Maybe Most People Do NOT Want Teacher-Led Public School Prayer

But they do want chaplains.

In the last couple of days we have gotten 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 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.

44 percent still is higher than I would have expected, but I was very surprised by Pew 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 reporting this now. The AP-NORC survey was fielded between June 5 and June 9, 2025, so I would obviously 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 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 since I had just written about the Pew results.