Christians and Charter Schools
by John M. Frame
I want here
to explore the question of whether biblical principles allow Christians to send
their children to charter schools. My answer will be highly qualified. I will
not argue in general that charter schools are the best way for Christian
parents to provide for their children’s education, or even that they are equal to
other alternatives such as home schools and Christian private schools. I will,
nevertheless, defend charter schools here, but only in a very weak sense: that
God does not forbid the use of all
such schools in all cases. Further,
charter schools offer certain advantages, so that in some cases, perhaps many,
charter schools may be the best choice for some parents.
Indeed, I intend to make the
argument for charter schools very difficult for myself. For I believe that there
are serious problems in the concept of a charter school which should give every
Christian pause. And if a Christian nevertheless decides to make use of charter
schools, he should do so only with much prayer and with enormous efforts to
supplement the charter school teaching with distinctively Christian content.
The arguments against charter schools
from a Christian viewpoint are very strong, not to be brushed aside. My only
point here will be that they are not absolutely conclusive. They do not amount
to an absolute prohibition of charter schools in all cases. We should,
therefore, consider the advantages of
charter schools in our educational decisions.
Some Biblical Principles for Education
1. Scripture makes it clear that education, like every other area of human
life, must be done to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31) and in the name of Christ
(Col. 3:17). Therefore, it must be done in accordance with the Word of God, the
Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
Scripture is not only a standard
for education, but it pervades the content of a godly education. Deut. 6:6-9
reads,
These commandments that I give you
today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about
them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down
and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your
foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
“God-centered” is really too weak a term to describe this
kind of education. “God-saturated” is more like it. Children are to grow up in
an environment where they cannot avoid the Word of God; it is always there,
searching them, admonishing them, instructing them in the truth.
It follows
that everything the child learns about the world should be related to God’s
Word. And in a way Scripture speaks about everything.
It doesn’t give us detailed instruction about plumbing, or British history,
or auto repair, but it does teach us how to relate all these things to God, how
to study them, and how to implement our studies in practical life so that God
is pleased. We cannot, for example, study history while ignoring divine
providence, let alone (as in many secular curricula) ignoring the substantial
role of religion in forming the culture and politics of nations. We cannot
teach science without emphasizing that this world is created and directed by
God. It is God’s providence that makes the world an orderly place that we can
understand and dominate (Gen. 1:28-30). We cannot teach modern music and film
without teaching children how to evaluate these from God’s perspective.
2. God has placed children into important
relationships with family, church, and state.
God intends
for adults to take responsibility for the education of children. Here,
obviously, the family plays the crucial role. Note that the Deuteronomy passage
above tells us to “impress them on your children,” an expression which
gives special responsibility to parents. In the Book of Proverbs, also,
instruction in God’s wisdom comes from parents: “Listen, my son, to your
father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching” (1:8; compare
2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, 6:1, 7:1, 19:27, 23:19, 22, 26-28).
It would
certainly be wrong, however, to think
that Scripture restricts education to
the family. I know of no Scripture text or principle that forbids parents to
delegate some of the education of their children to others. Certainly in Bible
times apprenticeship was common, and God’s Word says nothing against it. And
obviously it is not wrong for parents to ask their children to read books written
by others, allowing the author of the book to assist them in their work of
education. Certainly it is not wrong for parents to send their children to
piano teachers or carpenters for tutoring in specialized areas, of course,
under proper parental supervision. The Deuteronomy passage is not interested in
the fine points of how the education is carried out. It certainly cannot be
pressed to imply that every speck of teaching must be presented solely and
directly by the parent. It simply places the overall responsibility for education
upon the parent.
In the
discussion of charter schools, it is important to consider the distinct roles
of family, church, and state, in the education of children.
First, the
state. Does it have any business in the education of children? To answer this
question, we must ask what the state is in scriptural terms. In my analysis
[1]
(and I realize
this is controversial), Scripture does not describe the divine appointment of a “state” as an institution separate from family and church. Some claim that Gen.
