Academic Platypus
Observations on the State of Christian Education and Suggestions.
I am, in large part, a product of Christian education. For the last few years, I've been giving back to the system at a small private school. My experiences on both sides of the desk have begun to coalesce lately, and so I offer the following as a provisional and tentative sketch of what I've learned.
Christian education, at its best, revives the old ideal of the university; where all the disciplines meet under a common uniting principle to shape students into integrated physical, emotional, and spiritual beings. However, experience, studies, and anecdotal evidence have suggested to me that this ideal is rarely reached. There are several factors in play that seem to me to hinder many Christian schools in their attempts to offer an excellent and truly Christian education:
Problems:
1. Lack of a clear philosophy of Christian education. It seems to me that many churches decide that something is wrong with the state of secular education and therefore set up Christian schools. Well and good. These schools, however, only become shallow and underfunded apes of the state schools apart from a clear understanding at all levels of what a Christian education ought to be. Without an ordering ideal to make a Christian school distinctive in its view of what exactly education is, and how students learn and grow as spiritual beings, all that is produced is a secular school managed by people who happen to be Christians and offer Bible classes along with the promise that the school is "safer" than the local government schools. If the school is well funded, it becomes merely a safe-haven for rich kids. If the school is poorly funded, it becomes merely a safe-haven for less wealthy kids. In each case, the students are quicker than the adults to pick up on what's going on and many become jaded with both Christian education and Christianity itself. There is no coherent idea to inspire them and explain why they are in a Christian school rather than a government school.
2. Over saturation of an area's market for Christian schools. I've counted at least three or four Christian schools in my area and I know for a fact that they are all in competition with each other for a limited number of students. This leads to rivalries between the schools and backbiting that undercuts a Christian school's mission. It is also wasteful from a market standpoint. Yes, competition is good to a point, but aren't all Christian schools of the same denomination/general movement in the same game? This competition often leads to underfunded and under-attended schools that cannot provide a quality education of any stripe to their customers.
3. Lack of funding. I had a colleague who asked: "How can a teacher press his students to strive for excellence when the desks the students are sitting at are falling apart?" Christian schools claim to strive for excellence but often can't pay for it. A Christian school can't build up a highly qualified and united faculty willing to stay long enough to really make an impact on children's lives if they pay them around $30,000 in southern California. Since many Christian schools can't afford to pay their staff even a modest amount, the turnover rate for the faculty remains high. Students need continuity and relationships with their teachers in order to flourish academically. When they have five math teachers in three years, they become jaded and recalcitrant, feeling that the faculty does not care about them. For their part, teachers need to be able to spend several years in the same school, teaching the same classes, in order to develop their teaching abilities to their full height. This is incredibly hard when their classes change year to year depending on loss of faculty and number of students. It is impossible if they are forced to leave after only a year or two because they cannot make a decent wage to care for their families.
In addition to high turnover rate, a lack of funds also means that the faculty is frequently under-qualified, unable to acquire further education without great personal sacrifice, and mostly composed of women who are second income earners with kids who benefit from reduced tuition. The first two are undoubtedly problems. The third is only a problem in that Christian schools are chronically gender imbalanced and the teachers' kids don't contribute a share of resources to the school equal to the slots they fill. Most importantly, kids have a hard time believing in a school they know is a shoddy fourth-rate, and will often extend that judgement to the religion that sanctions it.
Suggestions:
1. Make sure that all staff, faculty, board members, parents, and students are exposed to a strong and coherent philosophy of Christian education. I recommend Cardinal Newman's The Idea of a University, Nancy Pearcey's Total Truth, and C. S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man as a place to start. If anyone can recommend additional readings for the beginner, let me know.
2.Be aware of what other Christian schools are in the area before you start one, and of the cost of establishing a Christian school. Does your church feel the call to get in on Christian education? See what else is out there first. Why hinder the work that fellow Christians are already doing by pulling away needed students, dollars, and faculty from their efforts? If your church does go through with it, make sure that everyone understands that starting a Christian school is significantly different from any of your other ministries. It will take an immense commitment of cash at the outset and at different times during the school's maturation. Also, if your church starts a school and wants administrative control, it needs to be fully committed financially until the school can run itself as a well-grounded academic institution. If the church doesn't have the needed resources, or wishes to allocate them elsewhere, then it needs to get things started and then step aside and allow the school to administer itself. Much trouble is caused when a church wants to provide only limited support, or none, while still requiring the school to be absolutely submissive in policy and procedures to the church. If your church does go in all the way, remember that you still need to work with and listen to the people you hire; if you've hired good people at the outset, trust them to make good decisions and put some faith in their understanding of what's required to do their job.
