (except maybe by their parents) into any instruction - that is, the Jewish kids don't get Catholic catechism, the Catholic kids don't get Torah instruction, etc.; 3) the kids who are in the program don't lose out if everyone else in the class get sent home early or get study hall or something; 4) the school does not set the curriculum for the participants.

Effectively, it is ending the school day early, and sending some students off to certain structured activities.

It seems kind of silly to me, as a hardcore atheist, but as a firm supporter of the separation clause, I don't see a violation here.