Acton Institute PowerBlog - Entries tagged as public schools

Entries tagged as public schools

Religion as the Fourth 'R'

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Reading, [w]riting, [a]rithmetic, and...religion? So says Cal Thomas in a post from the WaPo blog On Faith.

Writes Thomas, “Religion as a subject and the beliefs of individual religions absolutely should be taught in all schools and at all levels.”

I doubt, however, that Thomas would say that “one should not expect an individual faith to be singled out for special consideration or imposition” in the case of explicitly religious schools. He seems to have in mind the limitations inherent in the public school system.

Thus, he writes, “Neither should a specific prayer be promoted in public schools and universities, as has been advocated by some in the past.” That presumably includes a prayer of secularism.

But surely Cal Thomas realizes that a naked public square does implicitly promote the ‘faith’ of secularism. This confusion and difficulty associated with teaching religion in public schools is real. But all too often the source of the problem is attributed to religion rather than to secularist nature of the public schools itself.

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in Educational Choice at 09:49 | Leave a comment | Trackback

Defined tags for this entry:
Cal Thomas, education, prayer, public schools, religion, secularism

Government Prayer

Thursday, March 1, 2007

In an essay for TCS Daily last week, Arnold Kling wrote, “With or without the words ‘under God,’ the Pledge of Allegiance feels to me like a prayer. It’s a fairly nice prayer, and I have no problem with having it taught in private schools. I have no problem praying for my country -- such a prayer is included in the standard weekly service at my synagogue. But government institutions ought not to be telling people how to pray.”

The essay is well-worth reading. I especially like Kling’s description of a “Civil Societarian.” But I have another anecdotal piece of evidence to contribute to Kling’s conclusion.

It comes from the back page feature “Baby Bloopers” in the current issue of Parents magazine. Here’s the story “Lady Liberty” as told by Tracie Cirillo of Rochester, NY:

One afternoon my 4-year-old daughter, Maya, came home excited to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to me, since it’s played every morning over the public-address system at her school. When she got to the end of the pledge, she said, ‘With liberty and justice for all. Today’s lunch is quesadillas and fruit cup.’

The cynic might say that’s what you get when government teaches you how to pray.

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in Educational Choice at 07:44 | Comment (1) | Trackback

Defined tags for this entry:
education, government, pledge of allegiance, prayer, public schools

U.S. High Schools Learning Less

Monday, February 26, 2007

U.S. high school students are taking harder classes, receiving better grades, and from every indication in recent data, leaning much less than their counterparts fifteen years ago. Go figure. All the talk about spending more money and about improving testing and teacher standards and the end result is that two decades of educational reform may not have improved things overall.

The U.S. Department of Education released two studies Thursday that raised very tough questions. David Driscoll, the commissioner of education for Massachusetts, notes, “I think we are sleeping through a crisis.” He called these two new studies “stunning.” Two means were used for this study: (1) A standardized 12th grade test, and (2) An analysis of the transcripts of 2005 high school graduates.

The fascinating thing is that students in 1990 had a GPA of 2.68 and in 2005 it rose to 2.98, and this included students taking more college preparatory courses than ever before. 12th grade reading scores have been dropping steadily since 1992. So, what are students learning in college prep classes? As for math fewer than 25% scored in the “proficient” range.

This study involved 900 U.S. schools, including 200 private schools! 26,000 transcripts were used. The chief of curriculum for Chicago high schools said, “We know the root to solving the problem is having more rigor in classes.” But how? We already have teachers who fear their students, killings in our schools, and armed guards in most U.S. high schools. What next? The fact is few leaders, and especially politicians and educators, have real answers. The system is broken. Do parents and citizens have the will to fix it? I have my doubts. Such problems call for Christians to make a difference. Talk about a cultural opportunity, here is a huge one. But most of us have run away from public education, condemning it with John Dewey and his ilk to the pit. Even if we do not want our children in the public system can we afford to form ghettos for Christians and ride this storm out to its long term conclusions?

The movie Amazing Grace came out this weekend. We desperately need a Wilberforce-like leader (or hundreds of lesser known but similarly courageous leaders) to begin to work for the real education of our children or our values will be entirely lost in a few more decades.

John H. Armstrong is founder and director of ACT 3, a ministry aimed at “encouraging the church, through its leadership, to pursue doctrinal and ethical reformation and to foster spiritual awakening.”

Posted by John H. Armstrong in Educational Choice at 08:10 | Leave a comment | Trackback

Defined tags for this entry:
Christianity, education, public schools

The Right to a Religious Education

Friday, February 2, 2007

Sen. Dave Schultheis of Colorado has “proposed a ‘Public Schools Religious Bill of Rights’ to combat what he calls mounting, nationwide violations of students’ and school staffs’ constitutionally protected religious freedom.”

Without endorsing any particular elements of Schultheis’ bill, I have to admit that I have actually considered writing a piece on an idea like this before, a students’ bill of rights which includes the right to learn about God. It strikes me that for people who are religious, the current treatment of belief in God in public schools makes it practically impossible to integrate faith and learning.

In reality the only ones who are able to realize this right are those who can afford to send their children to a religious day school. That’s why we need education reform in this country so desperately. The poor who are forced to send their kids to public schools have no choice but to acquiesce before secularism.

Simply because government requires something to be done doesn’t mean that it has to be the provider. My state requires that I have car insurance if I drive a car, but I don’t buy my insurance from the state. Don’t let the cries against an “unfunded mandate” fool you. Whether in the form of vouchers or tax credits (given the constitutional issues involved in using vouchers to fund religious schools), change needs to come.

If the government is going to make K-12 education mandatory, the least it can do is recognize the rights of parents and children to integrate religious education into a comprehensive, character-forming curriculum. And since the government can’t be the one to administer religious instruction, education is a job best left up to private entities.

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in Educational Choice at 08:05 | Comments (3) | Trackback

Defined tags for this entry:
education, faith, learning, public schools, religious bill of rights, sen. dave schultheis

Private vs. Public Schools

Thursday, August 3, 2006

One of the flashpoints in school choice debates is the performance of public schools as compared to private. A while back a Department of Education study drew attention by claiming that, when certain socio-economic factors were controlled, there wasn’t much of a difference between achievement by public and private school students. Those findings are now under fire from Harvard researchers Paul Petersen and Elena Llaudet, who use the same data but a different method—and claim that the Department of Education’s method was flawed.

HT: John Hood at Phi Beta Cons.

Posted by Kevin Schmiesing in Educational Choice at 13:00 | Leave a comment | Trackback

Defined tags for this entry:
private schools, public schools