A hub of learning

Learning in school is falling on hard times. Last fall The Atlantic worried that Ivy League students “can’t read books” because they show up never having had to do so in high school.

In December, The New York Times reported that American school children are falling behind with “grim” math test results. And this January, a report in the Wall Street Journal said American grade schoolers “are getting even worse at reading.” It's cause for serious concern. “Students with limited reading skills are less likely to graduate from high school,” reports Matt Barnum and Sara Randazzo. “As adults, they are less likely to vote and more likely to be incarcerated.” Even if your children don’t end up in prison, going through life with lackluster reading skills is a liability in every way.

Lots of things get blamed for the downgrade in learning. Education reporter Dana Goldstein says “experts argue vociferously about a range of potential causes,” that include “school segregation, limited school choice, funding inequities, family poverty, too much focus on test prep and a dearth of instruction in basic skills like phonics.” Add in extended school closures during COVID, smartphones, and social media and there’s no lack of plausible reasons students are falling further behind. We may never know the source of their slide.

Politicians typically respond with more money for education. Goldstein says, “Low-performing students have been the focus of decades of bipartisan education overhaul efforts, costing many billions of dollars.” What have all those billions gotten us? Programs like No Child Left Behind and Common Core Standards but with “uneven results.”

During the last election cycle three states focused on increasing school choice. In Kentucky and Colorado, voters weighed measures to make it possible for state legislators to consider the possibility of school choice, and in Nebraska, voters were asked to defend it. But the teachers unions defeated all three. The Wall Street Journal compared them to the Terminator saying, “They are relentless, and they won’t stop until any alternative to their education monopoly is killed.”

Christians should embrace ballot box efforts to reconnect parents to their children’s schools, and reconnect those schools and all of their staff to parents. Freeing families from substandard schools is a tangible way to love our local neighbors. And recognizing how many future citizens are being educated in failing schools should make all Americans want to improve them.

But whatever happens with public schools in the future, kids need parents to take responsibility for their education today. Ephesians 6:4 tells parents to bring their children up “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” This imperative applies no matter where or when children go to school. The challenges to raising kids who fear the Lord in our day are not greater than when Paul wrote these words in the midst of the pagan culture of Rome. Then, as now, home is where parents must talk about beliefs and ideas with their kids and search the Bible together for answers. It’s where they can have uninterrupted conversations, and cultivate unhurried times for the soul-shaping and character-building work of teaching children how to learn.

Whether parents homeschool or partner with teachers in private or public schools, in the end it will be parents—not teachers, unions, or politicians—who will give an account to God for their children’s education.

Thankfully, parents naturally have the potential to be most influential over what their children learn. When they’re young, children are inclined to follow their parents’ lead. They need their parents to help them develop a love for learning what is good, true, and beautiful. When parents disciple their children—intentionally teaching them the Scriptures, imparting their values, and reading good books together as part of their daily routine—they are inviting their children to love God, and love learning about the world He has made.

It is the privilege of parents to direct their children’s education. To guide children in their understanding of the world is a work unmatched for its influence. Parents are shaping people who will live forever. They should ask themselves: Who do we want our children to be? What do we want them to know? What is essential for them to believe? These are weighty matters that should have parents’ full attention and engagement at every stage of children’s development, whatever mode of schooling they choose.

For all the discouraging news on the public education front, there is hope. Home is where children learn how to learn. It’s where parents pass down the most important, transcendent truths. For the sake of the next generation, wherever children go to school, parents should make home the hub of learning.