Religion

 AP News - An Ohio nonprofit that provides off-site Bible instruction to public school students during classroom hours says it will triple its programs in Indiana this fall after new legislation forced school districts to comply. To participating families, nondenominational LifeWise Academy programs supplement religious instruction. But critics in Indiana worry the programs spend public school resources on religion, proselytize to students of other faiths and remove children from class in a state already struggling with literacy...

Public schools cannot promote any religion under the First Amendment, but a 1952 Supreme Court ruling centered on New York schools cleared the way for programs like LifeWise. Individual places of worship often work with schools to host programs off campus, and they are not regulated in some states. ifeWise officials addressed the Oklahoma and Ohio legislatures in support of laws that would require schools to cooperate with off-site religious programs, Penton said, and Oklahoma’s Republican governor signed one such bill into law Wednesday. Similar bills have been introduced in Ohio, Nebraska, Georgia and Mississippi this year, according to an AP analysis of Plural, a legislative tracking database. LifeWise programs will be available at over 520 locations in 23 states next school year, up from 331 in 13 states this year, and about 31,000 students attend LifeWise programs in the U.S., Penton said.