9, especially verse 6, provides for an independent “state” institution, but the
passage says nothing of the sort. In the passage, God merely gives to Noah’s family the power in some cases to
enforce God’s law by the shedding of blood.
What, then,
is the state, if it is not a distinct institution with a special divine
appointment? The state emerges when the human family gets too large to be ruled
informally by a father or patriarch. A family of four can be ruled efficiently
by the father in the home. But once a family multiplies into thousands, more
formal structures of rule are needed. In Israel, these structures are clearly
family structures. The leaders are “elders” (Ex. 3:18), older men, respected in the community, who sit
“in the city gate” to make decisions too difficult for individual heads of
families. They are like grandfathers, or patriarchs, but they rule over the
whole nation. After the Exodus, with the population of Israel reaching into the
millions, Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro, advised him to set up officials over “thousands,
hundreds, fifties, and tens” (Ex. 18:21). Later God gave kings to Israel, but
the kings were part of this same structure. They were appointed and anointed by
the “elders of Israel” (2 Sam. 5:3).
So the
state is family government, the government of the extended family of the human
race. This analysis helps us also to get a clearer view of the church. The
church, too, is an extended family. It is the community formed by the redeemed family of God; it is our family
in Jesus. The old family, the family of Adam, fell into sin; so God established
on earth a new family in his Son. Jesus died on the cross for his “brothers”
(Heb. 2:11-12) and his “children” (verses 13-14). So we become brothers and
sisters of one another through Christ.
Now there is no question but that
the church has an important role in the education of our children. The church has
a teaching, discipling ministry (Matt. 28:19, Acts 5:42, 1 Co. 12:28-29, 14:19,
Eph. 4:11, Col. 1:28, 3:16, 1 Tim. 4:11, 6:2, 2 Tim. 2:2, Tit. 2:4, Heb. 5:12,
Jas. 3:1) and that is certainly not restricted to adults. God charges the church
to teach the Scriptures to everyone. Parts of Scripture are specifically
addressed to children (as Eph. 6:1-3), and all of it is relevant to them. The
church should support the parents (and vice versa) in teaching the Word of God
to children as their age and level of understanding permits. Church and family
should not compete with one another, but should work together. That is implicit
in the context of Deut. 6:6-9, for that passage is part of the covenant between
God and the whole nation of Israel. The whole nation, as the people of God, was
to maintain this commitment to teach the children God had given them. The
commandment is given to families, but the whole nation has an interest in
bringing this about.
Does the state have any role in
education? As we have seen, family and state are not radically separate in
Scripture. If the state is an extended family, then it does have an interest in
the education of children. At least, the state should carry out its duties in a
way that helps, rather than hinders, the people in carrying our their divine
obligations. And certainly the state has educational functions, in the training
of soldiers, in the preparation of people for governmental functions, in
teaching people their civic responsibilities. However,
3. Christians must be very critical of the role of the state in educating
children.
What of the education of young
children? I know of nothing in Scripture that absolutely prohibits the state from being involved in such education. There
are, however, obvious disadvantages in the concept of a state school:
(a) The state, as state, is not
particularly competent to educate children. The work of the state, in Scripture
and in contemporary society, is focused on the maintenance of law and order.
Government bears the sword against wrongdoers and against aggression from
outside the nation (Rm. 13:1-7). Government is in the business of exercising
force to make people do what is right. But although corporal punishment may
sometimes be necessary in education, the primary tool of education is not
compulsion, but instruction. Even the best government, therefore, is unlikely
to be competent in the basic work of education. Today, the abysmal educational record
of state public schools confirms this judgment. There are, however, some exceptions:
there are some outstanding teachers and schools in the public system.
