The fact is by not allowing such things as any sanctioned prayer by teachers...
Given today's crop of "educators", it wouldn't be prayers the children would hear, it would be incantations, enchantments and spells.
Many evangelicals like to say that all Hell broke loose following the abolition of public prayers in the class rooms in the early 1960s, I submit that it was the removal of McGuffey Readers from the classroom.
That also is true, but is a symptom of a spiritual declension, and thus in-deed things have changed. http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/CauseEffect.html
http://www.astorehouseofknowledge.info/Education_in_the_United_States#Quality_of_modern_American_education