You can tell from the title of this post, that I won’t be running for political office anytime soon. What’s wrong with public schools? Why would I think they should be abolished? Many would call me crazy, but my argument is based on the first amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . .” The public schools have an established religion, the religion of secularism/agnosticism, and thus they are unconstitutional. On second thought, maybe I will run for office. That would be a great campaign slogan! But I’m deadly serious. The whole idea of public schools (i.e., government schools) in a pluralistic society is problematic. Why?
In a pluralistic society God must be bracketed as persona-non-grata (to keep the government appearance of neutrality to all the different religions and worldviews), so the schools are promoting a worldview that is hostile to Christianity, or any other religion for that matter. And the idea that government schools can be “neutral” to all religions and worldview is so obviously false it’s a wonder anyone has ever believed it. But believe it they have, and most still do. It’s not that the idea of a “secular” space in society that allows for people of all religions to get along by putting their religion on the shelf is a bad thing in itself. In fact, in most of our interactions with our fellow citizens it’s a very good thing. But the presumption that we could apply it to the education of our children is naive, dangerously so.
But until now I never throught public schools should be outlawed because I figured parents could teach their kids their own religions and worldviews at home. Government schools are a fact of life in America, and that will never change—just have to deal with it. Our family did with our children (until we discovered classical education), and I figured my wife and I, and our kids, survived public schools, so other people can. We know that what our children believe about the bigger issues of life is up to us. But most American parents send their kids off to school to be “educated,” and what ends up happening is they get indoctrinated into secularism, agnosticism, and relativism. It can’t be helped. Every education involves religion because all education assumes certain things, and thus is based on faith commitments, whether these are technically considered “religious” in the sociological sense or not.
I recently listened to some lectures about education I found at a wonderful website filled with great content called Monergism.com. Through those I discovered a little book written in 1961 by R.J. Rushdoony called Intellectual Schizophrenia: Culture, Crisis and Education. In it, Rushdoony argues that the Christian:
must realize that today agnosticism has secured the status of an established church by means of the institution of the public school, and this new religion must be disestablished.
Amen! Which is why we must get rid of government schools.
Reading Rushdoony you would think that the sky was falling in 1961, but he was no Chicken Little. He was a prophet, seeing the rot that was well under way then that would in not too many years create what we’ve come to call “The 60s,” and all the moral confusion and harm that’s come from it.
In the book Rushdoony further contends that, “[A] free and pluralistic society requires the abolition of the public school and the tax support of the school in favor of a pluralistic education.” This would mean in practice that every family could send their children to whatever kind of school they want. Given that we as a society have decided that universal education is mandatory, and that tax payer money must subsidize it, all the money that goes to the government schools must be redirected to parents in terms of a subsidy to spend on their children’s education as they see fit. Ultimate school choice is the answer! It is the only just solution to the problem.
If some parents want to send their kids to schools that embrace the assumptions of secularism, agnosticism, and relativism, that’s great. And Hindu parents can send their kids to Hindu schools, or Buddhist parents their kids to Buddhist schools, or Muslim parents their kids to Muslim schools, and so on. Now, unjustly, these parents are forced to subsidize the education of only one of these religions, and have to pay additional money if they want their children educated in their religion and worldview. It’s simply and obviously wrong. Neutrality is a lie, and indoctrination a fact, and it must be stopped. My only thought after writing all these words is, good luck!
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