Sixty-eight percent of eighth graders in the U.S. can’t read at grade level. 1.2 million teenagers drop out of school every year. And 44 percent of dropouts under age 24 are jobless. These statistics, from the Broad Foundation for Education, are grim. And the children are the ones who suffer: Not only are their long-term prospects for employment and economic stability jeopardized, they also miss out on the joys of learning and the relationships with peers and adults that develop in a supportive, structured learning environment …
Few people disagree that all this is a problem. But the solution? Well, there’s Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg giving $100 million to the Newark Public School System. There’s Arne Duncan, President Obama’s Secretary of Education, who is using empirical data to drive change and is taking on teachers’ unions. The New York Times Sunday Magazine recently devoted an entire issue to the role of technology, reporting that students will perform better via smart pens, video games in the classroom, and proficient Internet use. Time ran a cover story this summer in which the author claimed that summer vacation accounts for the learning gap between lower- and higher-income students. Time addressed education once again last week in “What Makes a School Great,” which emphasized the importance of hiring the right teachers. David Brooks similarly identifies teachers as the solution in July’s Atlantic.
So is it more money? Computers? Summer programs? Better teachers? Certainly each of these factors plays a role. But improving schools extends beyond policy and unions and technology. For those of us with school-age children, sending our kids to public school and developing relationships with others in the school—parents, teachers, and administrators—might be part of the solution.
There are other options, of course. If you have the funds, send your children to an independent school and/or a Christian school. If you don’t have the funds and are willing to figure it out, home school. Good reasons abound for pursuing either route. Parents have greater responsibility to their children than to the community. And some parents have real reasons to fear for their child’s safety and the influence of peers and teachers who don’t hold a biblical worldview … But before Christians withdraw from the public education system, we might consider our calling to serve our local communities. Jesus instructs his disciples to be “salt and light,” to bring his presence into the broader culture. Salt, almost invisible, nonetheless preserves food and transforms its flavor. Light allows us to see. Jesus sends his followers out so that, through relationships with others, the kingdom of God will break forth in their midst.
I grew up mostly attending private schools, and my husband teaches at an independent school. But our family finds itself wed to the public school system. Because our daughter has Down syndrome, she wouldn’t be admitted to competitive independent schools where even preschoolers must pass an entrance exam based on IQ. Some Christian schools might admit her, but they wouldn’t have the resources to provide therapy and other supports. I do have one friend who home schools all her children, including a son with Down syndrome. But I don’t feel up to the task of becoming both a teacher and therapist for our daughter. So the public school system it is, and for that, I’m grateful.
I’m grateful that our children will befriend kids who come from other backgrounds. I’m grateful for the chance to serve other families. And I’m hopeful that our presence will be a blessing, that others might “see our good deeds and praise our father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). It might be through an explicitly Christian gesture—inviting a friend to Sunday school or saying a blessing before mealtime. Or it might subtler—starting a tutoring program, helping to raise funds for the school, or serving on the PTA.
It’s easy for me to say. We live in an area with some of the best public schools in the state. A group of friends from college, however, has moved into a neighborhood where the schools are, by any measure, in disrepair. Their kids are approaching kindergarten, and they have chosen to stay engaged in their community by sending their children to the failing schools. Some of these friends have joined the local board of education. Others have become after-school volunteers. They are engaged in the messiness—the bureaucracy, the discipline problems, the teachers who are indifferent to their students’ fates. They are engaged because it matters to both their children and the health of their community. They are engaged because caring for the education and economic stability—not only of their own kids, but also of their neighbors—matters to God.
Christians have the freedom and responsibility to choose what’s best for their child. But these choices must be made in the context not only of personal gain but also of what serves and blesses others. What would happen if more Christian parents stayed with the public schools in such a way that teachers felt supported and students felt safe and able to learn? Maybe Time would run a cover story on how the church is transforming the nation’s schools, for the blessing of all.
