I have been writing a series of articles on education in America. I’ve presented a number of problems and offered few solutions, a trend I will try to correct in my next and last article in this series. But now it’s time to take up an issue I’ve been putting off as long as I can.

I can still remember the day when the question hit me. That morning I heard on the radio that the graduation rate for public schools in Detroit was 25 percent. Only one in four children in that city will finish high school. Later that day I read that a student was suing a teacher for waking him up from sleeping in class. The question threatens the careers of literally millions of teachers in America, but failing to ask it threatens the education of millions more American children. At what point do we say the system—I mean public education in America—has failed and walk away from it completely?

Foreign exchange students who come to school in America are often surprised by the lack of respect students show their teachers here. How students in secular European countries maintain that respect while we cannot is a mystery to me.

The first problem in our educational system is a problem with the human heart. Add to this the American mistrust for tradition and institutions and our extreme individualism, and public schools may simply not be able to control student behavior and teach moral truth.

But then why should we? Turning our kids over to the state is dangerous. Allowing a government institution to determine what is right and wrong for our children might have worked when we all agreed what right and wrong are, but now we don’t. Instead the institution of education, since it is government run, is now a hot bed of political arguments and agendas—a place where political action groups try to impose their beliefs on the minds of our children.

In the last few years in California there have been attempts to put an end to home schooling and force home schooled children into classes that teach them there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality. In other words, California is already trying to force parents to turn their kids over to the state for indoctrination. But this is essentially what is going on all over the nation in any school district where policy battles are being waged over evolution, sex education, and political correctness.

Here are two reasons it might be time to tell the government to leave us alone and let us educate our own children: (1) Socialism never works. It always results in mediocrity. Why, then, do we think socialized education works? (2) The American government can no longer be trusted to teach our children the truth. In fact, as with the example from California, government may be trying to rob us of our parental rights.

On the other hand, what about being a light in a world of darkness (Matthew 5:14)? Christians abandoned their concern for Hollywood in the 30s and look what happened to the movie industry . On the other hand, it’s one thing to send adult Christians into the darkest places of the world, but shouldn’t children be trained into adulthood before they go? If we abandon public schools by pulling our children out of them, we should not abandon them by pulling all Christian teachers out. Those schools will have to become (or continue to be) mission fields for Christian teachers.

If we pull our children from public schools, we are faced with the worry of how to pay for private education (if we don’t home school). The bottom line is, it shouldn’t matter. If it really is time to pull our kids from public schools, we should do so whether or not we can afford to. And we should then make whatever sacrifices are necessary in order to provide the education they need.

Constraints on space force me to leave out the most private of educational systems, home schooling. I can only say that the quality of this kind of education will be as varied as the individual households that practice it.

I cannot render universal glowing praise for private school education. Some schools are remarkable and truly fit the model of preparatory school. But some Christian schools suffer from a severe lack of funding and the negative effect is where no one tends to see it: poor quality teachers.

The theory is that committed Christian teachers are willing to work for lower salaries because of their commitment to a ministry. The practice is that such teachers get into the classroom and become disillusioned by the double hit of having to work very hard while receiving little financial return for it (which causes stress at home when bills can’t be paid, spouses must go to work, and children get ignored while their parents try to find ways to make extra income). The result is that private school teaching jobs become revolving doors: schools become desperate and so hire less qualified teachers, and experienced teachers hold out only until their financial situations drive them to leave.

It doesn’t matter how good Christian intentions and curriculum are. Private schools that are not well funded usually will not draw the quality of personnel they need for excellent teaching to occur. My son completed middle and high school at private schools. The former gave him a pretty good education, the latter did not. But I will make this singular argument for the value of private schools: the one thing public schools in America can never offer that private schools can is study in religion and the Bible. Such disciplined, planned study should never be undervalued.

Public and private schools each have their strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps it depends on the quality of the public school district where a family lives, both in its academic quality and in its attitudes and practices regarding religious freedom.

Parents should be less worried about where to send their kids to grade school and more concerned about where they go to college. In the old King Arthur movie, Excalibur, Arthur asks Merlin where evil exists in his kingdom. Merlin replies without hesitation: “Always where you never expect it . . . always.” This echoes Scripture: “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:14, 15).

When our children are young, we believe they are most in danger of succumbing to bad influences. We think that when they turn 18, they have some adult intelligence and sense and don’t need our protection—at least not so much that we refuse to let them leave the house and move off to college on their own. We worry about foul language and behavior influencing our kids in high school. We worry about evolutionary theory attacking their faith in high school. We worry about drugs and alcohol hurting them in high school. Why in the world do we stop worrying about these things when they go to college?

The proof is in the statistics: your kids are not going to turn their backs on God when they have loving parents, a loving church, and a dynamic youth ministry to be a part of through grade school. Statistics show that the most likely time in life for Christians to abandon their faith is in their college years and due to college experiences. Here’s another statistic: almost two-thirds of college and university professors in America are hostile to biblical Christianity, as are the administrations on their campuses.

