Public schools are the tool with which American society transmits its knowledge and values to the next generation. They are also the place where students of many different religious beliefs gather together. Because of this commingling of faiths, schools have long been the setting for the debate over the place of religion in American society and its institutions. One flashpoint of this debate is school prayer.

In the first half of the twentieth century many American public schools often began the school day with a recited prayer. One such prayer, composed by the New York State Board of Regents so as to be nondenominational, read as follows: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.” In 1962, however, the Supreme Court...