(b) The state governs the family of
Adam, which has fallen into sin. Although there have been godly rulers in
history, they have been the exception rather than the rule, and even the
godliest rulers have usually been surrounded by other officials who have not
shared their love of God. So the state has typically, from Bible times to the
present, reinforced the worst trends in society, further disqualifying it from
the education of Christian children.
(c) In the US and many other
countries, the state is prohibited from encouraging any religion. Arguably this
was not the original intention of those who wrote the US Constitution; but the “wall
of separation” between state and religion has been the consistent view of the
courts in recent times. We should, I believe, seek to change this by legal
means. But humanly speaking we are not likely to succeed in the near future.
Therefore, no state school can legally provide the kind of education described
in Deut. 6:6-9.
(d) Indeed, state schools regularly
oppose the Christian view of the
world and human life. For it is impossible to be neutral between Christ and unbelief
(Matt. 6:24, 12:30). As the state schools try to exclude “religious” views,
they end up by default teaching secular humanism. Secular humanism is itself a
religion in the sense that it demands total allegiance and presents a distinct
set of standards for all of human life, but standards contrary to Scripture. It
teaches that the human mind is the ultimate standard of truth and right. At the
same time, it teaches (inconsistently) that there are no ultimate standards. So
secular humanism is both irrationalist and rationalist, relativistic and
tyrannical. There are no absolute truths, but secular humanism is the absolute
truth.
(e) The irrationalist side of
secular humanism is detrimental to education as such. If there is no absolute
truth, then why should students even bother with learning? If there are no
absolute standards of right and wrong, how can the schools establish codes of
behavior and tests of academic performance? Confusion about the goals of
education is obvious in the various kinds of “new new math,” “social promotion,” and in general the substitution of self-esteem for academic standards.
(f) The rationalist side of secular
humanism is no better. The state schools frequently teach dogmatically
positions that are contrary to God’s word on many particular matters. They
regularly teach that naturalistic evolution is a fact, not a theory, that
biblical sexual standards are outmoded, that Christianity played a negligible
role in world history, that all cultures are equally good, that people are
naturally good, that socialism is the best form of government, that abortion is
a woman’s right, that “safe sex” is the best way to prevent unwanted
pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. In short, state schools teach that
one may ignore God in every area of life without suffering loss. And the recent
tendency is for school advocates of “political correctness” to stifle any sort
of dissent against radical feminism and egalitarianism. The result is the
substitution of brainwashing for education.
(g) In
schools, peer relationships are often as important as the content of the
curriculum. Therefore, it is important that teachers exercise godly discipline over
their students and seek to train them in godly character. State schools are
unable to do this, because of their commitment to secular humanism. Therefore,
Christian students attending state schools are often exposed to the worst
values and behavior among their peers. And typically they face temptations to
explore drugs, illicit sex, gang violence, etc. Further, secular humanism
encourages the autonomy of children from the authority structures of society,
parents and teachers. So the children typically adopt the values of their peers
rather than those of their teachers (let alone parents).
(h) State
schools often see it as their mission to rescue students from the antiquated
views of their parents and churches. Typically they resent attempts by parents
to influence their teaching. Indeed, for example by providing condoms and
abortions without allowing parents to be notified, they place themselves above
the parents and even drive wedges between parents and children.
(i) Since state
schools are usually run by people who have no sympathy for Christians or for
others who dissent from the secular humanist consensus, they seek in various
ways to oppose, even intimidate Christian and home schools, and to encourage
Christians to enter the state school system, so that the children of Christians
can to some extent be under the power of the state system. Once Christian
families are committed to the state system, the system seeks to increase its
power over them.
These
arguments are pretty formidable, and every Christian should take them seriously
before deciding to send children to state schools (of which charter schools are
one kind). Nevertheless, I think these arguments are not strong enough to
prevent us from ever making use of state educational facilities. I will make
that case below.
4. A
Christian education should prepare children to live in the unbelieving world,
not only in the Christian subculture.
