The New School Choice Agenda
A Dream Realized
Over the past decade, a group of mostly white, middle-class Christian couples have moved into Church Hill, the community served by Chimborazo Elementary School. Unlike most families in Church Hill, these four couples have the financial and social capital to send their kids to private schools or to homeschool. Yet they have chosen otherwise. Building on the firm foundation Principal Burke has laid, they want to help restore a community struggling against generational poverty, and they believe a key component is sending their own children to the community's public school.
Sophie, Luke, Jack, and Chanan are all kindergarteners at Chimborazo, but the story of how they arrived there begins before they were born.
In 1995, most of their parents met as first-year students at the University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville. They lived together for their final years of college (along with seven other men, including my husband) as an unintentionally diverse cohort: Corey Widmer, a lanky blonde interested in missional theology, and Matt Illian, then a cross-country runner, are white; Danny Avula, a stocky man who is quick to smile, is Indian; and Romesh Wijesooryia, a Jefferson scholar with athletic gifts that earned him a spot on the college's nationally ranked soccer team, is Sri Lankan. As the men's friendships developed, so did their awareness of the ethnic segregation among UVA's Christians. They wanted to figure out a way to bridge those divides.
So, Wijesooriya led a group of white and black Christians on a spring-break trip to Jackson, Mississippi, to meet Christian community development "grandfather" John Perkins and serve at his Voice of Calvary ministries. The trip sparked a vision. Widmer says, "[We] wondered if one day we might do this together—move into an urban community together and live out the principles of the Christian Community Development Association."
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Ram Prakash
great
Erica Hunt
Our 3 daughters attend a public school in the urban neighborhood we moved into 10 years ago. Our eldest is finishing up 6th grade this spring. They have always been very much in the cultural minority. The friendships, experiences and yes, the challenges, have enriched our family's faith and allowed the girls to experience the Kingdom in a unique way. We talk about being salt and light...about hope. We spend a lot of time praying for peace in the homes and hearts of classmates. I believe families need to make the best choice for them, but I wonder how many Christians might be influenced by fear in this decision process. Our girls are healthy in every way - they are not suffering emotionally or spiritually from their school environment. We very much believe the diversity and broadened view has actually strengthened them in some exciting ways. God is good, all the time, everywhere!
Corey Widmer
In response to Ted Hewlett's comment: "Children are to nurture, not for sending into potentially harmful situations as deputy missionaries." The nurturing of our children does not exclude mission; indeed, the gospel necessities it. If while nurturing my child I do not give her a sense of her new call in Christ to participate as a citizen in his sometimes dangerous Kingdom, into what worldview am I nurturing her? If we are seeking to model our parenting on God's own perfect role as parent, then consider that God the Father sent his own Son into a"potentially harmful situation as a deputy missionary."
Annie Kirkby
There may be an unforseen educational benefit for these families. At least for the family in California, their children will have a huge advantage when seeking admission at the University of California, which places a premium on "Excellence in the Local Context". My high-school senior son was turned down at all 4 of the UC campuses he applied to this year, and I'm sort of wishing we had sent him to a different kind of high school.
Pia Hugo
I've been a public HS teacher here in L.A. for 15 years. My 3 kids all went to public schools in the area and are highly intelligent and educated (my youngest is currently studying at Cornell U. on a scholarship) while loving God with all their hearts, souls, minds and spirits. Over the years, they've learned what to embrace, reject, and keep pondering on--based on what they've been taught--and they are, what I like to call, Christian critical thinkers. I also work with the local youth pastors in my area, bringing unsaved and saved kids regularly to their churches, while mentoring them at school as the Christian Club adviser. While my administrators remain quite hostile to Christian activities being conducted on campus, the other Christian teachers and I have found ways to work around them. If not for parents, teachers and pastors who believe in supporting their local public schools--like the ones in this article--so many more students in my area would be utterly lost and hopeless.
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