The Education of America's Children: Who's Responsible?

      As I write this in January of 2022, the Chicago teachers have gone on strike until their demands are met: children must all be vaccinated for them to return to school. News announcers are declaring that children are falling behind in education and that in-person learning is the only way to keep children off the streets and from other negative influences. While I agree that “in person” teaching is the most effective way to educate a child, how did the education system reach this point of having such power over the education and emotional well-being of our children? Why is it the school’s fault that young people become prone to negative influences when they’re not in a classroom? "Parents have not only a right but a duty to object when their children are being used as objects for other people's ideological crusades, especially when brainwashing replaces education in the public schools."(Thomas Sowell, an American economist, social theorist, and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution in his book Barbarians Inside the Gates) I propose that, over the last 100 years, there has been a subtle, yet intentional shift of responsibility away from parents and into the hands of the education system. 

Let us not lose our future by failing to come to grips with our past. America’s beginnings were directly influenced by the faith of the Pilgrims and founders who built their worldview on God’s word. And one of the primary reasons the Pilgrims came to America was for religious freedom. This Biblical view led them to believe that education was the responsibility of the family and the church. To the Puritans, the education of children was uppermost in their minds. In 1642, the General Court enacted its first law concerning the education of the colony's children. It ordered: “...also, that all masters of families do, once a week, at least, catechize their children and servants on the grounds and principles of religion."

https://www.home-school.com/Articles/forgotten-american-history-puritan-education.php

 

The biblical roots found in the early education of the American people provided both quality of education and Godly morality. Most children were taught to read using the biblical text. Parents lived by God’s call in Deuteronomy: 

“These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”. 

And because of this faith and obedience to God’s word, even as America began turning to man made views in the early 19th century, most of the Western world still had a “Christianized morality” (P. 26, Divided Nation) and, therefore, a more Christianized worldview. The Founders, knowing the importance of education, ultimately founded hundreds of private schools and colleges during the colonial period. And “most of the colleges were started for the purpose of training men for the ministry.” (P. 21 of The American Covenant, by Marshall Foster) Educator Rosalie J. Slater states: “At the time of the Declaration of Independence, the quality of education had enabled the colonies to achieve a degree of literacy from 70% to virtually 100%.” Noah Webster, the father of American education, made the development of Christian character the centerpiece of his educational philosophy. And because education was built upon the foundation of the Bible, children grew up knowing how to find guidance for all human endeavor through reasoning from its principles. 

What happened to cause such a shift in mindset and worldview? In 1838, Horace Mann, secretary of the Mass. board of education, promoted a philosophy of education that was diametrically opposed to that of the Founding Fathers. He was known as “the father of the progressive public-school movement.” (American Covenant, p. 22) He supported forced taxation for state schools which undermined parental control. Furthermore, he de-emphasized Biblical doctrine as the basis of character development and replaced it with a humanistic view. He standardized teacher training and textbooks in an effort to transition away from Christian principles of education as taught by Noah Webster, the founder of America’s educational system. In the early twentieth century, John Dewey carried on the march toward federal secularism with his method of education which was partially derived from his exposure to the communist educational system in Russia. Today our Christian history and heritage have been obscured by the American public-school bureaucracy.

America has exchanged the foundation of education from God’s worldview to man’s worldview, thereby corrupting American education and our children and ultimately bringing it to this tumultuous time in our history. We have essentially fulfilled Romans 1:25:  “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.”  Ken Ham, in his book Divided Nation: Cultures in Chaos & A Conflicted Church, states that “There is no neutral position. There are ultimately only two religions: God’s word or man’s word.” Everyone has a worldview through which they view the world. “There is no non-religious position.” (Divided Nation by Ken Ham) When the Bible and prayer were taken out of the schools, it didn’t make schools neutral. Christianity was replaced with the religion of secular humanism. Religion, as defined by Merriam Webster, is “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.”  There are ultimately two religions: Man’s word and God’s word. The secular, or man-made religion, has basically thrown out any reminders of Christian thinking and replaced it with a leftist socialist agenda. This is a fact.

So what is the solution to a problem that ultimately was caused by this subtle, yet intentional worldview shift over the years? James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, states, “Behind every system of actions are a system of beliefs. There must be an intentional mindset shift in the American people and a desire to understand and take seriously their responsibility in the education of their children.  Larry P. Arnn, former president of the Claremont IInstitute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, writes in a recent publication of Imprints: “In addition to the right to make a living and the right to raise our children, we have the right to participate in our government (even if we are not experts) and the right to look to the heavens and not to our ruling class for guidance."

We have these rights because we - every single one of us - were born with them sewn by God into our nature, and we cannot find our earthly fulfillment without them.” So, in closing, I urge the American people to fight for their freedoms which include taking the responsibility that is theirs according to the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence. Our children and the future of America are counting on us. We must not let them down. We must act now.