ncreased one thousand percent (2). There is a strong correlation between the expulsion of school prayer and the rise in teen pregnancies and abortions. A study by the National School Safety Center reported school deaths have occurred in all but eleven states (Facts 1). Guns caused seventy-seven percent of all violent deaths in schools (1). Two hundred and thirty-five school-associated violent deaths occurred in the United States over the past eight years (1). One in twelve high school students is threatened or injured with a weapon each yearThese numbers are outrageous. School children obviously aren’t being taught the difference between right and wrong. As Minister Kerry Hill says, “It seems like every time we have a school shooting or major incident involving a school, the first thing everybody wants to do is hold a prayer vigil. It seems to me that if you believe in the power of prayer post-disaster, you should believe in it pre-disaster,” (Reeves 3). Drug use in teenagers has increased over the years. Teens have turned to drugs because of many reasons including lack of strong moral values and religious beliefs (Madigan 1). Jan Cook, a mother of four, believes that “when prayer was taken out of school guns started coming in.” More and more teens are getting pressured into taking drugs and without proper values they will continue to use them more often.The New York public school system wanted to instill values into their students. They were merely using a right that had been used for centuries. They did not deliberately try to cause trouble. They set up certain standards for the prayer and made sure the prayer did not favor a certain religion. In fact most people favored it, it was virtually harmless, and without it the religion of secularism is established. Among teen-age public school students, six in ten said they favor school prayer (Both 418). That is sixty-three percent of the stude...
