Florida Public School ducks responsibility for test scores, passes the buck to Jesus. [View All]

A New Meaning to Prayer in Schools

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Posted on: February 23, 2007 12:25 PM, by Ed Brayton

This is a strange story. The principal and several teachers from a school in Florida, apparently concerned that their kids weren't prepared for a state assessment test, decided to go classroom to classroom saying a prayer for their students to do better. In the process, they "anointed" all of the desks with oil because, apparently, God is more likely to answer a prayer if it's marinated in oil (presumably extra virgin oil, given His taste for virgins).

The principal, Mary LeDoux, reported it had been a difficult day with high levels of misbehavior, and the state's standardized assessment test was scheduled to be administered the following week...

"It was staff members on their own time who said, 'Do you mind if we say some prayers for the kids on the Friday night before FCAT, so the kids would do well?'" LeDoux told the Times.

Forget any church/state issues, there are several other questions that come immediately to mind. First, this whole notion of prayer is patently absurd. The only way the students will do well is if they know the material; either they know it or they don't. The only way this prayer could be answered is by God artificially "zapping" the correct information into the brains of the students. So let's think about that for a moment...

Rather than relying on good teaching to make sure their students are prepared for this test, these teachers and administrators choose instead to rely on supplications to supernatural beings to do what they, evidently, believe they themselves have failed to do. In essence, they are advocating divine cheating, asking God to make up for their failures as teachers and give students better marks than they actually deserve based on their own work. This is perverse.


"See? I told you... if you don't do well on the FCAT, Jesus will turn you into an ugly little dog!"

Second, I would love to hear their reaction if a group of teachers decided to go classroom to classroom burning incense and sprinkling chicken blood in the doorway to achieve the same goal. No doubt they would go absolutely ballistic and would consider it defiling the classroom. But what is the difference between believing that supernatural beings respond positively to a few drops of chicken blood and believing that they respond positively to a few drops of olive oil, or to the smell of burning goat flesh? No doubt these good Christian folks would consider anyone who thought the test scores could be increased with chicken blood and incense to have a screw loose; somehow they think their silly superstitions don't mean the same thing.

More:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/02/a_new_meaning_to_prayer_in_sch.php