If you are on a church board that already oversees a Christian school or are a Christian school administrator, consider if your school can really afford to provide high quality education to each of its grade levels. If there is not enough money to properly staff grades 9-12 and provide all the programs and curriculum needed, consider closing the high school and reopening it one grade at a time as finances improve. It's a hard call to make, especially when real people's jobs are in question, but if the result of keeping those grade levels open is to convince kids that Christianity is about justifying third-rate education and fourth-rate facilities, then it just might be worth closing those grades down. Knowing that my job could be downsized at any time, this is the hardest of the suggestions I've put forth, but I think it holds true when a school or grade-level has deteriorated beyond a certain point. What is that point? I'm honestly not sure, but administrators, faculty, students, and parents all seem to know when it has been reached at a particular school.
3. See what God might lead your church to do with those funds instead. Your church might want to take the money that would be used to set up a new school and instead use it to partner with one or more of the Christian schools in the area. Believe me, they can always find a good use for your dollars. If the church board doesn't think it wise to just hand over money, then perhaps they can set up a scholarship fund to help financially burdened families, or a yearly grant to Christian schools that meet certain standards. The church could also agree to help support teachers in Christian schools who are living near or below the poverty line.
Wrapping things up.
These are all just thoughts and they are open to revision and correction. I intend to stick with Christian education and, in light of that, I want to be the best Christian educator I can be, and that means being informed on and developing a deep understanding of the issues that are at the heart of making it a reality.
One final word. Most of this article has centered on questions of finances. I think the most important question we can ask regarding Christian education at this time is "how much do we value it and how much are we willing to pay for it." Knowing the answer to that question as individuals and as the broader Christian community will make the answers to much of the issues raised above clear.
I am, in large part, a product of Christian education. For the last few years, I've been giving back to the system at a small private school. My experiences on both sides of the desk have begun to coalesce lately, and so I offer the following as a provisional and tentative sketch of what I've learned.
Christian education, at its best, revives the old ideal of the university; where all the disciplines meet under a common uniting principle to shape students into integrated physical, emotional, and spiritual beings. However, experience, studies, and anecdotal evidence have suggested to me that this ideal is rarely reached. There are several factors in play that seem to me to hinder many Christian schools in their attempts to offer an excellent and truly Christian education:
Problems:
1. Lack of a clear philosophy of Christian education. It seems to me that many churches decide that something is wrong with the state of secular education and therefore set up Christian schools. Well and good. These schools, however, only become shallow and underfunded apes of the state schools apart from a clear understanding at all levels of what a Christian education ought to be. Without an ordering ideal to make a Christian school distinctive in its view of what exactly education is, and how students learn and grow as spiritual beings, all that is produced is a secular school managed by people who happen to be Christians and offer Bible classes along with the promise that the school is "safer" than the local government schools. If the school is well funded, it becomes merely a safe-haven for rich kids. If the school is poorly funded, it becomes merely a safe-haven for less wealthy kids. In each case, the students are quicker than the adults to pick up on what's going on and many become jaded with both Christian education and Christianity itself. There is no coherent idea to inspire them and explain why they are in a Christian school rather than a government school.
2. Over saturation of an area's market for Christian schools. I've counted at least three or four Christian schools in my area and I know for a fact that they are all in competition with each other for a limited number of students. This leads to rivalries between the schools and backbiting that undercuts a Christian school's mission. It is also wasteful from a market standpoint. Yes, competition is good to a point, but aren't all Christian schools of the same denomination/general movement in the same game? This competition often leads to underfunded and under-attended schools that cannot provide a quality education of any stripe to their customers.
