Christianity Today theology editor Stefani McDade recently made a compelling and nuanced case for public schools. Here is a taste:
Our daughter is just a toddler, so she’s not in school yet, and it’s possible something in the next few years will lead us to change our minds. But, for now, my husband and I have decided to send her to public school.
One of the most important considerations for me in making that choice is that studies show there are more important elements for building and safeguarding our kids’ faith than the school they attend. As I’ve previously reported for CT, research suggests that taking children to church regularly matters more than finding the “right” school.
In fact, as I discovered two years ago in my interview with Christian public health expert Tyler VanderWeele, director of Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, childhood church attendance is one of the highest predictors of overall wellbeing as an adult. Though homeschooling provided some unique benefits, researchers found, there was very little difference, across a host of outcomes, between public and private school kids.
Read the entire piece here.
Folks are responding. Once again, the response offers insight into the current state of conservative evangelicalism.
I’ll stop there. I think you get the idea.
Notice the difference between McDade’s piece and the critical responses to the piece on X. McDade writes with humility. Her views are based on research. She seems open to changing her mind if public schooling does not end up working for her child. She suggests that each child is different and some may thrive better in a Christian school or homeschool situation. The critical responses to the piece, on the other hand, show no such nuance or humility. These responses are driven by anger and fear. (Of course if you read all the tweets above, you will see that not everyone who follows the Christianity Today feed disagreed with McDade’s take.)
We sent both of our daughters to K-12 public schools and both of them did well. I would like to say that they did well–academically, socially, spiritually–because we tried to be good Christian parents. We talked things through at night over the dinner table. We had long discussions about what they were learning.
They also did well because they had professional teachers who stressed education over indoctrination. I can think of only a few teachers who used their classrooms to try to indoctrinate my girls. One of them was a cultural progressive, but the others used their classrooms to promote conservative propaganda.
One of the more balanced presentations of wide range views. Of course, you tainted the article with your title banner-” freak out”.
You are very biased by your view of -so-called Christian Nationers-, because of your America First-MAGA,
DJT, distaste.
Your site, your privilege. I still read.
John Fea: I (we) don’t say it enough: thank-you for all your work on things like this. You’re the only one combing through the reactions on questions like this that give us all an invaluable feel for where the folk on the ground are. I’m appreciative of your historian’s sensibility, that understands how important these currents of popular opinion are. I’m equally appreciative of your sound, common-sense takes on the issues themselves.
It’s amazing how so much still reflects a division between a fundamentalist separation from society and an evangelical desire to engage society while remaining faithful to the gospel and Scripture. It’s perhaps telling which side tends toward a knee-jerk mean-spiritedness and ungrounded, reactionary attacks.
John: Thanks. I am afraid not many people understand or “get” what I am doing in these roundups. But I am glad that you do!
Raising our 4 we did not let our kids go to one public school due to the rampant chaos there and chose a Lutheran as we could not homeschool any longer. I have taught in public schools before teaching college. By the way, I think the term “go nuts” in the title was accurate and expected.