Cars and Christian Schools: Time for Model A?
Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile. Contrary to popular belief, he didn’t invent the moving assembly line process either. What Henry Ford did was unite those two inventions to create the Model T, an affordable, practical automobile that satisfied a burgeoning public demand.
“Success,” it is said, “breeds success,” and soon competitors arose who imitated the methods and strategies of the Ford Motor Company. Offering different styles, features, and capabilities, they reduced Ford’s market dominance—even drawing away some of Ford’s earlier customers. These competitor’s products weren’t necessarily better; sometimes they were simply better suited to the tastes or needs of certain customers.
With its market share dwindling, the company belatedly took action, eventually emerging from its engineering & design studios with the Model A, a more advanced successor to the venerable “Tin Lizzie.” Once again, sales surged.
The period of years from roughly 1965 to 1990 is sometimes considered a sort of “Golden Age” for evangelical Christian schools in the United States. It is said that for a time new schools were opening at the rate of “two a day.”
These schools were not archetypes; they followed in the faithful footsteps of hundreds of existing Christian schools, many of which were already decades old. In Minnesota, for example, today there are six Christian schools that were founded between 1901 and 1917. These include Minnehaha Academy, the state’s largest, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2013.
Although not the earliest, the Christian schools founded during the Golden Age, much like Ford’s Model T, caught a broad wave of public demand. The 1962 and 1963 United States Supreme Court decisions banning sponsored prayer and devotional Bible reading in public schools jarred many Christians. Secularism appeared to infiltrate academic subjects once thought nearly sacrosanct. Forms of student rebellion previously confined mainly to university and college campuses began to occur with dismaying regularity at public secondary schools. In loco parentis, the tacit societal tenet which can permit faculty members to exercise de facto parental authority over students during school hours, on and sometimes off school property, was for all intents and purposes rescinded at public schools—a victim of both changing social mores and successful court challenges.
Into this fray arrived these new Christian schools, with their shared purpose of providing additional educational alternatives rooted firmly in God’s word. An old adage observes, “A rising tide lifts all boats,” and amid the flurry of new school openings, enrollments rose among the longer-established Christian schools as well.
Dr. David Doran, of the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, has written of the “fad stage” of the Christian schooling movement, an era “when every church seemed to conclude that it must have its own school.” As can be expected, many of these schools no longer exist. Nonetheless, this initial surge paved the way for further competition to enter the market.
Accelerated Christian Education (A.C.E.) was established as a form of Christian schooling which is by design less costly to operate. Students are largely self-taught in modified classrooms staffed not by teachers, but by proctors who are usually known as “monitors” or “supervisors.” This style of schooling has its proponents. Over the years, some traditional classroom Christian schools have converted to the A.C.E. method, and vice versa. Overall, A.C.E. enrollment has never been more than a fraction of what its founders imagined.
Another, newer style of Christian schooling takes almost exactly the opposite approach from Accelerated Christian Education. Classical Christian education is a teaching-intensive style of schooling which structures its curriculum on the model of the Trivium, with its subject areas of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. This niche movement within Christian schooling began subsequent to the Golden Age, with its main organization, the Association of Classical and Christian Schools (ACCS), founded in 1993. It has shown steady growth, with over 38,000 students currently enrolled in its member schools.
Quietly gaining even greater momentum, however, has been a numerically much more formidable competitor to traditional Christian schooling. It not only does away with a school’s teachers, it does away with the school itself. This competitor is sometimes spoken of in certain circles like it is an opponent of Christian schooling. It is not; it is another style of Christian schooling. In size, this colossus dwarfs both A.C.E. and the ACCS combined. It is known as “Christian homeschooling.”
Meanwhile, many Christian schools founded during the Golden Age are now in critical need of their “Model A.”
Eventually, sales of Ford’s Model A began to decline, like those of the Model T before it. It was once again time for a product-line reinvention, to keep pace with morphing public demand. And every few years an automaker—sometimes Ford itself—would introduce a feature that at first seemed like a nice, but unnecessary, luxury but which quickly had to be adopted by all, as customers widely deemed it a virtual necessity. Automatic transmissions, air conditioning, and power steering are examples. Any automaker reluctant to provide these innovations was sure to experience a steady drop in sales.
