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NEW YORK – It's already been a tough year for Mary Czajowski.
As superintendent of the 4,400-student school district in Agawam, Mass., she has spent much of the school year worrying about testing, school choice, teacher certification, and paperwork - all to comply with the No Child Left Behind federal education act of 2001.
But now, as graduation approaches, the law is creating a new worry. As the result of a little-noticed provision in NCLB, Dr. Czajowski's schools - like all US public schools - face a double-barreled threat.
If schools allow any religious speech at the graduation ceremony, most are aware that they could face a lawsuit. But now, if they don't - according to the dictates of NCLB - they could risk losing federal funds.
"School districts are in a very, very difficult position," Czajowski says.
The decades-old struggle over the place of religion in American public schools may be about to flare up yet again. A provision in NCLB mandates that if a school has any policy in place that curtails a student's right to "religious expression" as spelled out in recent government guidelines, it could lose its federal funding.
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