If it's in the News, it's in our Polls. Public opinion polling since 2003.

LIFESTYLE

65% of Americans Favor Prayer in Public Schools

The debate rages as it has for decades whether there really is a constitutionally mandated separation of church and state, but most Americans don’t seem to mind mixing prayer and public education.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% of American Adults favor prayer in public schools. Twenty-four percent (24%) are opposed, while 11% are not sure.  These findings show little change from late April of last year. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

But then 73% of adults say religious faith is at least somewhat important in their daily life, although that's down from 80% in April 2010. The new finding includes 54% who say it’s Very Important.  Twenty-three percent (23%) say religious faith is not very or not at all important in their day-to-day lives.

Sixty-one percent (61%) of Americans say they pray at least once every day, and that includes 29% who pray several times a day. Fifteen percent (15%) say they rarely or never pray. That's comparable to earlier findings. 

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

 The national survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on February 3-4, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology. 

Want to read more?

Become a Rasmussen Reader to read the article

Have an account?

Log In

Become a Reader

Subscribe

Rasmussen Reports is a media company specializing in the collection, publication and distribution of public opinion information.

We conduct public opinion polls on a variety of topics to inform our audience on events in the news and other topics of interest. To ensure editorial control and independence, we pay for the polls ourselves and generate revenue through the sale of subscriptions, sponsorships, and advertising. Nightly polling on politics, business and lifestyle topics provides the content to update the Rasmussen Reports web site many times each day. If it's in the news, it's in our polls. Additionally, the data drives a daily update newsletter and various media outlets across the country.

Some information, including the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll and commentaries are available for free to the general public. Subscriptions are available for $4.95 a month or 34.95 a year that provide subscribers with exclusive access to more than 20 stories per week on upcoming elections, consumer confidence, and issues that affect us all. For those who are really into the numbers, Platinum Members can review demographic crosstabs and a full history of our data.

To learn more about our methodology, click here.