Hopefully this won't be unnecessarily controversial or provocative. But I believe Christians need to think through a lot of issues involving public schools. Here I want to start by considering whether (in an ideal Christian society) we should have public schools at all. (In future posts I will consider the issue of Christians teaching in public schools and the issue of Christian parents sending their children to public schools.)
Disclaimer 1: I am not going to get into criticizing specific "hot-button" issues in public education (Common Core, sex education, humanism, presence or absence of prayer, etc.). Those may be worthy of discussion (in fact, I have addressed Common Core in previous posts), and they may play a factor in some of our discussions. But I want to look at the bigger picture here without getting into the weeds too far.
Disclaimer 2: I have spent my entire educational career in private Christian education. My graduate degrees in education are both from Christian institutions and focused on specifically Christian education. While I attended public schools through high school, I have never been involved with public education except as a student. I hope, though, to give a fair look at the issue.
First a definition. By "public schools" here and in future articles, I mean schools which are primarily or exclusively funded by revenues from one or more levels of civil government, with money which comes from some form of taxation of most or all citizens. That could mean funding entirely from local property taxes, from a combination of local property taxes and state income taxes, from a combination of local, state, and federal tax sources, or some other combination. The main thing is that "public schools" are funded by all the citizens (or residents) of a community, not primarily by only those who attend the school.
Now, why do we have public schools? Let's look back in history. You've probably heard of the "Old Deluder Act." This was passed in 1647 in the Massachusetts Bay colony.
It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so that at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and to the end that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors.
It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty households shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the major part of those that order the prudentials of the town shall appoint; provided those that send their children be not oppressed by paying much more than they can have them taught for in other towns.
And it is further ordered, that when any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families or householders, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university, provided that if any town neglect the performance hereof above one year that every such town shall pay 5 pounds to the next school till they shall perform this order. (http://www.constitution.org/primarysources/deluder.html)
So consider what this says. The belief was that having an educated people was essential for them to understand the Scriptures truly. Satan desires nothing more than for people to be ignorant of the Bible, so they can be easily led astray by false teaching ("false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers"). To prevent that, every township with at least 50 households was to hire someone to teach children to write and read. If the town increased to 100 households, they were to set up a complete school to prepare children for university studies.
Where were the funds to come from? Two options: the parents of the children in the school, or the households in the town in general. The constraint was that parents of the children were not to be forced to pay significantly more than they would have to pay in other towns. Let's say only the parents in Town A paid for their own children, and had to pay $100. Residents in Town B all paid for the school whether they had children in the school or not, and also had to pay $100. That would be fine. But if residents in Town B only had to pay $40 each, since they were all paying, then parents in Town A could not be forced to pay more than $40. The result would generally be that all residents paid for the schools.
Notice that the motives here were godly motives. The Old Deluder Act recognizes that it is important that all citizens be educated, for the purposes of better serving the Lord. Because of that, it was considered appropriate for all members of the town to pay for education, whether or not they had children in the school.
That is still a prime argument in favor of public schools today, although our culture would not relate it to needing to read the Bible! It is still to the benefit of our society for all its members to be well-educated. Those who are illiterate, who cannot understand the basics of math, who do not know basic history ("those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it"), who have no knowledge of science - they are not going to be able to contribute to the well-being of society and are going to end up being a drain on the resources of society to some degree. And more importantly, if people do not understand the Word of God, even if they are well-educated otherwise, they are not going to be able to work and serve most effectively in the world that God has created.
What about the payment issue? Why should everyone have to pay (through taxes) for schools when only the parents of children are using the schools? Consider what the Old Deluder Act assumed - there might be people who could not pay what it actually cost for the schoolmaster (in my example, they could not afford the $100 tax). But it's still important that their children be educated as well as the children of wealthier parents. So today - the children of poorer families are as much in need of education as are the children of wealthier ones. If they can't afford it themselves, the rest of the community has a vested interest in seeing that they receive an education - after all, that's the only way they're going to be able to get out of poverty.
