The constitutional prohibition on school-sponsored prayer is pretty well known. So you would think a school ad promoting a school-sponsored prayer as part of standardized testing preparation would not be something we would see in the year 2011. And yet, a Baltimore school has done just that:
For two years, prayer services have been held at Northeast Baltimore's Tench Tilghman Elementary/Middle School as the Maryland School Assessments, a standardized test for third through eighth grades, neared. Fliers promoted the most recent event, on March 5, as a way to "come together, as one, in prayer and ask God to bless our school to pass the MSA."
Asked about the event, city school officials said they would investigate. In a prepared statement, the school system said that, "while we as a district understand that prayer plays an important role for many in our school communities … it is not appropriate for public institutions of education to promote any particular religious practice."
