The classical Christian choice

When my husband and I toured our children’s classical Christian school for the first time, I didn’t have any issue with our current public school. I genuinely appreciated the school and loved our teachers. But upon discovering classical learning, it felt like the blindfold was removed, revealing what an education is really for. It’s not about producing competent workers who bring home a solid paycheck until retirement, but about shaping souls who love what God loves and see life under His purpose. 

After reading up on classical learning, I knew my young children’s education was a work in discipleship for life and proper spiritual formation for their long-term orientation to the world. And I wanted a choice in that direction. 

At the time, our school did not take school choice vouchers, so my husband and I prayerfully made the difficult decision to pay full price for such an education. It was a step of faith that required us to pull funds from our children’s college savings funds. But, months later, we were grateful to hear our school would begin accepting vouchers—relieving our financial burden substantially. 

That track is becoming available to far more American families this year, which gives Christians the opportunity to contribute to their child’s formation in this way. There are 201 private school choice bills across 36 states in the 2026 legislative session alone, covering new programs, expansions, eligibility changes, and accountability measures. 

Texas launched its Education Freedom Accounts program, and now nearly 30 states have now opted into the federal tax credit scholarship program. Alabama budgeted $250 million to serve 50,000 students through its ESA program. 

Money that once flowed only to district schools is increasingly following the child, and many families are grateful. Much of the coverage of this shift focuses on economics and outcomes, from test scores and enrollment numbers to the question of whether school choice programs drain public school budgets. We should have those debates, but it’s important to recognize that when families can choose, an increasing number are moving toward classical, Christian learning. 

According to Arcadia Education, 264 new classical schools were started between 2019 and 2023, with existing schools growing at nearly 5% per year. This represents a rejection of the premise underneath most modern American education, public and private alike, which can treat children as skinsuits with productivity skill in the making—rather than disciples to be prepared for mission. 

Classical Christian schools are different even from other Christian schools. The classical model begins by assuming a child is a soul made in the image of God, with a nature that can be shaped toward wisdom and virtue or shaped away from it. School is one of the primary places where that shaping happens.

Classical schools follow the Trivium, which includes grammar, logic, and rhetoric. This is more than just a curriculum—it’s a stairway to intentional soul formation. Students memorize and absorb facts in the early years, learn to reason and argue as they mature, and eventually learn to communicate truth persuasively and well. 

Along the way they read the great, classic books, wrestle with big ideas across centuries, and learn about the “true, good and beautiful” things of the world. Discerning these things amid the plot points of the secular world is one of the main points of their education. 

This approach runs directly against the grain of what most American children absorb in a typical school day. Public education in 2026 is not usually neutral ground. Despite what we’re told, it carries its own catechesis—one built on therapeutic self-expression and a moral relativism where the highest virtues are nonjudgment and an unrooted, undefined “kindness.”

Kids are rarely taught that human nature is fixed or that some truths hold across time and culture. Instead, they’re often taught a confusing and rootless opposite: that identity is fluid, truth is personal, and the highest good is whatever feels authentic to the individual. It’s a secular religion and pagan catechesis, even if they insist on calling it public education. 

Critics still dismiss classical Christian education as a retreat for the wealthy or the anxious, a “selfish” option for families with the means and motivation to opt out. I understand the impression, because when you hear about kids learning Latin and Great Books and the Socratic method, it can sound like a fancy education only for families with a disposable income. 

But that impression is increasingly out of date, and school choice is precisely what is closing the gap. ESAs and tax credit scholarships are opening classical Christian schools to families that could never have afforded them otherwise. Many Christian parents are looking—and hoping—for a genuine opportunity to educate their kids in a way that honors their own values.