So that is the main reason for having public schools - the importance of a well-educated populace. Seems reasonable (as it did to the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony). In our next post, we will look at this more closely and start examining some of the problems with this approach. But for now we must acknowledge that there are valid and legitimate arguments supporting the concept of the public school, and we hope to address those carefully.
Disclaimer 1: I am not going to get into criticizing specific "hot-button" issues in public education (Common Core, sex education, humanism, presence or absence of prayer, etc.). Those may be worthy of discussion (in fact, I have addressed Common Core in previous posts), and they may play a factor in some of our discussions. But I want to look at the bigger picture here without getting into the weeds too far.
Disclaimer 2: I have spent my entire educational career in private Christian education. My graduate degrees in education are both from Christian institutions and focused on specifically Christian education. While I attended public schools through high school, I have never been involved with public education except as a student. I hope, though, to give a fair look at the issue.
First a definition. By "public schools" here and in future articles, I mean schools which are primarily or exclusively funded by revenues from one or more levels of civil government, with money which comes from some form of taxation of most or all citizens. That could mean funding entirely from local property taxes, from a combination of local property taxes and state income taxes, from a combination of local, state, and federal tax sources, or some other combination. The main thing is that "public schools" are funded by all the citizens (or residents) of a community, not primarily by only those who attend the school.
Now, why do we have public schools? Let's look back in history. You've probably heard of the "Old Deluder Act." This was passed in 1647 in the Massachusetts Bay colony.
It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so that at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and to the end that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors.
It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty households shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the major part of those that order the prudentials of the town shall appoint; provided those that send their children be not oppressed by paying much more than they can have them taught for in other towns.
And it is further ordered, that when any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families or householders, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university, provided that if any town neglect the performance hereof above one year that every such town shall pay 5 pounds to the next school till they shall perform this order. (http://www.constitution.org/primarysources/deluder.html)
So consider what this says. The belief was that having an educated people was essential for them to understand the Scriptures truly. Satan desires nothing more than for people to be ignorant of the Bible, so they can be easily led astray by false teaching ("false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers"). To prevent that, every township with at least 50 households was to hire someone to teach children to write and read. If the town increased to 100 households, they were to set up a complete school to prepare children for university studies.
Where were the funds to come from? Two options: the parents of the children in the school, or the households in the town in general. The constraint was that parents of the children were not to be forced to pay significantly more than they would have to pay in other towns. Let's say only the parents in Town A paid for their own children, and had to pay $100. Residents in Town B all paid for the school whether they had children in the school or not, and also had to pay $100. That would be fine. But if residents in Town B only had to pay $40 each, since they were all paying, then parents in Town A could not be forced to pay more than $40. The result would generally be that all residents paid for the schools.
Notice that the motives here were godly motives. The Old Deluder Act recognizes that it is important that all citizens be educated, for the purposes of better serving the Lord. Because of that, it was considered appropriate for all members of the town to pay for education, whether or not they had children in the school.
That is still a prime argument in favor of public schools today, although our culture would not relate it to needing to read the Bible! It is still to the benefit of our society for all its members to be well-educated. Those who are illiterate, who cannot understand the basics of math, who do not know basic history ("those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it"), who have no knowledge of science - they are not going to be able to contribute to the well-being of society and are going to end up being a drain on the resources of society to some degree. And more importantly, if people do not understand the Word of God, even if they are well-educated otherwise, they are not going to be able to work and serve most effectively in the world that God has created.
What about the payment issue? Why should everyone have to pay (through taxes) for schools when only the parents of children are using the schools? Consider what the Old Deluder Act assumed - there might be people who could not pay what it actually cost for the schoolmaster (in my example, they could not afford the $100 tax). But it's still important that their children be educated as well as the children of wealthier parents. So today - the children of poorer families are as much in need of education as are the children of wealthier ones. If they can't afford it themselves, the rest of the community has a vested interest in seeing that they receive an education - after all, that's the only way they're going to be able to get out of poverty.
So that is the main reason for having public schools - the importance of a well-educated populace. Seems reasonable (as it did to the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony). In our next post, we will look at this more closely and start examining some of the problems with this approach. But for now we must acknowledge that there are valid and legitimate arguments supporting the concept of the public school, and we hope to address those carefully.