Tim and Nick Challies: Honestly Assessing Our Decision to Public School Our Kids

I have found that schooling choice is one of the potentially most divisive topics among Christians. It’s not uncommon that I speak to worried parents struggling with guilt over the schooling choice they made for their kids because another Christian lectured them about how their choice was sinful.

I was in both Christian school and public school. And for me the public school scenario was a much better experience (as a Christian). My kids have been in all three scenarios and we landed on all three of our kids graduating from public school. I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer. There is a lot of fear and perceived fear amongst all three of the choices. My take in the end, is that the end product of your child is significantly more impacted by the quality of the family and home life than any individual schooling choice.

When I heard Voddie Baucham say “When you send your kids to Cesar to be educated, don’t be surprised when they come back as Romans”; that scared me, honestly. But I’m not so sure I agree anymore. I went to Christian school and college, and a large percentage of them became Romans right after graduation.

I like what they say. I was educated K-grad school in government funded schools, and quite frankly there is a lot that I’ve learned about the world that is immensely valuable to me, whether or not I partake. At the same time, I think I learned as much in the museums in Chicago where my parents took me most weekends as I did in the classroom. So was I trained in the government schools, or effectively homeschooled?

Really, as David hints, if you’ve got the attitude that your kids’ education really depends on you at some level, it doesn’t matter that much where you went to school.

Another thought is that hard-line “homeschool only” attitudes are just plain cruel to families that simply do not have the resources to have one parent stay at home and do the schooling. The guilt trips alone…..

I’ve spent many years in Christian Education as an administrator and teacher. I know all the sales pitches that involve kids “losing their faith” in public school/government schools that were meant to engender fear that would drive them to the safety of “the greenhouse” where they could be protected until they were ready for the world. I’ve seen graduates of Christian schools become outstanding pastors, missionaries and lay people. I’ve also seen grads of good Christian schools who have been sent to prison for murder, child abuse, rape, and other crimes. I’ve seen graduates of public/government schools who have become outstanding Christians as well. Likewise for home schooling.

My conclusion is that there are really good and really bad Christian schools and really good and really bad public schools and really good and really bad home schools. None of them guarantee an outcome.

Parents are free to make their own decision and are responsible for the consequences. The one thing parents must not do is to surrender their parental authority and responsibility to the school.

As an aside, I recall being taught in a public university education class that parental involvement in things like field trips and extra-curricular activities was welcome, parents were not to be allowed involvement in academic matters. I was also told the same thing by the leaders of a “good” Christian school.