Chuck Chalberg wrote a compelling article at The Imaginative Conservative. He asks some of the important questions in considering the nature of a student’s curriculum. The primary attempt of the author is to highlight the way that parents can exercise more control and power over their children’s education. This is a critical area of worldview application that has been handed over to the state (civil government). The family is supposed to be the fundamental basis of social and moral education. Since the rise of the public education system, the state has sought to remake children in its own image. It has attempted and largely succeeded, to redefine social and moral education from a God-glorifying enterprise into a state glorifying enterprise.
The state has establishes itself as the sole determiner of what should be taught to children. The input of parents is continually ignored. In regards to the article, I agree that the parents should regain as much authority over the education of their children as possible. In my mind, this clearly means home education as the primary option and private schools as the secondary option. My only contention with the author is that we should strive for the total eradication of the public school monopoly. Vouchers, as the author brings forward as an option, can be a useful ploy in the short term. That doesn’t go far enough though. We need to pursue the eradication of state-run public schools. In its place, Christians need to work for the establishment of church and private schools.
As long as the state maintains the primary force in education, all education will be state-ward in its orientation. Only the de-centralization of education into the proper spheres of family and church authority will we be able to refocus education to be God-glorifying.