Christian schools are not exempt from the whims of marketplace competition. Enrollments can wax and wane due to multiple factors, including prevailing economic conditions and a school’s perceived value and benefits relative to other schooling options. Nevertheless, some Christian schools operate as if common parental concerns such as comprehensive curriculums or valid accreditation are of less importance than other vital concerns such as nurturing the spiritual development of students or providing moral instruction.
Such latter concerns are clearly essential within a Christian school, but they alone should not be a school’s raison d’être (reason for existence). There isn’t a zero-sum, either/or equation weighing spiritual and moral concerns versus academic and other concerns.
In spite of that, this conflict is sometimes clearly seen in the educational philosophies of a small minority of Christian schools. Without giving overly specific examples, why would a school feel compelled to state that it is better for its students to learn how to live than how to make a living? Does this school believe that a Christian education cannot deliver both? Or what purpose is served by a school declaring that its desired spiritual outcomes for its students are institutionally a higher priority than is student academic achievement? Does providing a Christian education necessitate making such a choice?
More commonly, this false dichotomy is seen more obliquely, in that the handbooks, websites, or promotional materials of some schools may provide a wealth of information regarding the school’s spiritual emphasis and focus, but scant information regarding its academics. For example, one Christian school speaks of its goals for its graduates—all three of which are spiritual in nature. If academic achievement is an important consideration in the development of this school’s students, neither their website nor their literature provides much of an indication.
Perhaps you are thinking, “Why does this matter?”
It matters because there is a large constituency of Christian parents who would like their children to receive both a thoroughly Christian and a rigorously academic (emphasis on both words) education, and who don’t see any inherent conflict between these two objectives. In fact, they view these objectives as being scripturally complementary.
Yet these parents are also aware that God has initiated only two institutions, the church and the home, both of which are charged with the spiritual and moral instruction of children. Christian schooling (in the modern sense) is an oftentimes desirable extension of these two timeless institutions, but is itself not scripturally mandated. (If it were, then the church was incredibly lax in its duties for its first nineteen centuries of existence.)
As long as the church and the home are performing their respective biblical functions, such parents view academic instruction as a distinct, separable element; one to be accomplished wherever it gets done “best.” In the eyes of such parents, even the apparent relegation of academics to second-class status by a Christian school can result in the effective dismissal of that school as a potential option for their child’s education—whether in favor of another Christian school, another type of private school, Christian homeschooling, a charter school (where available), or public schooling.
This is a key reason why it is vital that Christian schools distinguish themselves, and be more than simply “not the public schools.”
(Part 2 coming soon.)
Larry Nelson is a graduate of “an exemplary Christian school,” holds a BA in history from the University of Minnesota and has been employed in banking for over twenty-two years. He is a member of a Baptist church in the Minneapolis St. Paul area.
- 6 views
Frankly, I think that is a false choice.
After having read some of the work of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto John Taylor Gatto
listening to some lectures by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Thomson_Iserbyt Charlotte Iserbyt
And reading about Horace Mann and John Dewey, who were anti-Christian.
I have come to the conclusion that the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system Prussian Method is part of the problem, maybe a large part.
And getting back to the beginning, both public schools and most Christian schools are organized in the Prussian style.
The most successful school systems in the history of the US were small country schools with non certified teachers, who were usually from the community. All grades taught in the same room, from beginners to 12 or 13 year olds. None of those things follow the Prussian Method. Yet those country schools were very successful.
I’m thinking the problem is much deeper and more complex than many people realize.
[farmer Tom N]
I’m thinking the problem is much deeper and more complex than many people realize.
