I write to you specifically as a Christian publication about education in our state and a Christian solution to the decline of morals and excellence in the schools. I do not believe that the state will succeed in either of these pursuits by throwing money at the problem, even though I may be in the minority on that point. Instead, I write to encourage Christian mothers and fathers to consider the worldview to which we expose our children in an increasingly secular public sphere.

Even when well-meaning parents ensure their children are brought up in church, the majority of their days are spent in an institution designed to manipulate their worldview, which affects their beliefs, and therefore their actions.

A staggering amount of our children brought up in Christian homes continue to leave the church or the faith in young adulthood and make choices that affect their entire lives and the lives of generations to come. Parents and church leaders are puzzled by this and try every possible solution to minimize the risk of this happening, all while not addressing the elephant in the room: public schools produce secular humanists.

I don’t know if you are familiar with the Nehemiah Institute or the PEERS test, but I encourage you to look into them for they are very insightful in this matter. They have a chart based on research starting in 1988 until 2018 (there may be a more updated version) which shows the worrisome trend of public school students’ decline from a low moderate Christian worldview to secularism – now to almost pure Socialism.

The traditional Christian schools are not immune, as they show a very similar decline only slightly above their public school counterparts. Home schoolers scored better in the moderate Christian worldview, but still lacked a complete understanding of Biblical Worldview. Only one type of school scored in the range of Biblical Theism, which is using the Bible to inform all aspects of life.

This does not negate the wonderful Christians who work in these systems to try to make a difference in that sphere. I praise God for the work they do. My issue is with the institutes themselves and whether our children should even be in them.

If you are familiar with the greatest influencers and shapers of the public school system, you will know the names Horace Mann and John Dewey.

Mann, known as the “father of public education,” believed that education is a means to control the citizenry and that the “state is a father to its children.” He also used the Prussian system of schooling, which was later used by Hitler.

Dewey was a Marxist whose main objective in life was to eradicate Christianity by dumbing down our children, thus destroying America from within. These men were the cornerstone of our American public school system. It is no wonder that we are where we are spiritually. Traditional Christian schools don’t fare much better on the PEERS test because their curriculum is based on what the public schools are teaching but with Scripture added on top of it.

The form of education which produces a Biblical Worldview and protects our republic from demise is the Biblical-classical model of education and was the model used until 1830 when Horace Mann came into the picture. It is based on the principles of the Word of God which guided our founding and is simply called, “The Principle Approach.” Students were taught to read by the Bible but it did not stop there. Every subject was studied through the lens of the Scriptures and produced Christian character and scholarship.

Noah Webster was the father of American christian education and scholarship and the producer of our American Dictionary of the English language which was commissioned by our Congress to define our American language and Constitution for posterity’s sake.

Today’s Merriam-Webster dictionary is a far cry from the original intent of this blessedly Christian volume. A small portion of the definition of education from our original dictionary is this: “… instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations … to give them a religious education is indispensable, and an immense responsibility rest[s] on parents and guardians who neglect these duties.”

Today’s Merriam-Webster (a chasm away from the original) states that education is, “the action or process of educating or of being educated.” It has a few more phrases that do not add to the meaning whatsoever. That’s it. Do we not see a “dumbing down” even in the very definition of education?

When I discovered this travesty of appalling “education” in our nation, I was grieved. Suddenly, my dissatisfaction and frustration with my public education made sense. Biblical-classical education answers the question, “Why do I need to learn this?”  Yet it goes beyond that by saying, “I get to see the glory of God in all of the subjects!”

I learn of God’s perfect order in mathematics or of history being one big thread of the story of the Gospel moving across the Earth. In English, I see that language is a gift from God to communicate and understand Him and my neighbors. Looking through the lens of Biblical-classical education is like waking up from a slumber to which I was ignorant.

This spiral of secular humanism towards a socialistic Godless society can only be stopped by us. We, as parents, grandparents, educators, clergy, businessmen and women must sound the alarm and do a complete one-hundred eighty-degree turn from what we’ve withheld from the upcoming generations. If we do not act, we will lose our Godly American inheritance. We will lose our country and subsequent generations. Please urge your readers to prayerfully consider pulling their children from public schools and sacrificing to give our children a Biblical-Classical Education.

Mrs. Stephanie Holler

PS – Noah Webster’s Dictionary can be found online at websters1828dictionary.com and in print from the Foundation for American Christian Education (face.net) Information regarding Biblical-Classical Education can also be found at face.net. The Nehemiah Institute can be found at nehemiahinstitute.com.