PUBLIC SCHOOL

What's incorrect with Public School?

What's wrong with Public School?

Introduction

The usual contention against public education is very convincing. It runs something like this: Public schools have become breeding grounds for violence and sexual promiscuity; they often are outlets for socialist propaganda; they now constitute a formidable foe of Christianity (by educating evolution and prohibiting plea and Bible reading) and of the family (by educating sex education and deriding traditional authority structures). And so on — which is not an unmitigated tragedy, since it is being utilised, under the providence of God, to lead more and more Christians to abandon the system of public education. No issue what the reason, that is absolutely a good result.(Laurie, 2004)

 

Discussion

Unfortunately, the contention above is not as honourable as it looks. It is' not an argument against state education, but only against certain seen ills of public schools as they now exist. Thus, even among Christians who acquiesce with the contention, you will find the following attitudes: (1) "The genuine problems exist in the inner-city schools, but there's nothing wrong with public schools in a country, Christian community with traditional values"; (2) "We should work to make public schools more moral, by pressuring our legislators to reinstitute plea and abolish sex-education"; (3) "We should trial to force the public schools to give Creation 'equal time' with Evolution." These and similar positions all attest to the detail that much of the opposition to public schools is only pragmatic: we are very eager for the state to control education, as long as we can be reasonably sure our young children won't be struck, drugged or raped in the library. To put it bluntly, we desire our socialism, but we desire it clean. If only the public schools would educate what we desire them to educate, we would be joyous to have our children's education financed by legalized theft. Quite an interesting position, philosophically: we'll give our young children a "moral" upbringing by robbing our neighbors to yield for it.(Laurie, 2004)

As Christians, we do not contend against abortion simply by citing the dangers of malpractice; nor should we consider it sufficient to oppose state education simply because of its bad consequences. We do not work for safer methods of abortion; nor should we work to advance public schools. The basic biblical contention, you see, is that the very existence of state schools is immoral — regardless of the grade of "morality" contained in them.(Tyack, 2005)

According to the Bible (see, for demonstration, Romans 13:4), the state has an exceedingly restricted function, which may be summed up in two points: punishing criminals (as characterised by God's law) and protecting the law-abiding. That's it. God has appointed municipal rulers as His ministers, and their responsibility is to administer His laws. The Bible severely limits the powers of the state — and just in case rulers might misunderstand the span of their commission, God constructed a "strict constructionist" interpretation right into the law: the leader "may not turn aside from ...