A Parent's Perspective - The Right Priorities

Elizabeth W.
Wilmington, DE

We are recent converts to Christian schooling who began as proponents of public schooling, mainly in order to be salt and light. While kindergarten was fine, first grade started off with a lack of peace, which never abated. As the year progressed, God gradually opened our eyes, changing our hearts and minds in the process.

No matter what administrators might tell you, children are NOT their priority. The public schools have all the problems inherent in a government bureaucracy: lack of accountability, political motivations, inefficiencies, unresponsiveness, etc. Moreover, the environment is often not nurturing, not to mention disorderly, which is clearly not conducive to learning. I imagine there are some exceptions somewhere, but why gamble?

Both the reading and math curricula were not rigorous, entailing a lot of busy work, little actual teaching and a lot of extraneous material and projects, versus a focus on critical fundamentals. There are a lot of new, experimental teaching methods being used for the sake of novelty. Who wants their child to be used as a guinea pig and be academically handicapped as a result?

Let me emphasize that I spent extraordinary amounts of time in the classroom and talking with parents, administrators and teachers. If you have not done this, trust me, you do not have an accurate idea of your child’s experience. Even at the first grade level, I was alarmed by the negative peer influences, which included age-inappropriate boy/girl interactions.

I should note that our child was in the only gifted program offered in the entire state. This is a highly regarded program by many, even some Christian parents, but as I spent more time in the classroom, I concluded that the “best” in public education is decidedly inadequate. The visit to WCS shed light on the deficiencies in public school; I should note that this was based solely on my observations, as school personnel did not even discuss public schools. Even if you feel public school is fine, I urge you to visit your local Christian school. God wants the best for our children, and so do parents. Wisdom demands we make decisions based on knowledge. Consequently, don’t we have an obligation to investigate all options, especially regarding the training of our children?