Public Education: The Next Moral Issue for Today's Evangelicals
Just like teaching in a low-income school is a heavy lift, for a lot of Christians, moving to an urban community or a rural, poor community is a heavy ask. And we're not going to get there, I think, if we expect every Christian to do it. But regardless of where you live and where your kids go to school—public, private, Christian, homeschool—we have responsibility for the 15 million kids who are living in poverty in schools that are failing them every day. Just like we have a responsibility for the millions of children worldwide who are starving or getting sick from diseases we can cure. We may not move to that community to help them directly, but we're still accountable.
It's trendy among evangelicals to have advocacy campaigns or church ministries about sex trafficking. Yet there are only a handful of Christians who have the training and dedication and passion to actually stop more children or adults from being trafficked. It helps, of course, for those people to have the support of their churches and to have fellow Christians aware of the issue. But when you start talking about moving from awareness to advocacy, how will you engage the right people on education reform?
I look at our work as a funnel. If I'm speaking at a conference of 1,000 people, I expect a small number of them will actually become tutors. Even fewer are going to advocate for policy. I look at it [as finding] the people who are going to go the long haul. How do we get them engaged, knowing that it might be a smaller but ultimately more powerful group?
International Justice Mission offers a perfect example. I don't do any direct work on sex trafficking, but I do get IJM's e-mail blasts. And if they're like, "Send this e-mail to your member of Congress," I'm like, click. In two minutes I've done it. Sometimes we think advocacy is a massive undertaking. And it is for some people. But for the rest of us, it's making our voices heard, and sometimes that's as easy as sending an e-mail. And that really does matter; they keep track of that in members' offices, much to my surprise. If you get 10,000 people sending an e-mail to their Congressperson saying, "I'm a Christian and this particular policy is going to be harmful for kids who are already disenfranchised in public schools," it can really turn the tide.
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Price
While, I am biased as a TFA alum, in Memphis, we have had so many amazing stories of what TFA teachers have been able to accomplish in their classrooms. In Tennessee, TFA has the highest rating of any teacher prep program (including Vanderbilt one of the best ed grad schools in the country). Public education does not just need new teachers. It also needs parents to be part of it instead of running to private schools. There are no quick fixes, but a quick critique of TFA is far from the whole story.
Rebecca
While I applaud the call for Christians to work in and advocate for public education, Teach for America is certainly not the best approach. While it is a moral issue that children need a good education, this article assumes that it is poor teachers (just as Teach for America does) who are to blame. The issue is more complicated than that. As a Christian teacher educator who has taught in low-income schools, sent my own children to public school, and made a "difference" in my community, I would encourage Christians not to accept this view of "education reform". The type of reform proposed by Michelle Rhee and TFA, which emphasizes high-stakes testing, using test scores to measure teachers' performance, and punishment rather than collaboration does not take into account the rich, complex nature of the learner as God's image-bearer and the learning situation as complex. We do need to do more to educate all children, especially poor ones. Holistic solutions are less reductionistic.
Original Anna
Our school board president bragged about how well the district's schools are doing. She failed to mention the State report printed in the paper showing less kids entering college, less kids graduating from h.s. and more kids dropping out in middle school than in the 70s. Well what do they want. They fired the h.s. principal who went outside the school and told the kids smoking and drinking they are to be in school, like now. They should have fired the teachers holding up classes for those kids in school while the teachers waited for those outside. The board pres said truant officers weren't necessary when asked by a meeting attendee. Teachers are hired at $32-35,000 starting pay and retire for $70-125,000 retirement pay.Next day the paper said three citizens showed up because the board didn't listen or change anything so why bother. We now have 5 charter schools each having over 200 kids formerly from our school district doing better grades. Miss school 14 days, they're out.
Mike F
I think Christians in the USA drop the ball so much on being salt to the rest of society. If we isolate ourselves from non Christians how can we reach them? The church doesn't understand public schools, most of what they believe is selfish. They look at how much of their taxes goes to schools, and how easy it is to be a teacher with all the benefits and time off, etc. They don't see the many dedicated public school teachers who invest their lives in children for low wages compared to the amount of work they do and the education required to keep certification. We as Christians need to get out of our comfort zone and start reaching out to others.
Charitas
Nicole says: "Ultimately the issue has nothing to do with politics" Actually it has almost everything to do with politics since it was politics that created this situation and stands in the way of meaningful reform. You can bet your public employees union political campaign funds on this fact.
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