What Public Schools Have to Do with a Full Life

Last updated on: September 5, 2011 at 9:21 am by Amy Julia Becker

What Public Schools Have to Do with a Full Life 2011-09-05T09:21:21-04:00 Amy Julia Becker

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Last Friday, Family Life broadcast a conversation between Martha Manikas Foster and me about why Christians should consider sending their children to public schools, even “failing” public schools. It was based on a post I wrote for her.meneutics, the Christianity Today women’s blog, last year, “How Christians Will Save America’s Public Schools.” Click here to listen to the interview. You’ll get to hear what I was labeled by my peers in high school (for better or worse), and hopefully you’ll help me think about what it means to care for our kids in the context of caring for our community.

A few excerpts to whet your appetite:

“As Christians, we don’t believe that success in life is about going to the right college so that you can get a good job so that you can make a lot of money. We believe that success is about understanding who you are in God’s sight, and being able to give back from who you are to the community as a way of honoring who God is, and if you haven’t gone through high school and gotten a basic education, it’s pretty hard to do that.”

“It’s tempting to think that schooling is about my individual child and helping them achieve their greatest potential . . . But my hope is that we would be thinking about our children in the context of community . . . ”

“I’m not advocating that children be missionaries but I am advocating that families be engaged in loving their neighbors.”

Where do you send your kids to school? What prompted you to make that choice?

(By the way, stay tuned for an interview with Diane Markins on Wednesday about A Good and Perfect Gift . . . )

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