Jesus told
his disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). The Old
Testament was also a missionary religion, since God intended to bless all
nations through Abraham’s seed. But for the most part in the Old Testament
(Jonah’s mission being one exception), the emphasis was that Israel should
remain separate from foreign nations, which might defile them and lead them
astray to worship other gods. Not until the Jesus sent the Holy Spirit with
power did the worldwide missionary movement begin in earnest. In Acts 2, the
Spirit came on the church, and 3000 speakers of many languages became believers
(Acts 2:41). After that, the apostles preaches the gospel to Gentiles as well
as Jews (Acts 10-11).
So in the
New Testament, the rule is not to isolate oneself from the world, though we
must continue to beware of the temptations the world sets before us. Jesus
intends us to remain in the world, but not to be “of” the world (John
17:15-16). Satan is a defeated enemy; we may resist him and he will flee from
us (Jas. 4:7). The gates of Hell cannot defeat the church (Matt. 16:18).
Children,
of course, need to be isolated in the early years of their lives. They are not
mature enough then to march by themselves into battle against the hosts of
Satan, to withstand all the evils of our time. But the home and church should
be preparing them for this very battle.
If they are
to fight strongly against wickedness, they must have some knowledge of the
world. Paul was not ignorant of Satan’s devices (2 Cor. 2:11); we should not
allow our children to be ignorant either. Further, as they grow older, they
need to enter relationships with non-Christians in which they can learn to
stand for the truth and to lead others to Christ. Once they leave home, they
will be exposed to non-Christian peers and culture on a regular basis. They
should be prepared for that gradually, when they have access to parental
supervision. We do not want Satan’s devices to catch them by surprise.
There is
room for debate of course, as to how early, how quickly, and with what means we
should expose our children to the world. Some things are obvious. Five year
olds should not be exposed to a steady stream of pagan rock music, R-rated
films, and sociopathic companions. On the other hand, however, a Christian
college graduate ought to be able to attend a secular university graduate
program without undergoing spiritual
upheaval. Between those obvious points, many others are debatable. Children,
after all, are very different from one another, and Christian children mature
spiritually at different rates. I have known some to have gone to public high
schools giving powerful witness of Christ to their classmates and without
compromising either their beliefs or their standards of behavior. Others have
suffered spiritual shipwreck in such contexts. Parents need to be wise for
their own children.
My point,
however, is that we should not only seek to shelter children from evil
influences; we should also give them opportunities to test themselves in the
world. And it is much better that they undergo these tests when they still have
parents near by to counsel them, than if they wait and face the tests alone.
This
argument suggests that for some families, it might be a good idea to give their
children a limited exposure to the teaching and culture of state schools. Many
home schoolers, for example, send their children to take classes at local
community colleges, when they reach high school years or beyond. But community
colleges, after all, are state schools, with all the problems of state schools
mentioned above. Yet the parents believe that when their children reach college
level, they are mature enough to handle the spiritual problems of a secular
college, especially when they can live at home, under continued parental
supervision.
Usually
Christian home schoolers don’t criticize one another for taking the community
college option; but they tend to become very critical of fellow Christians who
send their children to public schools for elementary and high school. Granted,
that is more dangerous. It is right for us to ask one another hard questions
about such decisions. But we should be slow to judge. Parents ordinarily know
better than outsiders what their children are able to do, or what resources are
available to a child to repel the attacks of Satan.
I have
noted that a state school can never provide the type of education described in
Deut. 6:6-9, and that is a crucial point. Nevertheless, I believe that some
exposure to the state system may be a legitimate part of a Deut. 6 education. For an education saturated with God’s
Word must provide laboratory experiences in which the child is trained to apply the principles of Scripture to the
world in which he lives. If the child cannot apply the Word, he really does not understand it. He must learn how
to identify sin and righteousness, truth and falsity, testing everything by the
Scriptures, like the noble people of Berea (Acts 17:11). To do that, he must gradually be exposed to
the world and its thinking—both through books and through practical
experiences.
