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| Grading our government schools. |
There are people all over the
country who are enraged by the fact that our country has recently been leaning more
and more toward socialism, or perhaps more accurately, toward fascism. These
same people who rave against the socialist policies enacted in government and
business seem to be just fine and dandy when these same methods are being used
in the behemoth American educational system.
Public schools are often referred
to as government schools. The government
has a monopoly on the establishment and enforcement of laws in this
country. Government schools enjoy a
monopoly when it comes to educating our youth.
The system is supported by public taxation. There is always a large pool of money
available. If parents choose to withdraw
their children and enroll them in a private school or educate them at home they
are still required shell out money in support of their local public
school. Parents who make this choice end
up paying twice. Public education’s
dependence on compulsory taxation explains a lot about what is wrong with
government schools. The quality of the
product is always improved with competition and quality always declines in its
absence.
The methods of educating
public school children are similar to the assembly line of an early 20th
century factory. They are to report to
the same place at the same time with the same teacher every day. They all sit in identical seats and each one
must remain in the same seat day after day.
The teacher unpacks a prepared standardized curriculum which rarely
changes from year to year. All the
students are evaluated in the same way at the same time on the same day. This method of factory produced pupils will
frustrate the gifted child and discourage the struggling child.
The most important element in
the politically correct philosophy of the government educational system is the
self-esteem of each child. Some schools
prohibit teachers from using red ink to grade papers because a paper with many
red marks on it could prove devastating to the self-esteem of the child. Children can no longer measure their athletic
skills against their opponents because competition has been eliminated on the
playground. Everyone is a winner,
everyone gets a trophy and everyone leaves feeling good about themselves. Do you wonder why the Occupy Movement is
inundated with millions of 25 year olds who think very highly of themselves and
wonder why the government hasn’t already paid off their educational loans and
provided them with a house to live in?
Real achievement is attained
when students grasp the intrinsic values of striving for excellence, when they
understand that competition will be a permanent part of their adult life and
hard work and a healthy dose of innovation will be the path to success. Are educators doing our students an injustice
when they dump truck loads of praise on middle school students who still use their
fingers to add and subtract and on high school students who think Chicago is
the third largest state in the union?
One of the more disturbing
things I experienced having worked fifteen years in public education was
watching certain students march across the stage and receive their diploma even
though I knew and all the other teachers and administrators knew they could not
read. They gripped their diploma with
smiles on their faces, the principle shook their hands, their parents hooted
like owls and they experienced the euphoric feeling of having finally finished
a twelve year educational marathon. They
were done a disservice, they were socially promoted and they were lied to and
many of them became very disillusioned and distressed when they discovered they
couldn’t fill out a job application.
Most of them lacked the simple math and language skills to work at McDonalds.
Tax payers have shelled out
trillions of dollars to educate American youth.
You would expect some outstanding results after making such an
investment but the truth is that poor academic achievement and the high school
drop-out rate remains a huge problem. Drop-out
rates are measured in different ways.
Some districts don’t count those who dropped out during the summer or
those who dropped out to get married.
But rates have consistently been between 10% and 20%. Anywhere from 40% to 80% of our students fail
the standardized tests first time around.
U.S. students are not being prepared for the global economy as evidenced
by the fact that they scored 25th in math skills among 34 countries
tested while China ranked first. Obviously there is little correlation between
the amount of money spent and academic achievement.
This is a common argument
used against public education along with the accusation that government schools
are breeding grounds for promiscuous sex, venues for excessive violence and
they are used as vehicles to indoctrinate our children with theories of
evolution and socialism. Perhaps when we
observe these things we are really only viewing the symptoms rather than the
actual disease itself. Perhaps the real
problem is that we as Christians cry out vehemently against socialism in any
other area of our society but we incomprehensibly continue to tolerate socialism
in our educational system. Perhaps the real problem is that we have abdicated our
God-given responsibility to educate our children to an anti-Christian
government.
Christians are against
murder. We don’t oppose murder by
fighting against certain methods of murder.
We protest murder in all its forms in every situation. Perhaps we are failing when we disapprove of
the methods of public education rather than the institution itself. We combat the symptoms instead of the
disease.
The Bible clearly grants the
state very limited power (Romans 13) The
government’s responsibility to its citizens is to protect them and punish those
who would do them harm. That’s it. That’s all the Bible says about the
obligations of government to its people.
There is nothing in the Bible that states that it is the government’s responsibility
to educate our children. The responsibility
to educate children belongs exclusively to the parents. (Deuteronomy 6) Government schools are often governed by the
greed of those who can’t wait to get their grubby hands on the public coffers
and by parents who love the idea of educating their children at their neighbor’s
expense. Would it be too extreme to say
that government schools are not scriptural?
The government has successfully
removed all evidence of the existence of God from public schools. Teachers will be arrested for uttering the
name of Christ. R.C. Sproul, Jr. said, “All
of reality exists so that God’s name would be known and the government school
says you can’t name his name.” The
government sets schools up to be anti-Christian. If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom (Proverbs 1:7) how can our children learn wisdom and knowledge if the
foundations for such learning have been removed?
A civilization finds itself
in great peril when its institutions blatantly ignore God and wink at
evil. “Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness…” (Isaiah
5:20) Parents must counteract what their
children are learning in government schools.
God loves life and it is immoral to kill a baby still in the womb. God meant for men and women to enjoy sexual
relations and to use it as a means of procreation, he is angered when we use
his gifts for our own perversions. God
created the earth and we must never be so blatantly bold as to take that glory
away from him and give it to another.
The state schools have
crossed the line into territory where they have no business being. Parents, don’t let the government teach their values to
your children.
“We will not hide them from their descendants;
we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power,
and the wonders he has done…which he commanded our ancestors to teach their
children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be
born, and they in turn would tell their children.” (Psalm 78:4-6) Government schools have no
commitment to the truth in these verses.
This responsibility belongs to parents and the body of believers who
call themselves Christians.
Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.
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