An annual education survey by association of teachers, administrators and other education professionals finds public support for teaching Bible studies

Nearly two-thirds of all adults support teaching Bible studies in public schools, a trend taking hold in parts of the country, according to a survey released Monday.

The annual survey was conducted by PDK International, an association of teachers, administrators and other education professionals, which has measured public attitudes toward schools for 51 years.

The poll also found, as in years past, that Americans rate their local schools far higher than the nation's schools in general. Respondents' views of their children's schools improved a bit, while opinions about schools in their wider communities and across the country fell.

Fifty-eight percent of adults said Bible studies should be offered as an elective, with an additional 6 percent saying it should be required for all students.

Support was particularly high among evangelical Christians, at 82 percent, and among Republicans (78 percent) and rural Americans (72 percent).

Support was a bit higher for including classes on comparative religion as an elective. There was also strong support for teaching civics.

Among teachers, support for Bible studies as an elective or a required class totaled 58 percent, and it was even higher among parents, at 68 percent.

Driven by an organized evangelical effort, 10 state legislatures have considered laws in the past year encouraging public schools to teach the Christian Bible as an important work of literature and influence on history.

Bible classes have withstood court scrutiny in the past and are popular in many schools, though critics say there is enormous potential for teachers to violate the First Amendment by promoting a religious message.

Joshua Starr, chief executive of PDK International, suggested that support for Bible classes may reflect frustration toward schools' narrow focus on a few topics: "People want school to be more than reading, writing and arithmetic."

The survey was conducted in April among 2,389 adults, including 1,083 parents of school-age children and 556 public school teachers. The margin of error for the full adult sample is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points; for the sample of public school teachers, it is 6.2 percentage points.

Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

(COMMENT, BELOW)