If the
reader has been persuaded by my argument so far, he should be interested to
know that there are ways in which parents can expose their children gradually to the state school system
without allowing that system to dominate their children’s education. That is,
there are ways in which parents can give their children a taste of the public
schools without giving the children up to the state. And when parents use the public
schools in these ways, they gain some educational and financial benefits.
There are, for example, public school programs intended to help students with special needs. There are also independent study programs administered by public school districts, through which children can be home schooled, with some level of participation in the school system. And there are also charter schools, which is the subject of this essay. All of these options have disadvantages as means of Christian education. But they have advantages as well, which we shall explore below.
What is a Charter School?
Linda Page
writes,
Charter
schools are actually a kind of hybrid between a public and private school
because—even though they are public schools—they usually have far more autonomy
and independence than mainstream public schools. Because they are not bound by
certain school district policies and state regulations, and are responsible for
their own operation including preparation of a budget, curricula, and personnel
matters they may look a lot like private schools. Since they are public
schools, they must be nonsectarian and non-religious, just like any other
public school.
She then notes “5 basic characteristics of most charter schools:”
1. They are funded by the state based on the numbers of students enrolled.
2. They operate through a contract between the organizers of the school
and the school district or state.
3. They are accountable for results in student performance and in
fiduciary responsibility, or their contract will not be renewed.
4. If negotiated through the contract, they have the freedom to operate
autonomously, exempted from many or most district and state laws and
regulations, except for health, safety and nondiscrimination issues.
5. They must be nonsectarian and non-religious, tuition free, and must
admit all students regardless of ability level or disability, like any other
public school.
[2]
The key here is that charter schools have far more
flexibility than other public schools. So there are many different kinds of
charter schools. They vary according to educational methods: some stress “back-to-basics,”
others “interdisciplinary learning,” some “great books.” They vary in
curriculum emphasis: some stress technology, others classical literature,
others fine arts, others traditional liberal arts.
And, most significantly, from a
Christian point of view, they vary in educational philosophy. When Page
discusses the question “Why should you want to start a charter school?” her
first answer is,
One of the most important reasons
to create a charter school is that you can design a school around your own
educational philosophy, and your value system.
[3]
Now this does not mean that a charter school can be
Christian. The statutes governing charter schools are unambiguous: charter
schools must be “nonsectarian and non-religious.” And certainly many charter
schools are just as anti-Christian as the public schools I have described
earlier. But it is possible, at least, for a charter school to be much
friendlier to the interests of Christians than a typical public school. Indeed,
charter schools can be influenced by
the Scriptures in significant ways:
Possible Christian Influences upon Charter Schools
1. A
charter school may have a largely Christian board and staff. Probably the
school’s charter may not include this as a requirement for leaders, but if a
school is designed to attract Christian students, it will certainly also
attract Christian board and staff members. Now a Christian board and Christian
teachers do not constitute a Christian school. Such a school is not, as such, “sectarian,” in the language of the statute, nor does it provide a Christian education in
the sense of Deut. 6. But for a child to be taught by Christians, with many
Christian peers, certainly makes a great difference from the usual public
school. Parents may conclude that such a school might provide a useful way of
introducing their children to the world of institutional classroom education.
As such it would provide part of
their children’s education, which can be supplemented by the parents’ own
explicit Christian teaching.
2. The
teaching and curriculum will be secular, of course. Christian textbooks will
not be used. But the school can choose textbooks which do not oppose Christian teaching, which do not
seek to brainwash students into becoming radical feminists, secularists,
egalitarians, socialists, etc. Teachers also can present the material in ways
that do not seek to tear down the values of the home. And the school can take strong positions
against abortion, pre-marital sex, and so on. It can support parental authority
and the importance of family solidarity, seeking never to drive a wedge between
parents and children.
3. Charter
schools can renounce the cult of self-esteem, which opposes academic standards
and encourages social promotion. They may teach students to think critically
about their own abilities and character, a kind of self-examination that has
driven many people to Christ and is often good for the soul.
