Public School + Youth Group ≠ Christian Education
/ Zachary Garris
I think the title is sufficient, yet I feel obligated to elaborate some.
All Christians should seek to provide their children with a Christian education. This is commanded by the Scriptures—“You shall teach [God’s words] diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:7).
In other words, God’s Word is to be a part of all aspects of raising children, schooling being no exception.
Further, the Apostle Paul commands Christian parents to bring up their children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).
It should go without saying that American public schools do not provide such a Christian education. They do not teach the Bible or cover subjects from a biblical worldview. Moreover, public schools teach many things contrary to the Bible—Darwinian evolution, immoral sex ethics, and gender confusion to name a few. And then they teach a watered-down version of history that neglects Western civilization and the church that was so integral to it.
Will youth group solve this problem?
I hate to break it to you, but most youth groups are little more than babysitting for teenagers. Rare is the youth leader/pastor who teaches Scripture regularly to students. However, even if a student is part of good youth group, at most this is a Bible lesson every Wednesday night and Sunday morning.
The student who attends public school is receiving 35+ hours of secular instruction every week. Contrast this with two hours of Bible instruction at church every week. If parents read the Bible with their children for say 30 minutes every day (which is unlikely), this would only bring biblical instruction up to five hours per week.
So let’s summarize. In the absolute very best scenario, public school students are getting seven times more secular instruction than religious instruction each week.
Some students will survive the train wreck known as public education. But we should not be surprised when most do not.
So if you ever wonder why Christian children are abandoning the faith when they leave home, just remember that most of them did not receive much Christian education in their most formative years.
Public school plus youth group does not equal Christian education.
This means almost one out of every three American children is being educated outside the traditional public school system.
Public schools have stepped up their efforts to purge Christians (and all sane-thinking people) from their teaching ranks.
In the absolute very best scenario, public school students are getting seven times more secular instruction than religious instruction each week.
Don’t ever let people say schools are “neutral.” They are not. Public schools inculcate values in children—and that’s the problem.
One side says parents should leave the public schools because they are a bad influence on the kids. Then the other side asks, "Well is it a sin to send kids to public school?"
It is concerning that people today defend such practices. But what is more concerning is that these "progressives" control America’s education system at every level.
Mann is claiming that the public school system may become “the most effective” and beneficial “of all the forces of civilization.” Why such a bold claim? Mann gives two reasons: (1) The system is universal; and (2) Children are malleable. It is hard to argue with Mann’s reasoning as to the effectiveness of the system.
Let me make a bold statement—Christian parents still willing to send their children to public school are either ignorant or in denial. I am willing to give most people the benefit of the doubt and assume they are in denial. What are they in denial of? The fact that American public schools train children in an atheistic worldview and indoctrinate them with a leftist agenda.
Progressives lament the poverty associated with inner city schools, and they use the situation to argue that the schools need more money. But lack of funding is certainly not the problem, as public schools spend on average more than $12,000 per child. And inner city schools usually spend far more than this. What progressives really ought to be lamenting is that the public schools themselves contribute to poverty.
The problem in all this is not bathrooms. The problem is that leftists have become so bent on opposing discrimination that they no longer understand the difference between a man and a woman. The unbelieving culture has become sexually confused. They have steered the car straight into the ditch of irrationality.
What I’m trying to say here is that forcing kids to go to public school is the exact opposite of what we should do. The public school system is clearly broken. Instead of trying to fix it by fascist compulsion, we should just get rid of the entire thing. That’s right—privatize the entire educational system.
Government interference in education drives up the cost of the product. Don’t believe me? Just look at the statistics. Public schools spend far more per student than private schools, and this doesn’t take into account the fact that public schools pack in more students per classroom (40% more on average). This is proof that the free market works and that government needs to get out of the educational business.
Rarely do people talk about an obvious problem in American education—the breakdown of the family. We are now living in a day when over 40% of children are born to unmarried women. Add to this America’s high divorce rate, and we see that less than half of Americans are raised by both their mom and dad. That’s right, only 46% of kids under 18 are living with two heterosexual parents in their first marriage. Compare that with 73% in 1960.
Some Christians are simply ignorant of what is going on in our nation's public schools. But there are many Christians who are aware of the situation. So why do they continue to send their children to government schools? The two most common reasons given are: (1) money and (2) missions. But these are bad arguments, so let me address them both.
The Foundation for Economic Education published an article in 1999 titled, “The Central Fallacy of Public Schooling.” The author, Daniel Hager, begins with the story of a publication distributed in public schools in the 1940s that justified America's 20% taxation rate at the time. Hager comments, “The article vividly illustrates the overriding intent of public schooling, which has always been indoctrination of the young.”
Public schools in early America were run by the local community. They were founded by Christians, and teachers prayed in class and used the Bible for instruction. But today, prayer and religious instruction are not allowed in public schools. So what happened? Local schools came under increased state control in the 1800s and were proclaimed to be religiously “neutral.”
Public schools will be accountable for what they teach. Every teacher and every administrator will be accountable. As will be every parent who willingly sends his or her children to such godless institutions and exposes them to evil.