3. Lack of funding. I had a colleague who asked: "How can a teacher press his students to strive for excellence when the desks the students are sitting at are falling apart?" Christian schools claim to strive for excellence but often can't pay for it. A Christian school can't build up a highly qualified and united faculty willing to stay long enough to really make an impact on children's lives if they pay them around $30,000 in southern California. Since many Christian schools can't afford to pay their staff even a modest amount, the turnover rate for the faculty remains high. Students need continuity and relationships with their teachers in order to flourish academically. When they have five math teachers in three years, they become jaded and recalcitrant, feeling that the faculty does not care about them. For their part, teachers need to be able to spend several years in the same school, teaching the same classes, in order to develop their teaching abilities to their full height. This is incredibly hard when their classes change year to year depending on loss of faculty and number of students. It is impossible if they are forced to leave after only a year or two because they cannot make a decent wage to care for their families.
In addition to high turnover rate, a lack of funds also means that the faculty is frequently under-qualified, unable to acquire further education without great personal sacrifice, and mostly composed of women who are second income earners with kids who benefit from reduced tuition. The first two are undoubtedly problems. The third is only a problem in that Christian schools are chronically gender imbalanced and the teachers' kids don't contribute a share of resources to the school equal to the slots they fill. Most importantly, kids have a hard time believing in a school they know is a shoddy fourth-rate, and will often extend that judgement to the religion that sanctions it.
Suggestions:
1. Make sure that all staff, faculty, board members, parents, and students are exposed to a strong and coherent philosophy of Christian education. I recommend Cardinal Newman's The Idea of a University, Nancy Pearcey's Total Truth, and C. S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man as a place to start. If anyone can recommend additional readings for the beginner, let me know.
2.Be aware of what other Christian schools are in the area before you start one, and of the cost of establishing a Christian school. Does your church feel the call to get in on Christian education? See what else is out there first. Why hinder the work that fellow Christians are already doing by pulling away needed students, dollars, and faculty from their efforts? If your church does go through with it, make sure that everyone understands that starting a Christian school is significantly different from any of your other ministries. It will take an immense commitment of cash at the outset and at different times during the school's maturation. Also, if your church starts a school and wants administrative control, it needs to be fully committed financially until the school can run itself as a well-grounded academic institution. If the church doesn't have the needed resources, or wishes to allocate them elsewhere, then it needs to get things started and then step aside and allow the school to administer itself. Much trouble is caused when a church wants to provide only limited support, or none, while still requiring the school to be absolutely submissive in policy and procedures to the church. If your church does go in all the way, remember that you still need to work with and listen to the people you hire; if you've hired good people at the outset, trust them to make good decisions and put some faith in their understanding of what's required to do their job.
If you are on a church board that already oversees a Christian school or are a Christian school administrator, consider if your school can really afford to provide high quality education to each of its grade levels. If there is not enough money to properly staff grades 9-12 and provide all the programs and curriculum needed, consider closing the high school and reopening it one grade at a time as finances improve. It's a hard call to make, especially when real people's jobs are in question, but if the result of keeping those grade levels open is to convince kids that Christianity is about justifying third-rate education and fourth-rate facilities, then it just might be worth closing those grades down. Knowing that my job could be downsized at any time, this is the hardest of the suggestions I've put forth, but I think it holds true when a school or grade-level has deteriorated beyond a certain point. What is that point? I'm honestly not sure, but administrators, faculty, students, and parents all seem to know when it has been reached at a particular school.
3. See what God might lead your church to do with those funds instead. Your church might want to take the money that would be used to set up a new school and instead use it to partner with one or more of the Christian schools in the area. Believe me, they can always find a good use for your dollars. If the church board doesn't think it wise to just hand over money, then perhaps they can set up a scholarship fund to help financially burdened families, or a yearly grant to Christian schools that meet certain standards. The church could also agree to help support teachers in Christian schools who are living near or below the poverty line.
Wrapping things up.
These are all just thoughts and they are open to revision and correction. I intend to stick with Christian education and, in light of that, I want to be the best Christian educator I can be, and that means being informed on and developing a deep understanding of the issues that are at the heart of making it a reality.
One final word. Most of this article has centered on questions of finances. I think the most important question we can ask regarding Christian education at this time is "how much do we value it and how much are we willing to pay for it." Knowing the answer to that question as individuals and as the broader Christian community will make the answers to much of the issues raised above clear.
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