Poll Finds Evangelical Christian Presence in Public Schools, Favorable Attitude to Bible Classes Among Teachers and Parents
by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – A new public opinion poll found a surprising openness in American adults toward the idea of teaching the Bible in school.
The 2019 PDK Poll found that 58% of the over 2,000 adults it sampled—which included 556 public school teachers and 1,083 parents of school-age children—favored the idea of Bible electives.
Only 38% of the adults surveyed, moreover, said that such classes “may improperly promote Judeo-Christian religious beliefs,” while 6% said that Bible classes should be mandatory.
Moderating the opinion that public school teachers tend to be wholly liberal or secular, the poll also found that the percentage of teachers who identify as evangelical roughly matched that of the general population, with 37% of respondents calling themselves evangelical Christians, compared to 36% of the American public.
The PDK poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, formerly associated with Gallup, has collected annual public opinion data on education since 1969.