And yet the brightest people in the world still come out of the American public school system. Think you misapply the problem using generalized issues in the education system. If a family is committed you can still get a superb education out of the public school. That is not to say that any of the other methods are anymore inferior. I was in Silicon Valley a few months ago with a bunch of Venture Capitalist looking for the next Facebook, Google…. And there were loads of some of the brightest young people that I had seen in a long time, and most of them were from the public education system. I continue to become more and more convinced that education has much more to do about the home situation and your involvement as a family than it does on the institution.
[dgszweda][farmer Tom N]
I’m thinking the problem is much deeper and more complex than many people realize.And yet the brightest people in the world still come out of the American public school system. Think you misapply the problem using generalized issues in the education system. If a family is committed you can still get a superb education out of the public school. That is not to say that any of the other methods are anymore inferior. I was in Silicon Valley a few months ago with a bunch of Venture Capitalist looking for the next Facebook, Google…. And there were loads of some of the brightest young people that I had seen in a long time, and most of them were from the public education system. I continue to become more and more convinced that education has much more to do about the home situation and your involvement as a family than it does on the institution.
Yeah, people that think all US kids are stupid are not around the same kids I am. There are some incredibly bright young people out there. In many ways, they are far more advanced than previous generations for their age.
Yes. And there are some incredibly stupid and unlearned people out there as well.
The numbers do not back your position however.
Statistically, the public education system in the US is far worse than it has ever been.
Trying to claim the system works because of the few outliers at the very highest achievement levels is dishonest.
Is the system working for the average American child? Not that I can see.
Did you see the young woman who testified in the murder trial of George Zimmerman? Can’t read, (using the proper definition of the term), yet she has a 3.0 grade average. I’d say the system failed her and millions more like her.
[farmer Tom N]Yes. And there are some incredibly stupid and unlearned people out there as well.
The numbers do not back your position however.
Statistically, the public education system in the US is far worse than it has ever been.
Trying to claim the system works because of the few outliers at the very highest achievement levels is dishonest.
Is the system working for the average American child? Not that I can see.
Did you see the young woman who testified in the murder trial of George Zimmerman? Can’t read, (using the proper definition of the term), yet she has a 3.0 grade average. I’d say the system failed her and millions more like her.
So using outliers as evidence that the system works is “dishonest”?
So what is using outliers to prove the system doesn’t work (as you did 2 short paragraphs later)?
In a major suburban area there are three Christian schools.
One has an annual tuition of about $12,000 per year. According to the school’s web site the majority of the secondary faculty do not have degrees in their field. (The science teacher’s degree is in sports medicine, so I guess that’s close enough.) The church id KJVO, Sword of the Lord type.
Another has a tuition that is slightly less. It’s web site doesn’t list the qualifications of it’s teachers. Lots of rules that make people scratch their heads. For instance the girl’s basketball teams wears knee-length shorts but no warm-up pants because of their Deuteronomy position. A rule that applies to visiting teams as well.
The third’s tuition is in the $9000 range. Teachers lack of qualifications are similar. (You’re a nurse….you’re teaching science.) Their appeal is that they’re “not as strict” as the other schools and they have a great basketball team coached by a man who evidently is not born-again–but he’s a great coach.
If I’m a parent who desires a quality Christian education for my child, should I give God’s money to any of these?
And remember that a lot of Christian parents don’t live in an area where they have a number of Christian schools to choose from.
There are a few great Christian schools around. Sadly most of the others are offering a shoddy education by underpaid, unqualified, and unhappy teachers.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
[GregH]Greg,[farmer Tom N]Yes. And there are some incredibly stupid and unlearned people out there as well.
The numbers do not back your position however.
Statistically, the public education system in the US is far worse than it has ever been.
Trying to claim the system works because of the few outliers at the very highest achievement levels is dishonest.
Is the system working for the average American child? Not that I can see.
Did you see the young woman who testified in the murder trial of George Zimmerman? Can’t read, (using the proper definition of the term), yet she has a 3.0 grade average. I’d say the system failed her and millions more like her.So using outliers as evidence that the system works is “dishonest”?
So what is using outliers to prove the system doesn’t work (as you did 2 short paragraphs later)?
