I had written a response but never hit "Post". I'm grateful I let it slide, and here goes again. I attended a Christian school in northern NJ graduating in 1969. The school system continues today and is sound and more diverse than when I attended. It was founded out of Dutch, Calvinist culture , to sustain that culture and provide a Biblical world view. It was academically excellent. As I entered the "world' I was ill prepared spiritually but that is not the fault of the school. By contrast when we raised two kids in northwest NJ through the '80's and '90's, we enrolled them in a Christian school K-8 (my daughter attended another Christian school for 9th grade only). It was more diverse but similar to what I had known. Our two transitioned to public high school quite well and went on to public college and excelled. I most appreciate your reference to what really matters; our sanctification. And I hear the strong notes of grace. Ps. 139 is most important. May we seek Jesus to search us and know us. He doesn't quit.
Thanks, Mark. I've had a handful of folks tell me stories about their varying experiences with Christian education since this piece came out, and honestly, none of it surprises me. The range is very wide! One of the four Christian schools I went to was pretty bad -- not academically, but it was so tiny that if you didn't happen to click with the handful of other kids in your class, you were just out of luck. (And I didn't.) I would not send my kids to a school like that.
But others, though -- including the school I discuss in this piece -- were great experiences for me. Would that school have been a great experience in 1994 were I not white? I truly don't know (and can't know from my first-grade memories). So far as I can tell from the outside, though, it has dramatically and *deliberately* changed as an institution over the past four decades, and I think that's representative of a wider positive shift.
I had written a response but never hit "Post". I'm grateful I let it slide, and here goes again. I attended a Christian school in northern NJ graduating in 1969. The school system continues today and is sound and more diverse than when I attended. It was founded out of Dutch, Calvinist culture , to sustain that culture and provide a Biblical world view. It was academically excellent. As I entered the "world' I was ill prepared spiritually but that is not the fault of the school. By contrast when we raised two kids in northwest NJ through the '80's and '90's, we enrolled them in a Christian school K-8 (my daughter attended another Christian school for 9th grade only). It was more diverse but similar to what I had known. Our two transitioned to public high school quite well and went on to public college and excelled. I most appreciate your reference to what really matters; our sanctification. And I hear the strong notes of grace. Ps. 139 is most important. May we seek Jesus to search us and know us. He doesn't quit.
Thanks, Mark. I've had a handful of folks tell me stories about their varying experiences with Christian education since this piece came out, and honestly, none of it surprises me. The range is very wide! One of the four Christian schools I went to was pretty bad -- not academically, but it was so tiny that if you didn't happen to click with the handful of other kids in your class, you were just out of luck. (And I didn't.) I would not send my kids to a school like that.
But others, though -- including the school I discuss in this piece -- were great experiences for me. Would that school have been a great experience in 1994 were I not white? I truly don't know (and can't know from my first-grade memories). So far as I can tell from the outside, though, it has dramatically and *deliberately* changed as an institution over the past four decades, and I think that's representative of a wider positive shift.