EDUCATIONAL POLICY / November 2000CAROLYN D. HERRINGTON Religion, Public Schools, and Hyper- Pluralism: Is There a New Religious War?

For the past decade, members of the public educational community have called attention to threats to public schooling and to a pluralist democracy from reli-gious conservatives. This article reviews recent empirical and theoretical research on religious conservatives, suggesting that they form a group that is very large and not necessarily Christian and which may be considerably less monolithic, less extreme, less politically active, and less conservative than pre-viously thought. The article explores how the educational reform movement’s focus on curriculum standards, academic rigor, and a larger role for the state may be failing to connect with religious communities that place greater value on instruction in morality, strong interpersonal relations, and an ethos of indi-vidual responsibility. FOR THE past decade, members of the professional and academic educa-tional community have called attention to threats to public schooling and to a pluralist democracy from religious conservatives (Hunter, 1991; Provenzo, 1990). In a Phi Delta Kappan special report published in 1994, George Kaplan described conservative Christianity in general and certain elements of the Christian Right as “a strident voice in favor of a turn- back-the-clock orthodoxy ” (p. K-1). Reports of stealth candidates standing for school board elections without revealing their religious orthodoxy and attempts at censor-ship of classical literary texts have heightened suspicions of doctrinaire groups whose religious fervor excludes the possibility of reasoned argument or compromise. Concerns intensified with the presidential candidacy of Pat Robertson in 1988; the activism of the Christian Coalition in the presidential elections o