4. Indeed,
charter schools are free to take a critical approach to the dominant values of
society. They may show that the philosophies of the mainstream educational
establishment (pragmatism, postmodernism,
naturalism, secularism, liberalism, radical feminism) are intellectually and
socially bankrupt. They can therefore destroy all these systems of belief in
the minds of the children, leaving only one standing. That one still standing
will be, of course, the Christian faith, though the school will not be able to
make that point explicitly. But the school can make it implicitly, and very
forcefully indeed. Teaching this kind of critical thinking is an indispensable
element of a Christian education. And it may be that in some cases charter
schools will do it better than parents, better than anybody.
5. Charter
schools are free to establish higher standards for classroom behavior and
discipline than other public schools. Although the school may not say so
explicitly, these standards may well be influenced by Scripture. It would not
be wise, of course, for such a school to expect all students to behave as
Christians all the time. That would be an unreasonable, indeed impossible,
demand to make of non-Christian students. But the school may establish
meaningful punishments against conduct which is disruptive or educationally
detrimental. Thus the school will
establish better peer relationships among the students and a better learning
environment than is possible in most secular schools.
6. Charter
schools may offer more flexible teaching hours than other public schools. Some
may choose to hold classes only two days a week, enlisting the parents to teach
the children at home for the other school days. Others may set up independent
study programs in which virtually all teaching is done in the home, with some
accountability to the school. The two-day arrangement produces a kind of hybrid
between institutional and home schooling. I said earlier that charter schools
can be a way for parents gradually, in small doses, to introduce their children
to traditional classroom instruction. This sort of arrangement may be a
beneficial way of providing that introduction.
7. This
more flexible schedule also permits an explicitly Christian emphasis during the
home schooling hours. Mrs. Joan Peace requested the Rutherford Institute (a
Christian organization providing legal defense and advice to Christians in
religious/state issues) to respond to the question “whether or not a parent who
is home schooling under the supervision of a public charter school may include
their religious views in educational instruction.” The answer, based on
consultation with counsel, was that
as long as the parent meets the
charter school’s educational/curricular requirements there should not be a
problem with supplementing that curriculum with the parent’s religious views. A
parent may run into a problem if he or she attempts to exclude entire portions
of the curriculum. For example, rather than trying to exclude the portion of a
science curriculum which may require a parent to teach about evolution, the
parent could teach about evolution and concurrently teach about creationism.
[4]
This counsel is, perhaps, subject to dispute. Some may claim
that during the time specified for compulsory education (7 hours, 180 days in
some states) no religious teaching may be given under a charter school
arrangement. Nevertheless, the First Amendment of the US Constitution forbids
any restriction on the free exercise of religion. And at the very least,
government may not restrict the teaching of religion to children in the home
outside those 180 days, or whatever period is required for compulsory
education.
The bottom
line is that, however the legal question is resolved, parents are free to
supplement the charter school curriculum with explicit Christian teaching to
produce a Deut. 6 education. And the charter school is free to make that easy
to do.
8. Charter
schools are free, and they provide textbooks for the students free of charge.
This can be a great advantage to Christian parents. The textbooks purchased
will, of course, be secular textbooks, not Christian ones. Some charter schools
have gotten into trouble trying to use state funds to buy Christian texts, and
Christian parents should not assume that will be possible.
[5]
Nevertheless,
many home schools and Christian schools use secular textbooks anyway, because
they are often of greater educational value. They use these texts by presenting
the text information in a Christian context supplied by the teacher. If that
arrangement is acceptable, why should Christian parents not accept from a
charter school the gift of secular textbooks, which they can supplement as in
#7 above?
