Some questions about The Pledge of Allegiance in US schools?

I came across something on The Pledge of Allegiance online, and I am curious: -Do American kids actually have to say The Pledge of Allegiance in scho

I came across something on The Pledge of Allegiance online, and I am curious:
-Do American kids actually have to say The Pledge of Allegiance in school? When - before class/during class/every day/week...
-Does it happen everywhere in the States?
-Why is it viewed as being so important?
-Do any other countries have something similar?

or:I came across something on The Pledge of Allegiance online, and I am curious: -Do American kids actually have to say The Pledge of Allegiance in school? When - before class/during class/every day/week...-Does it happen everywhere in the States? -Why is it viewed as being so important? -Do any other countries have something similar?

or:Yes, but perhaps not in every location. When I was a kid (1950) the pledge of allegiance was not any more important than any other nonsense ceremony that we did. Some people now are becoming concerned about political indoctrination of children. IMO they are about 80 years too late. Schools stopped teaching anything useful over the period 1940 to 1960, leaving nothing except political indoctrination. At the end of the 50s there was a tremendous battle called \"busing\". But the schools had stopped teaching civics twenty years before, so there was an entire generation of people who didn't know how to prosecute a case, so the schools won by just ignoring them.

or:It depends on what school you attend. In the 70's we did every morning and I was proud to do so. I didn't have a problem with the Lords prayer either. I believe in God and country and it was all pretty simple and straight forward. Boy, how things have changed...I think that if you live in America and you have a problem with our flag, the national anthem or anything else about America, you should move to a better place somewhere...

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