Public School: A Sin?
‘Is it a sin to send my kids to public school?’ The question has been answered with a resounding ‘Yes’ by some and with a qualified ‘No’ by others. But, ask we again, ‘Is it a sin for me to send my kids to public school?’
Yes.
Yes, but….
Coercion
First of all, sending your kids to public school is not a sin when you don’t have better options. In the days of compulsory attendance laws (violations of the 4th and 13th Amendment that they are), the government can and will kidnap your kids if you don’t provide them with some state-sanctioned ‘education.’ In such a circumstance, if a private school or homeschooling is an effective impossibility (something that requires wisdom and weighing of consequences to determine), the choice really isn’t ‘Send your kids to public school’ or ‘Don’t send them.’ The choice is, ‘Send your kids to public school,’ or ‘Hand your kids over to the government.’ The better choice, obviously, is to retain what control you can over your kids’ lives, given the ongoing hostage situation.
This goes also for parents in countries like Germany which kidnap the kids as a matter of course and ban homeschooling. In such a circumstance, emigration may be advisable, but that’s a more complicated matter than I’ll address here.
Public Schools are Bad
Public schools are qualitatively bad places to learn. I speak as an outsider (homeschool), but the evidence is overwhelmingly clear. Public schools are designed to teach secularist, pluralist, liberal (philosophically at least and possibly politically) values. Even in red states like Tennessee, schools are instructed to do ‘character education’ to prepare people for being ‘good citizens’ by the state’s definition, a definition which rarely matches Christ’s (Mic. 6:8; Acts 5:29). On an academic level, meanwhile, public schools have a demonstrably bad and worsening outcome (see this book for an interesting history of that aspect).
We have also the liberal bias of school teachers and officials, the many stories of abusive, grooming, or violently anti-Christian teachers, and the drive to put porn in front of school kids. Furthermore, as David Harris here points out, the student population presents risks and dangers the parents cannot guard against in the current legal climate.
Not to mention that government-run education is basically immoral and is built with the wrong incentives in mind.
Rational Ignorance?
A ‘sin’ is a choice which knowingly transgresses God’s law. Given the unchangeability of God’s law, we have two variables which we can change, here, to make something a sin or not. We saw already that coercion removes the sin by making changing the choice (or removing it entirely, in extreme cases). Different circumstances get different verdicts from God’s law precisely because God’s law is consistent. The other variable is knowledge. If I don’t know the law, I can’t knowingly transgress it, as Romans 1:18-25, 5:13-14, and 7:7-10 establish, not to mention Genesis 2:16.
Obviously all parents have an awareness given by God that they ought to care for their children, the sort of awareness which is lacking only by culpable suppression (Matt. 7:7-11; Rom. 1:18-20). The ignorance, therefore, must lie in not knowing the actual danger of public schools. In other words, all parents know they should care for their kids, but some of them don’t know public schools are a bad way to do that.
Two alternative present themselves. First, the parent could be unaware because his research didn’t find the problem. Second, he could be unaware because he never saw a reason to investigate—i.e. rational ignorance (the reason I don’t know what types of toothpaste they sell in Anchorage).
In the first possibility, the parent did his research—and didn’t find anything sufficiently alarming. The modern day public school, however, is a blatantly dangerous institution, at least to Christian eyes of moderate sanity. Between official government doctrines (secularism, evolution, etc.), wokist indoctrination, immigration’s effects, health issues, sex scandals, and poor academic results compared to homeschoolers, not to mention the unfiltered exposure of young souls to the world’s filth, public schooling’s problems are pretty much on the surface. Researching them and finding nothing seems to me to require a lack of discernment and wisdom which is a massive problem in itself.
In the second possibility, the more likely possibility, the parent saw no real reason to second-guess public schooling. Now, it seems impossible to me for any parent to last more than a year before investigating his kid’s school, except by culpable neglect. Kids are sponges, and outside of instances of taught deception, the public school’s effects will become clear, to those with eyes to see. Even before, though, parents have a moral responsibility to make sure the people who shape their kids are shaping their kids rightly (Prov. 22:6,15, 29:15; Hos. 11:1). The only way they can hold this responsibility fulfilled is if they regard public school’s reputation as sufficient guarantee of its excellence.
Such a misconception is hard to fathom in the modern era, given how public schools are connected to the governments which perpetually sin against the people. Yes, typically they at least pay lip service to local government, but the connection is there, and it should worry parents enough to require a second look. Moreover, the parent should consider and should have already considered what company he surrounds his kid with, whether he thinks his community is composed entirely of Christian influences. We should not send our kids to sit next to the seats of scoffers (Ps. 1:1).
Rational ignorance of this sort relies on investigation being patently unnecessary. If a credible source calls sending your kid to public school a sin, however, that rational ignorance loses its rationality. The parent now has a good reason to investigate public schools (and he shouldn’t like what he finds). Crucially, the kids are being hurt no matter the rationality of their parent’s ignorance. Breaking the rational ignorance of the parents, therefore, is alerting them to save their kids from long years of suffering and sin.
Witness?
Briefly: sending a kid into public school in order to witness is a sin. The parents’ job is to train their kid in the way he should go (Prov. 22:6, 29:15), not send him to be trained by pagans in hopes of changing the pagan’s minds. The parent is to love his kid first; he can fulfil the Great Commission by being a good father and a missionary. Kids aren’t mature adults and shouldn’t be expected to fulfil the Great Commission like mature adults can (Deut. 6:7; Prov. 22:6; 1 Cor. 3:2). Such neglectful and abusive methods of child-rearing can have good side-effects on occasion, as per Romans 8:28. The good side-effects don’t justify the wrongdoing any more than the good side-effects of murder (Rom. 8:28 again) justify murder.
