[AdamSC1]

So if this WERE the case, I'd be against it. But, this is clickbait journalism at its finest. If we read the actual text of the law:

> No school district board of education, As Passed by the House governing authority of a community school established under Chapter 3314. of the Revised Code, governing body of a STEM school established under Chapter 3326. of the Revised Code, or board of trustees of a college-preparatory boarding school established under Chapter 3328. of the Revised Code shall prohibit a student from engaging in religious expression in the completion of homework, artwork, or other written or oral assignments. Assignment grades and scores shall be calculated using ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance, including any legitimate pedagogical concerns, and shall not penalize or reward a student based on the religious content of a student's work.

This suggests, that, you may not penalize OR REWARD a student because their work contains religious references. However, the work is still to be marked using ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance.

So if a student said that "The world was created 6000 years ago" on a science test, then they are still marked wrong. If they said "I believe the world was created 6000 years ago, but scientists say that it is 4.543 billion years old" then the student should be marked right for providing the correct answer, and their religious view should not be considered or weighted.

Further, if a student was making a moral argument about a character in a novel for an English paper, if they referenced morality as coming from god, they shouldn't be penalized for that if the paper still is a strong well formed academic work that assesses the themes in the book.

The other sections of this bill actually do a lot to protect the individual rights of anyone religious (whether Christian or otherwise) and atheists, by disallowing school boards to prevent you from practicing your beliefs and requiring that they allow time for prayer, meditation or reflection, as well as allowing students to opt-out of any such activity without repercussion.

This law is being constantly painted as some draconian attempt to allow wrong-answers based on religious belief, and it simply doesn't even come close to doing that.

[rschulman]

Thank you for trying to be a voice of reason against this poorly done journalism.

[cannonedhamster]

It's going to be used to allow homeschooling to accept answers that are purely based on religion. It's just going to harm Ohio as their schools lose accreditation due to religion replacing science, after all you can't penalize someone if they legitimately believe that the Earth was made by Xenu. It's a legitimate concern after all. In fact how do we know what a legitimate concern is and who dictates that? If this were as innocent as you say then there would be no reason to create it as that's the status quo. You're not reading this correctly through religious lenses. It also does nothing to protect atheists unless there's some other part of the bill that covers it as atheism isn't a religion.

[AdamSC1]

You should re-read some of the answers above.

First off, it doesn't allow homeschooling to do anything different than it already does.

Second, you cannot penalize nor reward a student for the religious content in the answer only the academic content.

Third, accreditation is an optional standard for accepting Government funding for Universities and Colleges and doesn't apply to elementary and secondary schools (other than charter/private schools), each state's board of education sets the terms for a schools status and that's why they can also require laws like this.

>after all you can't penalize someone if they legitimately believe that the Earth was made by Xenu.

Correct, you cannot penalize them for believing that, but, you can penalize them if they don't put the correct academic or scientific answer on a test. If they put both answers, you must ignore the religious content.

>You're not reading this correctly through religious lenses.

Correct, this isn't religious texts. It's a law, and in the US court systems there are standards in how we interpret legal language.

>If this were as innocent as you say then there would be no reason to create it as that's the status quo.

That's nonsense. There are multiple types of laws. there are those that prosecute for a violation of them, those that protect from a violation of them and those that enshrine your rights. This is the latter.

Right now, there is nothing on the books to say that a young Muslim student in rural Ohio who wrote a paper on morality but mentioned Allah, could not in turn be marked wrong by their Christian teacher even if they met all the parameters of the assignment. Such a case is absolutely worth defending.

>You're not reading this correctly through religious lenses. It also does nothing to protect atheists unless there's some other part of the bill that covers it as atheism isn't a religion.

Thank you for noting that you read the clickbait article and not the actual law. The entire law substantially includes rights for students to take time to pray, meditate, reflect on morality, or things of a philosophical or patriotic value to them, and gives them the right to opt-out of any such activities in the classroom that do not reflect their beliefs, their parents beliefs or the lack thereof.

For something that is trying to be painted as an archaic pro-christian only law, this law is remarkably balanced and takes into considerations other religions, other systems of belief and the lack of any belief and enshrines them all quite equally.

This law is not perfect, but, from reading the text I cannot fault the intention of it the way that so many have.

Will it be misused and need to be challenged in courts? Absolutely. Most young laws do need to evolve through that process of refinement and clarity.

But, I don't see anything here that merits being demonized.

[dragonwriter]

Your interpretation makes the portion in question purely symbolic, since you interpret it's requirements to be exactly the requirements already imposed by the First Amendment.

However, in interpreting a law or portion of a law, courts tend to assume that drafters did not intend to adopt a nullity, and will tend, if interpretations are otherwise equally plausible, to interpret the law so that each provisions has substantive effect.

[AdamSC1]

The First Amendment is far too frequently invoked when it isn't relevant. The First Amendment says that "Congress will make no law respecting the establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging freedom of speech or the press, or the right of the people of peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Marking a child wrong (or right) on a test, is not an act of congress, nor would it be infringing on the rights of the individual to practice their belief.

This clause is protecting that if a student has the right answer, we should avoid weighing any additional belief within it - and while it likely will need a few court cases to clarify all the tests within it, the law seems to be well within the spirit of upholding, expanding and protecting things that first amendment tangential but not currently protected by the first amendment.

We should always interpret things with the best intentions and most reasonable explanations until proven otherwise. In this case, the law is written in a manner that is neutral and prevents penalization or award for content from any religion. If their intention was to accept religious answers, the law would have strictly focused on preventing penalization, or be trying to push the legitimacy of specific beliefs.

Sidenote: The ACLU does a good job of outlining what IS protected within the first amendment according to religion and schools: https://www.aclu.org/other/your-right-religious-freedom

[slenk]

As I interpret it, it says if you get a scientific question wrong, but "believe" it's actually right, they will be given a correct answer.

They doesn't seem good to me. Are we reverting to a time where science was scoffed? Where people believed the Earth is the center of the universe? Because it seems like this is how it happens.

[AdamSC1]

It specifically says that a student cannot be penalized OR rewarded for the religious portion of the answer and it must be marked on academic merit and substance.

That does not mean they get marks for what they believe.