9. Charter
schools can resist the tendency of the public school system to overreach its
authority. They can work from inside the system to discourage attempts of
school boards to persecute home schoolers and Christian private schools. They
can be instruments of change toward greater educational pluralism in our
society, toward ending the practical monopoly of state education. Though
charter schools are public schools, they can work within the public school environment
to discourage the notions that the state is the only true parent and that the
state is the only appropriate educator of the nation’s children. They can
refuse to be instruments of such oppression, and they can act against it from
their privileged position within the establishment. Positively, they can demonstrate
in practice that this kind of alternative education can deliver results superior
to those of traditional public education. As such they can greatly help the
Christian community.
My
conclusion, then, is that charter schools can be of great benefit to some
Christian families. Obviously, Christian parents should not send their children
to just any charter school. Some charter schools are, from a Christian point of
view, as bad as, or worse than, traditional public schools. But when a charter school
is formed under Christian influence, seeking to limit the influence of
non-Christian ideas and movements, taking a critical stance toward secular
thought and culture, providing high quality instruction, good peer
relationships, support for parents, and high academic standards, it may well be
worth consideration for part of the
education of our children. Indeed, in these cases, we should be thankful to God
for the opportunities he provides through charter schools.
Some Objections and Replies
I have
argued that in some cases charter schools may be helpful to parents who are
seeking to educate their children according to God’s Word. Some, however, have
taken the position that Christian parents should never make use of public school programs of any sort. Their arguments
(in italics) and my replies follow:
1. God does not permit the state to be involved
in education. By using public schools, Christian parents support the state in
its disobedience.
As I said
above, I know of no way to show from Scripture that God absolutely forbids
state-sponsored education. There are many problems with state education,
especially in our present situation, which I have noted above. But I think that
these are not sufficient to warrant an absolute prohibition of Christian involvement
in the public schools. I have outlined a “best case scenario,” where a charter
school is organized largely by Christians, in support of the rights of parents
to give Christian education to their children. Such charter schools avoid most
(not all) of the problems of the public schools. I have yet to see an argument
that absolutely forbids parents from taking part in such endeavors.
But let’s
assume that God does forbid the state to be involved in any kind of education. Does
that imply that Christians should make no use of public schools? Perhaps an
illustration may help: A thief takes all my money, then offers me $5 for bus
fare home. Should I refuse to take it?
It can be
just as easily argued that the state should not be involved in the retirement saving
of its citizens. Does this imply that I should refuse my social security checks
when they come due? Certainly not. They are mine. One may argue that the state
stole the money from me, but when the state offers to return some, I am
certainly not obligated to turn it down. To accept the money is not to
acknowledge the state’s right to have taken it in the first place. It is not to
be complicit in the sin of the state.
In the
church of Corinth, some were evidently arguing that Christians should not buy
food in the market place, out of fear that some of it may have been dedicated
to idols. Paul responds that they should abandon that scruple. Offering the
food to idols is a sin, but Christians don’t become sinful by buying and eating
the food (1 Cor. 8-10).
Similarly,
if the state has sinned in establishing the public school system, Christians do
not sin by making use of its benefits, any more than they sin by using state
highways, accepting social security checks, or even by paying taxes (which
Jesus commands, Matt. 22:21).
There may
sometimes be sins connected with our
participation in the state. Parents who
give to the state schools free rein over their children from age 5, without any
attempt to counteract the secularism of the public schools, in my opinion are
guilty of serious sin. But the sin in that case is not the sin of using public
school facilities. It is the sin of failing to take parental responsibility.
Using state facilities, in and of itself, is not sinful.
2. To send a child to public school is to place
him under the authority of the godless state. To do so is idolatry.
I have
heard this kind of language often from earnest opponents of state-sponsored
education, but I confess I do not understand it. In the most obvious sense, we
and our children are already under the authority of the state, whether we like
it or not. The state already imposes unjust restrictions upon us, which we may
seek to change by legal means but may not disobey. I fail to see how placing a
child in a public school (especially a Christian-friendly charter school such
as I have described above) changes that situation for the worse.
