It is an interesting article. While I disagree with your point, I do understand what you are trying to say. The U.S prides itself on it's diversity. Assuming that we all pray in schools, people who are not Christians may feel left out, or excluded. Imagine how this would influence an atheist child! They are going to have two conflicting worlds: one where they must believe in God, and one where they must not.

Cool and weird at the same time......

Assuming that God had a hand in creating the Bill of Rights, and guided the U.S to where it was in 1962, where was he when slavery dominated the South? Prayer was still taught in schools then, and both slaves and their masters were often times Christian, but God simply allowed that to happen? While the slave masters beat and abused other Christians of a different skin color, God chose not to intervene at all, despite their loyal following?

And my respect for Teen Ink has been heightened. :)

How in the world was such a ghastly article published in the magazine? My respect for TeenInk just took a major blow...

It's probably useless to post yet another comment telling you why you are wrong. But, of course, I will anyway. At least a brief one. First of all, you can pray in school all you want. Everyone has the individual right to pray whenever they want, wherever they want, as long as they don't coerce others into supporting there religion or interrupt the peace. So pray in school. Feel free. And in that way, I will be able to decline from doing so without feeling the wrath of my peers. No religion should be forced on anyone and no, the founders didn't found this as a Christian nation. People came to the U.S. to flee from religious persecution and to be able to practice what they would like. Even then there wasn't even mere toleration of other religions until the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, which by the way was instituted by our very well known founder Thomas Jefferson. Who has reported it was is most prized achievement alongside the Declaration of Independence. You are whole heartedly supporting that we shove your religious beliefs down the throats of our children... Even though a founding principle of this country was religious freedom. The very first amendment of the United States institutes that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". If they didn't support religious freedom then they wouldn't have put that in the Bill of Rights and we would not be the country we are today. We would be a narrow-minded, oppressive nation like England was when we fought them in the Revolutionary War. Is that what you want? You don't seem to understand the implications this would have on the national level and you don't seem to fathom the diversity we have in this nation. Texas may be majority Christian, but the rest of the country is filled with other cultures and religions. According the Supreme Court's coersion doctrine, the US allows the strictest application of the establishment clause regarding school prayer to apply to religion. You know why? Peer pressure. That one silent kid at the back of his class is bowing his head and praying with you, he looks like he's fine with it. Secretly, he doesn't want to pray, but he thinks his peers would persecute and bully him if he didn't. So he bows his head and says the prayer to the Lord. And after weeks of doing this, he begins to think 'maybe they're right... if so many people believe in this God, maybe I should to, maybe I shouldn't follow the practices my parents have taught me.' Maybe you consider such conversions to be a win for Christianity, but they're fundamentally wrong. Our school systems has the right to teach and inform on different doctrines. But the right to teach which is true and correct is a strictly personal matter that should only be decided by one's own conscience.

Saying the pledge has everything to do with our men in women overseas believe me. This is the country you live in whether you like or not. The men and women who fight for our country say the pledge with pride. They give their lives for the freedom for you not to say the pledge. I say the pledge with utmost respect to the americans who were brave enough to fight this fight and continue to sacrifice their lives for ungrateful people who are given a choice of freedom of speech.

Bro, saying the pledge does nothing to thank our Bretheren at Arms. The pledge is a brainwashing tool. It's propaganda for small children that would belive the moon was made of cheese if you told them so. Think about it, it's literally called "The Pledge of Alligence."

Also, not once in the pledge does it mention our military men and women.

I like the idea of everyone being able to express themselves without ridicule. I also like that you tried to solve the problem while being respectful, but I don't think that would work. A lot of kids struggle with their religion, especially in a place where most everyone believes in the same religion. When I was struggling with my religion I tried to force myself to belive what I was saying and being taught and if I had to sit in silence while the other students prayed to the same god like the good Christian kids they were and I wasn't then I would've felt very very bad. I already felt guilty, if that happened I don't know how I'd react.

So while I really like the idea I don't feel it would hold up. (No disrespect intended)

I could not possibly post a response to this in the form of a comment, so I wrote my own article on it. I would love if you (the author of this article) would read it and respond however you may. The link is here:

TeenInk.com/opinion/spirituality_religion/article/678823/No-a-response-to-Prayer-Ought-to-be-in-Schools-by-GodChick/

Nobody cares if you pray in school. It's not illegal to pray in school, FORCED prayer is what is illegal as the public education system is secular, as it should be.  And evolution is taught in school because it is backed up by sound scientific evidence. If you have anything to dispute that evidence, step up to claim your Nobel prize. 

Thanks for summing that up neatly for me, ha. Another thing: You can pray in school. Nobody is going to stop you unless you're being discruptive (so doing it vocally while a teacher is talking). I doubt anybody will care. 

Pastafarian in is a parody of relegion any way. i don't think anyone actually belives in it. I could be wrong though, I could be wrong though.

I'm a devout Pastafarian and I can gaurentee that if I were to pray to His Holiness, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, I would be ridiculed. Why can I gaurentee this? Because it has already happened.

So, as I began reading this artical, I thought it was satire. Then I actually kept reading and realized that you actually believe what you're saying. SO, I am going to try to do what it seems the Texas (shocker) education system is incapable of doing. The US Constitution was orignially founded with (yet not upon the) basis of religious freedom and other liberties. What you ar arguing is that forced prayer should be brought back into schools, and I would be inclined, for the progression of education, to disagree.  If we were to take everything which was at a point in the original constitution, or stated by one of the founding fathers, we would still be in a country in which women (and blacks) could not vote or own land. Women and blacks would, once again, essentially be property. Marriage would once again be owned by religion (even though marriage is actually older than most modern religions).  Just think about this. Think about the cruel domino effect for which you are asking...

You misunderstood I think that christian prayer should be aloud in school. I DID NOT SAY that everybody should pray christian prayer. It would be stupid to pray to something you don't believe but still keep that right to peoplewho still believe like our founding fathers.

Unless you are a Native American (which if you go back far enough, still apply) everyone here is an immigrant.

Do you hear yourself? "That is the whole reason people traveled over to America on the Mayflower was for freedom of religion."  So let's make everyone pray with Christian prayers.

It isn't a big deal if you pray in school, but making everyone else pray with you is the issue.

I wouldn't say 'most', but you bring up a great point. Jefferson, Paine, and (to an extent) Adams were all Deists. In fact, Paine even wrote a book urging against most of what the author is arguing for (and, to clarify, I have no issue with prayer - as long as it is not forced and all religious beliefs or lack thereof are taken into account) and in favor of a government based solely on science, reason and justice rather than individual religious beliefs.