(Abusive is used here in the Biblical sense. This course, however wrong, does not and should not in itself constitute child abuse requiring state intervention.)
College
Another caveat: I’m here considering K-12 education, not college. Public colleges are dangerous, but not as dangerous as K-12 education. College-age ‘children’ can be mature enough (adults, in another time period) to sift through the public college experience and grow stronger in the Lord through the trial. At any rate, for such mature students, the calculus is different than for younger children, as they have been prepared for the storm (Prov. 22:6) and are less psychologically/ neurologically vulnerable. For immature college students (too large a proportion, nowadays) and for those who find it wise to err on the side of caution, this article still applies.
Can We Justly Call This a Sin?
If the parent knows about public school’s evils, if he has a choice between it and other options, it is a sin for him to send his kids to public school (subject, again, to a caveat). How so? Because a parent has the duty to provide his child with the best possible training for life, and public schools provide sub-par training as a rule. Further, because government should not be running education, it behooves the Christian to avoid endorsing that abuse of state power insofar as he can, by withholding his child from it. This tainting renders public school a morally dubious choice, no matter how well run it is.
Now for the caveat. If the alternatives to public school are just as bad or worse (and given that all private schools are technically regulated by the government on some level, that entanglement is mitigable, not avoidable), the parent can justly decide to send his kids to public school. This exception requires an analysis of the particular situation, of course, and is a matter of choosing the less bad option, not of endorsing public schools. It is a sad indictment of our culture that many private schools cannot justly claim to be provably better than the local public schools.
My position is not without its critics. In this article, David Harris pushes back on using the term ‘sin’ for this admittedly non-ideal act. He reasons that ‘sin’ is a grave term, to be used only after careful proof, and that sending your kids is not always a sin. Because of those exceptions, the argument runs, we should not call it a sin in the headlines. While his premises are correct in themselves, he is wrong in his conclusions.
We know an action is a sin if it violates God’s law. Sleeping with a prostitute is a sin. Shooting your neighbor is a sin. Kicking a dog is a sin. All of these violate His law—adultery, murder, and cruelty (Prov. 12:10) respectively. We know these are sins on perfectly sufficient proof: God told us not to do them. The gravity of the accusation cannot require a higher level of proof than is therein provided. Knowingly providing my (still hypothetical) children with a morally and technically crippling education is obviously and necessarily a contradiction of my God-given duty as a parent (Deut. 6:7; Ps. 127:3-5; Acts 10:2,48). Thus, it is a sin, plain and simple. The gravity of the declaration does not obviate its truth; rather, the truth is emphasized by the gravity.
While the assessment of the right choice may be a matter of wisdom where the line is debatable, once a clear line is drawn, standing on God’s side of that line is a moral duty, and crossing it is a sin. The line here is drawn, and while the broad statement that ‘sending your kids to public school is a sin’ does not cohere perfectly to the line, the deviations do not truly contradict the broad statement—coercion and ignorance are exceptions to all sins, when present or possible. The broad statement serves as a generally accurate summary of the line—because it really is a sin to knowingly and voluntarily sabotage your kid’s life.
The Purpose of Broad Statements
Harris’s argument against calling this a ‘sin’ because it has exceptions has a fundamental flaw: a misconception of the purpose of broad statements. Broad statements are not meant to be exhaustively and precisely true; ‘By faith alone’ goes really wrong if you attach the wrong definition of ‘faith’ or ‘alone’ or even ‘by,’ just as Wilson’s statement goes wrong if you don’t apply a Christian doctrine of sin to it. A broad statement’s purpose is to provide a good starting point, one generally accurate (if in need of nuance), giving the hearer a place to begin a deeper investigation and alerting him to the need for that investigation. They are headlines; they are summaries; they are alarm bells.
Consider the three statements I alleged above. It is wrong to sleep with a prostitute, but not if she’s your wife. It is wrong to shoot your neighbor, but not if he’s trying to kill you. It is wrong to kick a dog, but not if he’s trying to eat your kid. All of these broad statements have exceptions which do not destroy their validity. They convey a correct admonition, even though additional circumstances can alter the verdict. They give men a starting place or summary for their understanding of the topic. Similarly, all circumstances aside, it really is wrong to submit your kid to government education which harms him. In the actual circumstances, you might not know this, or you might have no choice. Just as with ‘Sleeping with a prostitute is a sin,’ the general statement remains a true and valuable warning, even if the matter is more complicated than a single sentence can convey.
Yes, But…. (Conclusion)
Harris is absolutely right to point out that ‘sin’ is a heavy, heavy word. We have a duty to warn each other and the world of sin, to show our brothers in Christ where they are slipping (Luke 12:5; 2 Thess. 3:15) and our brothers in Adam how they damn themselves (Acts 1:8; Col. 1:27-28). Only by exposing an evil can it be remedied. In many, many cases, parents are harming their children unawares, not awake to the damage they do. In some much sadder cases, they simply don’t consider the harm done to be truly important. In such circumstances, the weight of sin is the reason we must declare it. This broad statement is an alarm, a means to jolt men from their slumber and to reprove the recalcitrant. Sin is no small matter, and we have a duty to expose it in our culture wherever it may be found, particularly when it is found within the church itself.
God bless.
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