Certainly
children who attend any school face a new set of rules and restrictions that they
have to follow. But in the Christian-friendly school I have described, those
restrictions are bound to be largely helpful, both to the parents and the
child.
3. When we send children to public school, it
gives the state a “foot in the door” to gain more and more power over us.
I have heard
that public schools boards sometimes make use of their independent study programs
to get information on families and other home schoolers, so as to bring unjust
actions against them. But of course, anything we do can be investigated by an
authority that is willing to bend the laws concerning privacy.
Is it
likely that a public school board will seek to take legal action against
parents who include religious elements in their charter school-related home
schooling? In my view that would be a transgression of the first amendment. If
it happens, we should simply drop out of the charter school and find other ways
to give a Christian education to our children.
4. But participation in state schools is
unwise for Christians. It aids and abets a movement toward greater state power,
and hence toward a greater domination of unbelief in our society.
I respect
this argument, but we must understand the true force of it. It is a strategic argument, recommending a particular
tactic in the cultural warfare of our time. The argument is that we can do more
good for society in general if we simply boycott the public schools than if we
make use of them. That may be true, but in this instance I am not convinced.
Christians
are often asked to boycott things in order to send a message to organizations and
to society in general. Recently the Southern Baptist Convention and other
Christian organizations promoted a boycott of entertainment produced by the
Disney Corporation. Certainly this recommendation does not have the status of a
biblical command. If it did, we would have to boycott any corporation that
contributed in any way to immorality in society. On that basis, we would have
to boycott nearly every business, withdrawing almost entirely from the world of
commerce.
Scripture never takes that
approach. The pagan food-vendors at Corinth doubtless used their profits in all
sorts of idolatrous and immoral ways. Certainly they promoted a kind of worship
(often immoral) that did great harm to society. But Paul does not tell Christians to boycott
them.
Nevertheless, if great numbers of
Christians were to boycott Disney, the boycott would “send a message” that
could do some good. The proposal deserves serious consideration, but it is not
the Word of God. So boycott proposals are strategic suggestions, not biblical
norms. Perhaps a Christian boycott of the entire public school system would
send a useful message. But such a boycott is not likely to take place. And the
first responsibility of Christians is their own children, not someone’s broad
strategy for social improvement. Christian parents should consider such boycott
proposals seriously, but they are not obligated by God to participate in them,
and it may be to their children’s advantage if they do not participate.
5. The use of secular textbooks and teaching
that is not explicitly Christian is a violation of Deut. 6:6-9.
To say this
is to say that Christian children should never be exposed first hand to the
ideas of the unbelieving world. I do not believe that such a conclusion can be
reached from Deut. 6. As I have said, one does not properly understand God’s
Word until he can apply it to the affairs of life. If a student knows nothing
of unbelieving thought, he cannot use the Word as the sword of the Spirit, and
he has not had a truly Christian education. If he has not had a first-hand exposure to unbelieving
ideas, he has not gained an adequate exposure to the power of these ideas. He
will then not be ready to deal with these ideas when he leaves the home.
Certainly an exclusive and
pervasive use of non-Christian texts and teaching would be wrong. But we are
speaking here about a controlled, gradual exposure of children to the broader educational
culture (unbelieving, to be sure), by means of Christian-friendly charter
schools and intensive parental teaching. It seems to me that such an
arrangement, carefully planned and carried out, is very much in accord with
Deut. 6:6-9.
Conclusion
Planning
our children’s education includes many difficult decisions. Those who oppose
charter schools have impressive arguments, because they put the most important
consideration first: that education must be based on God’s Word. Certainly
these people have, for the most part, the best interests of children at heart.
The most important part of education is that our children be taught to think and
live according to God’s Word.
I do believe, however, that parents committed to this goal may, in some cases, make good use of charter schools. In these cases, which I have outlined above, I believe that the use of charter schools will contribute to, not detract from, the goal of a God-saturated Christian education.