Chapter 5 C ourt decisions provide important legal guidance for school districts, but case law alone will not enable us to live with our deepest differences.
Communities are further divided, and support for public education continues to erode.
The principles of rights, responsibility and respect that flow from the First Amendment are obligations of citizenship for every American. When properly understood and applied, these principles allow communities to go beyond conflict and achieve consensus on the role of religion in the public schools. The strategies outlined below indicate some ways in which the civic framework provided by the First Amendment has worked in school districts to build common ground. No religious consensus is possible in the United States, and to impose one would be both unconstitutional and unjust. A civic consensus, however, is not only possible, but necessary if we are to continue as one nation of many peoples and faiths.