“Without school-sponsored prayer, students are still free to pray on their own while in school. But where school prayer is mandated, students from all walks of life have often been required to acknowledge an “Almighty God” or “Heavenly Father”, whether through regulation or just social pressure. Such an arrangement is clearly antithetical to genuine religious freedom in schools.”
Video transcript: http://freethoughtblogs.com/zinniajones/2012/06/governor-bryant-there-is-no-n…
Related articles
- Mississippi Governor on school prayer: “It is what we should continue to do” (secularnewsdaily.com)
- Mississippi Governor touts ‘non-denominational’ prayer in public schools (secularnewsdaily.com)
- Mississippi Governor Endorses School Prayer (msatheists.org)
- Zinnia Jones: Gov. Bryant, There Is No ‘Non-Denominational’ School Prayer (huffingtonpost.com)
- Congressional support for school prayer? (secularnewsdaily.com)
Always Question Authority 
Aside from preparing its youth for the workforce another primary goal of public education has been to reinforce assent to, not the questioning, of authority, especially that of the state. Few adults, much less children, have any firm notion of what they are praying to when they appeal to “God” or the “Almighty”. Although notions of God are highly subjective, research has shown there are perhaps as many as five or six different objective characterizations of God (loving father, wrathful judge, etc.) and they all tend to reflect the person’s political orientation (or that of their parents). What is happening with school prayer is the teaching that it is important to “believe” if, as Daniel Dennett (I believe) has written, that all they believe in is belief.