Tom’s negative example wasn’t the outlier. I work in public education and see this every day. The latest studies I have seen report anywhere from 50-75% of high school students currently graduating from high school and trying to go directly to college are being required to take remedial classes because they are unprepared for college. SAT scores in reading last year hit the lowest national levels since 1972. Even with recent growth in the homeschool movement and private school sector, public schools still represent about 90% of the student body in the U. S. The system is in pretty steady decline over the last 100+ years.
Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?
If you want to see the results of public education nationwide, go to the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) website.
I agree that the clincher when it comes to academic success is parental involvement. It doesn’t matter what the parent’s income or educational achievement is- a supportive parent gives ANY child a leg up, regardless of where they live or how they are educated.
A child’s moral compass also depends on parental guidance and example. But parents can shoot themselves in the foot on that one by not being diligent and taking into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of the individual child. Even inside the home, there isn’t a One Size Fits All approach.
I also agree with Tom that the traditional classroom is, like, totally bogus. The best instruction requires more of the student than it does of the teacher. For Christian schools to not thoroughly examine educational methods and just jump on the traditional school bandwagon reveals a startling lack of thoughtfulness and insight.
[Chip Van Emmerik][GregH]Greg,[farmer Tom N]Yes. And there are some incredibly stupid and unlearned people out there as well.
The numbers do not back your position however.
Statistically, the public education system in the US is far worse than it has ever been.
Trying to claim the system works because of the few outliers at the very highest achievement levels is dishonest.
Is the system working for the average American child? Not that I can see.
Did you see the young woman who testified in the murder trial of George Zimmerman? Can’t read, (using the proper definition of the term), yet she has a 3.0 grade average. I’d say the system failed her and millions more like her.So using outliers as evidence that the system works is “dishonest”?
So what is using outliers to prove the system doesn’t work (as you did 2 short paragraphs later)?
Tom’s negative example wasn’t the outlier. I work in public education and see this every day. The latest studies I have seen report anywhere from 50-75% of high school students currently graduating from high school and trying to go directly to college are being required to take remedial classes because they are unprepared for college. SAT scores in reading last year hit the lowest national levels since 1972. Even with recent growth in the homeschool movement and private school sector, public schools still represent about 90% of the student body in the U. S. The system is in pretty steady decline over the last 100+ years.
Chip, the example of the person that Tom brought up is definitely an outlier. You can’t tell me she is not. I just thought it was funny that Tom accuses me and someone else of dishonesty (no less) for using outliers and then brings up that person as an example a few paragraphs later. It just made me laugh a lot. Not trying to make more of it than that.
[farmer Tom N]Yes. And there are some incredibly stupid and unlearned people out there as well.
The numbers do not back your position however.
Statistically, the public education system in the US is far worse than it has ever been.
Trying to claim the system works because of the few outliers at the very highest achievement levels is dishonest.
Is the system working for the average American child? Not that I can see.
Did you see the young woman who testified in the murder trial of George Zimmerman? Can’t read, (using the proper definition of the term), yet she has a 3.0 grade average. I’d say the system failed her and millions more like her.
Tom,
Yes statistics show one thing. But is this the school system, or the fact that parents don’t care, are not as involved in their life….. I am not trying to defend Public Schools. But as a child I attended public school, christian school and homeschool. What I am trying to say is that if you have a family that truly is involved in your life, you go to a decent public school and take advantages of what the public school has to offer, there are no limitations. Some of the opportunities I had afforded to me in public school made me a better person and were not afforded to me in a Christian School or Homeschool setting. I did have to put up with some of the garbage, but it didn’t really bother me.
I am also not saying that public school is superior to another approach. All I am saying is that it is easy to look at the statistics and paint it with a broad stroke that it is a failure. Yet the vast majority of students attending the brightest colleges in the world are from the public school system. The vast majority of people leading the most innovative companies in the world are individuals out of the public school system, and the vast majority of the brightest entrepreneurs are from the public school system.
Listening to some of the comments bashing public schools you would get a sense that the only ones that are smart, distancing others at colleges like Harvard, Yale, Cal Tech… must be from other institutions than a public school. And that just doesn’t jive with the facts.
