Maybe Most People Do Not Want Teacher-Led Public School Prayer—But They Do Want Chaplains
In the last couple of days, we have seen not one but two survey reports addressing how American adults feel about teacher-led prayer in public schools. I’m not sure why the one-two punch, but today, a new AP-NORC poll came out showing a majority opposition to such prayer. I wrote yesterday about a Pew Research Center survey finding majority support. While Pew found up to 57 percent of adults supported such prayer, AP-NORC found only 44 percent approval.
Forty-four percent is still higher than I would have expected, but I was very surprised by Pew’s finding majority support. Note below that 44 percent support was down from 48 percent support in 2022 AP-NORC polling.
A major explanation for the disparity between AP-NORC and Pew might be that the Pew results are actually from a survey fielded from July 17, 2023 to March 4, 2024—well more than a year old. I’m not sure why Pew is writing about this now. The AP-NORC survey was fielded between June 5 and June 9, 2025, so I would take its results as more reflective of current opinion. But again, like Pew’s survey, it shows that a substantial share of the public supports teacher-led prayer in public schools, if not a majority.
Another interesting AP-NORC finding is majority approval—58 percent—for chaplains “providing support services” in public schools. I was also surprised by the majority support here.
There’s a lot more in the AP-NORC survey worth addressing, but I wanted to flag the teacher-led prayer question right away because I had just written about the Pew results.
This blog is lightly edited and cross-posted from the author’s Substack.