If I were the devil, I’d examine American parenting and look for weaknesses on a societal level. What I’d realize is that parents cut their kids loose at 18 and send them off to be influenced by strangers. If that’s the case, I would want to get as many negative influencers into the college and university systems as I possibly could—that’s where I would attack the faiths of Christians raised in the church or solidify the unbelief of those who waiver or don’t believe. As statistics show, the plan is working.

There are two ways to combat this problem: (1) Strongly consider sending your kids to biblically based, classically Christian colleges. If you make college choices based entirely on career goals and degree offerings, you’re putting money before God. (2) If you send your kids to secular colleges and universities (and we need these lights to shine in the darkness, just as we need Christians to go on from college to graduate school, get their doctorates, and get jobs in the neglected cultural mission field of secular colleges and universities), then, in the summer before they leave, call every church near the college and talk to the staff. Call the campus minister at the college, arrange meetings with all these folks, get your kids on the phone with them, send contact information for your kids to those ministries (especially their cell phone numbers), and then drive to the campus with your kids and visit the churches and the campus ministry. Do it several times if you need to. Direct your kids in their continued spiritual walks and educations just as much as you did while they were in grade school. You should do that if you send them to Christian schools as well.

I’ve spent five months pointing out problems and offering few solutions. In my final issue of this series next month, I’ll do my best to talk about things Christian parents can do to improve the quality of their children’s educations and protect them from secularizing influences. |L

OTHER COLUMNS:
November 8, 2009 - Why I believe in God
October 25, 2009 - Commuting in days of evil
October 11, 2009 - Poets and don’t know it
September 27, 2009 - How Hollywood proves abortion is wrong
September 13, 2009 - Significance
August 30, 2009 - Dance alternatives
August 16, 2009 - Gluttons for gossip
August 2, 2009 - Truth from Twilight
July 19, 2009 - Visitor-friendly churches
July 5, 2009 - The Shack
June 21, 2009 - When forgiveness fails
June 7, 2009 - Re-imagining Education (Part Six)
May 24, 2009 - We are not alone
April 26, 2009 - Conviction
April 12, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part four)
March 29, 2009 - An evangelistic proposal
March 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part three)
March 1, 2009 - He makes me sick
February 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (Part Two)
February 1, 2009 - Spiritual insecurity
January 18, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part one)
January 4, 2009 - Church and politics
December 21, 2008 - Heaven’s music
December 7, 2008 - The church and marriage
November 23, 2008 - God and the president
November 9, 2008 - A time for courage
October 26, 2008 - Likes and dislikes: the Prince Caspian movie
October 12, 2008 - What’s that noise?
September 28, 2008 - Modesty matters (part two)
September 14, 2008 - All it takes is some TLC
August 31, 2008 - Modesty matters (part one)
August 17, 2008 - What would you fight for?
August 3, 2008 - Staying through the credits
July 20, 2008 - Honor to whom honor
July 6, 2008 - Tyler Perry and the movies you’re missing
June 22, 2008 - The peaceable kingdom
May 25, 2008 - Another generation grew up
May 25, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part two)
May 11, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part one)
April 27, 2008 - What is truth?
April 13, 2008 - And the geek shall inherit the earth
March 30, 2008 - A charactered God
March 16, 2008 - The college choice (part two)
March 2, 2008 - Good news can be hard to hear
February 17, 2008 - The college choice (part one)
February 5, 2008 - Ten suggestions for a godly standard of living
January 20, 2008 - Expelled: that “Bueller” guy’s pro-God movie
January 6, 2008 - Choosing a lifestyle
December 23, 2007 - Teachable TV?
December 9, 2007 - Owners or stewards?
November 25, 2007 - Christians teaching Christians to change TV and film
November 11, 2007 - My money is God’s business
October 28, 2007 - Navigating under the radar
October 14, 2007 - The things God values
September 30, 2007 - Movie moments
September 16, 2007 - God’s economics
September 2, 2007 - The best books to read
August 19, 2007 - There’s a rat in ‘separate’
August 5, 2007 - The art of reading
July 22, 2007 - Atheist chic
July 8, 2007 - Why books matter: the sequel
June 10, 2007 - Books: why they matter
June 3, 2007 - The non-impact of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
May 27, 2007 - The universal gospel
May 13, 2007 - Loving Muslims through culture
April 29, 2007 - Hope
April 15, 2007 - God in the dark
April 1, 2007 - The gospel goes to the movies
March 18, 2007 - What the Bible movies can teach us
March 4, 2007 - What will you hurt for?
February 18, 2007 - Why Heroes . . .
February 4, 2007 - Give peace a chance
January 21, 2007 - When fairy tales are true
January 7, 2007 - WYSIWYG lives
December 31, 2006 - What’s coming next?
December 17, 2006 - Mercy, mercy
December 3, 2006 - Proof of evolution!
November 19, 2006 - Hungering for God
November 5, 2006 - Violence and government, war and peace
October 22, 2006 - The mighty meek
October 8, 2006 - The Battlestar and the Bible
September 24, 2006 - Soap for the soul
September 10, 2006 - Right vs. cool
August 27, 2006 - The painful truth
August 13, 2006 - More Lies Hollywood Tells
July 30, 2006 - Christian counter culture
July 16, 2006 - The lies Hollywood tells