Each family has to make their own decision on this matter, and each system has some great pro’s and con’s. Just don’t be so quick to bash one over the other because of some statistics. We are looking at signing up my child into the Biotechnology program at our public high school. He will graduate high school with a two year college degree from University of Florida and he will get to coauthor a research paper with a team of researchers at the Mayo Clinic.
When parents give their child over to any school, either government or Christian, with the attitude of “Here’s my child. You have the responsibility of educating them because I can’t do it (insert reason)”, there are probably going to be problems.
When a school seeks to limit parental involvement, there are going to be problems as well. I have heard well-respected Christian educators as well as government educators state that parents should be kept out of the classroom and educational process because “we are the professionals”. Helping with field trips and parties is fine but don’t question what’s going on in the classroom. Beware of any school that bars parents from observing classroom instruction.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
I would like to add to my previous comment:
When we are talking about this subject of schooling, we often bring in statistics. We have to be cognizant that statistics tell a general picture of a situation, oftentimes with very little context or granularity to anyone’s specific situation. They fail to paint the picture of the individual. Years ago, Christian parents began pulling their kids out of public school, and then they began to decry the secularization of the public school system. If you pull believers out of a system, you are left with unbelievers and hence a secular worldview. In addition, it is well understand that the vast majority of students are in the public school system, and the numbers are already skewed to reflect those students who come from broken families, crime ridden areas, parents and students who don’t care, drug ridden neighborhoods….. That paints a poor statistical picture, but not necessarily a poor individual picture, as we know that there are extremely bright students who come from good homes that are in the public school system, just as we know that there are successes in this world from people who come from very unsuccessful home lives. Homeschooling by default will be skewed better, because to homeschool requires involvement. And so the comparison is not apples to apples comparing one program to another equal program. There are some very bright kids that come out of the homeschool environment, just as there are some very poorly educated kids that come out of the homeschool environment.
I just think we need to be careful when we examine this and how we allow our prejudice’s to influence us. According to the statistics from the PISA, our education system is lagging behind most countries including China. But I think few would say that the strength of our workforce, our ability to engineer and innovate, and our ability to solve problems is world leading, with no one else really even close to touching us. So even though this education system of ours appears to be failing something is working right. Yes we are not producing the right value on test scores, but maybe that is because that isn’t really the way we should be measuring things.
The lag behind China is interesting. I have been talking a lot to a Chinese person in my office. He says in China, school is 6 days a week and goes for so long that children eat 2 meals there (something like 10-12 hours).
How are we supposed to keep up with that?
I have a colleague who taught in China. Their school load and homework load is terrific. They can barely go home for a few hours on Sunday (many of them live at the school). If a student is sick, he/she goes to the doctor and is given an IV containing a fever reducer. As soon as that is infused, the student goes to school. The pressure is unbelievable.
I completely agree that statistics are often of little use, but the research available, such as that done by the NAEP, is what policies, methods, and curriculum are based on. Which is, like, scary. And it leaves us scratchin’ our noggins as to what information is useful and what is twaddle.
My experiences have been similar to Ron’s, in that schools frequently ask for parental support and involvement, but what they often mean is that they want parents to give their time and money, then shut up and go away. And that’s in Christian schools as well as public. When parents approach leadership and admin, it’s “Those whiny parents, always thinking that the world revolves around their kid”, and automatically dismissing what could be serious concerns.
There has been and still is an adversarial relationship between parents & teachers, and teachers & students. Why else do we have alternate lyrics to “On Top of Old Smokey” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”? (which would get you expelled and probably arrested today!)
Kids go to school with the attitude of “How little can I get by with today?” instead of being excited about learning, inspired to create, and jazzed about being able to satisfy their curiosity about the world (creation, not the ‘carnal world’- they have cable tv for that). How much of that is the classroom dynamic of 20 students to one teacher, and the weight of learning placed on the teacher and not the student?
My soapbox really needs a rest. :D
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