Evangelical writer faces backlash after saying public schools might be worthwhile

A Christianity Today editor made a religious case for sending kids to public schools. Readers couldn't handle it.

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Last year, the Washington Post ran a really fascinating article about a Christian couple with four kids that decided to (gasp) send their kids to a public school. The parents, Christina and Aaron Beall, were about as conservative as you could get. They were both products of Christian home-schooling and fundamentalist cultures.

They grew up believing birth control was evil, Creationism was true, and dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark. They also thought public schools were “indoctrination camps” run by the government in part to turn children against Christianity. So of course they assumed they would home-school their own kids.

But then they grew a bit older. They began questioning certain aspects of their Christian upbringing and how it facilitated abuse, sheltered them from scientific realities, and espoused archaic gender roles. They also happened to live in an area with excellent public schools. So when their oldest daughter began first grade, they took a leap of faith, so to speak, and sent her there.

Their daughter loved it. Her teachers loved her. She made new friends. She became a better reader. And very quickly, all the concerns the parents had about public schools began fading away. “People who think the public schools are indoctrinating don’t know what indoctrination is. We were indoctrinated,” said Aaron. The article noted that any doubts they had about public school were “usually silenced by their wonder and gratitude at the breadth of their children’s education.” Christina even began volunteering in the classroom.

As I wrote at the time, public schools, like all institutions, have flaws. They aren’t and shouldn’t be immune from criticism. But the Christian Right has spent decades lying about the extent of those problems to an audience of believers predisposed to hating anything connected to the government. They demonize hard-working teachers and administrators and try to take over school boards in order to replace expertise with right-wing indoctrination. Just last month, actor Kirk Cameron claimed that kids who attend public schools will come out of them as “little Marxists… little atheists, drag queens, strippers, drug dealers.”

At the same time, home-schooling comes with its own set of problems. We’ve seen religious communities fail at this time and time again. One home-schooled Christian has written about how she had to create her own high school transcript. The powerful Home School Legal Defense Association has repeatedly fought against any kind of oversight on Christian parents, a move that allows abusive behavior, both physical and educational, to remain hidden from public view. There’s no way to make sure students are receiving even a rudimentary education under the policy goals of those Christian Right groups—though other non-profit organizations are working to change that.

That’s why I was intrigued by a recent essay published by Stefani McDade in Christianity Today, where she serves as theology editor.

McDade writes that “the Christian case for public schooling is worth revisiting.” While it would be nice if she called out some of those lies in the evangelical world about public schools, she avoids doing that entirely. Nor does she offer any criticisms of home-schooling. Instead, she argues that public schools are worth revisiting because they’re a test of faith—kids get to experience being in an environment where not everyone shares their beliefs! They might be asked about why they believe what they believe! They’ll have to defend their faith from a young age! (She and her husband currently plan to send their kid to public school when she’s old enough.)

McDade writes about her own abrupt transition, in the middle of sixth grade, from being home-schooled in Florida to attending a public school in Washington state. That would be tough for anyone, but it was especially tough for her because of how seriously she took her religion. She says she was bullied as a result of it and it took time to figure out how to stand up for herself. It would have been so much easier, she writes, if she always attended public schools and was used to being an outcast.

Once I was regularly provoked at school, I had to learn why I believed what I believed. I had to make my faith my own. With my parents’ guidance, I began reading apologetics books so I would know how to respond when someone attacked my views. That decision began a trajectory that led to who and where I am today, serving as theology editor at CT.

On one level, I sympathize. Bullies suck. Being different sucks. Middle school sucks. Getting picked on by middle school bullies because of your differences sucks. One upside to that is that, if you can get through all that, you may come out stronger on the other side.

At the same time, it’s hard to imagine the difficulties of being a Christian anywhere, even in Washington. I would bet good money that young Muslims who go to school in conservative areas would do anything to face the kind of backlash experienced by a young Christian in the Pacific Northwest. Hell, even her anecdotes read like a God’s Not Dead script—including a teacher who writes in her yearbook, “Don’t be hindered by dogma.” While inappropriate, if that’s meant to be an indication of the adversity she faced, it doesn’t sound all that bad.

But it’s not hard to see where she’s coming from. She was a believer from a young age and going to a public school where not everyone was a Christian helped strengthen her faith.

That’s why she says more Christians should consider public schools for their kids. After all, those children are going to leave their Christian bubble at some point. Do evangelicals want it to happen in college (or later), when they can’t monitor everything their kids do, or in elementary school, when their kids are still living under their roofs?

Think of it like strength training: Your children need to build muscles of faith, and public school can provide weight to lift while you’re around to spot them. Let them wrestle with worldly counternarratives to God’s truth while they’re still under your care. That may feel risky, but the alternative—keeping them sheltered, then letting them be exposed to everything all at once when they leave home for work or college—is risky too. 

Given that people like me are the “risk” she’s worried about, I can safely say her fears are completely overblown. If your kids need theological armor to protect themselves from reality—or the obvious questions about her beliefs posed by people who don’t share them—then it’s the faith that’s the problem. Students, at least in my experience, are much more tolerant today of people’s differences, including religious ones, and those differences only become a problem when someone tries forcing their faith on others. Being annoying is a far bigger liability in middle school than being Christian. My kids aren’t being raised with any religion and I’ve spent a grand total of zero nights staying up worrying about how they might get exposed to their friends’ religious beliefs, because I’m not trying to force them to adopt my own views.

But I’ll accept her premise. The idea that Christians shouldn’t be afraid to break out of their bubbles is a good one. It’s good for the kids and it’s important for the other people in their classes (for the same reason). So I appreciate a Christian writer urging Christians to at least consider sending their kids to public schools. The water’s warm. You can come in. Or at least dip your toes in the shallow end.

I would add that if that’s the only reason you’re sending your kids to a public school—to inoculate them against people of different faiths—then your priorities are out of order because there are so many excellent, positive reasons to consider public schools.

Unfortunately, none of those reasons get any column space. What’s the use of telling readers of Christianity Today to consider public schools if you’re not debunking some of the various lies told about them in church communities?

In that sense, the piece just doesn’t have much substance.

And yet right-wing Christians lost their goddamn minds over it.

As John Fea documented at Current, the right-wing backlash against the piece—just for asking Christians to consider public schools—was off the charts. Here’s just a taste of it:

Just a whole bunch of conspiracy-driven crazies who have absolutely no clue what goes on in public schools… yet they know it’s evil. All the while, there are countless Christians who sent their kids to public schools anyway, whatever their fears may have been, and discovered they had been lied to about what goes on inside.

I don’t give a damn about the spiritual development of their kids, especially the kids who aren’t old enough to seriously think about those issues. But great public schools provide a great general education. If these Christians parents care about their children, and they’re able to send their kids to a quality public school, it should at least be an option. It sure as hell shouldn’t be treated like some sort of inherent nightmare.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

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