What Makes a Good Christian School?

By Dan Smithwick

The Christian school movement in America is roughly 40 years old. In the late 60’s and early 70’s many parents and churches began the process of starting Christian schools. This was due largely to many changes in the public school system that caused red flags to alert parents. Among the troubling changes in public schools (better called government schools) were removal of prayer in classrooms, removal of the Ten Commandments from hallways and classrooms, restriction of teacher’s displaying Christian objects (including a copy of the Bible) in their classroom, elimination of prayer before athletic events, a ban on Bible studies on school premises and even prevention of Christian students from sharing their faith with other students. In a few cases, parents were able to get some of these liberties reinstated under the Equal Access laws but the overall trend was the successful elimination of any practice that referenced Christianity in a traditional sense.

But Christian schools were not started only because of restrictions on expressions of the Christian faith. Many parents saw the change in curriculum as troubling -- less emphasis on academics in favor of ‘social issues’ classes, addition of seemingly nonessential courses, downgrading of American history, group study over independent study, grade inflation and backing off on accuracy of grammar in most subjects. The emphasis being placed on ‘self-esteem’ also became a concern. Discipline was replaced frequently with a ‘you’re okay’ attitude toward misbehaving children.

Another frequent concern expressed by parents was the inability to get access to school personnel and board members over the changes taking place. For many, the school no longer looked like what they remembered as the ‘good old school days’ when the emphasis was on the 3 R’s (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic), lots of homework and strong discipline.

For several years in the 70’s and 80’s, Christian schools were being formed at a rate of about three per day. We now have approximately 12,000 private Christian schools in the United States providing alternative education to roughly 12-14% of America’s youth. The schools were either church-based (usually housed in a local church) or independent Christian schools supported by families/churches in the community. On average, parents are paying approximately $3,500 per year, per child for their new education program. Another 3-5% of youth are now being homeschooled, leaving the public school system for mostly the same reasons.

During the past few years, perhaps since the early 90’s, the growth of Christian schools seemed to reach a plateau. In fact, a good number of Christian schools have closed. Many church-based schools began to rethink if it was worth the cost and effort to maintain their school.

Our ministry, the Nehemiah Institute, was founded in 1986 primarily to work with Christian schools involving the subject matter of ‘biblical worldview.’ Our initial work, and still our primary work, was to provide an assessment program that would aid Christian educators in discerning how effectively they were instilling a biblical mindset in their students of the various academic subjects being taught. Our assessment program, known as PEERS Testing, focused on five particular disciplines: Politics (civil government), Economics, Education, Religion and Social Issues (sociology), thus the acronym PEERS. It was common of course for Christian schools to have in their mission statement something to indicate that their goal was to provide biblically-based or Christ-centered education. Often we would see statements such as ‘We provide high academic training plus Bible class.’ This statement is troubling and to no small degree is the reason why many Christian schools today are struggling to be a good Christian school. More on that later.

Over the past few years, we now commonly see Christian schools including the term ‘biblical worldview’ in their promotional literature. The phrase has become popular in Christian education and a number of ministries are now offering biblical worldview material. Parents are asking for this and schools are quick to assure them, ‘Yes, we provide a biblical worldview education.’

But, all of this begs the question, “Is your Christian school a good Christian school?” After nearly twenty years of our assessment program with nearly 1,000 Christian schools, we are seeing a dramatic chasm develop within the Christian school community. Our assessment tool rates schools (and individuals) into one of four worldview classifications: Biblical Theism (scores of 70 -100), Moderate Christian (scores of 30 -69), Secular Humanism (scores of 0 -29) and Socialism (scores from 0 to -100). Based on our validation work of the PEERS Test, we draw the line at 70 for reflecting a good biblical worldview understanding. Our work of the past twenty years gives evidence that approximately 5% of Christian schools are achieving this level. Roughly 50% fall into the Moderate Christian worldview classification, 40 in the Secular Humanism category and a few actually score in the Socialism category. These results indicate that much work remains in having our Christian schools be good schools.

I have stated in the past (and not meaning to be overly critical) that it would appear in most cases, we took the kids and books out of one building, put them in another building, added a Bible class and a chapel service, and called it Christian education. The problem seems to have been that in addition to the kids and books, we also brought along the philosophy of education from the government school system. That is why we say that the distinguishing mark of a ‘good’ Christian school is to have a thoroughly biblical philosophy of teaching and learning.

In response the questions posed by many schools we have worked with, “What can we do to improve our program?” We began offering curriculum material and in-service training of faculty. In this faculty training, we pose the question; “When does the education of a child began? High school? Junior high? Age four? Age two?” The answer we then give is -- none of the above, it begins 100 years before he or she is born. What we mean by that is that every child enters school where a philosophy of education exists that has been developed over several decades by people wanting to be educators. The science of learning is known as pedagogy. And the pedagogy of the government school system in America, and to no small degree in Christian schools, was developed by John Dewey -- the son of a minister who grew to despise Christianity and labored for a life-long career in developing a secular, experienced-based system of schooling. Dewey’s program replaced what America had as a philosophy of education for over 200 years (1630 – 1850), which was largely what we today call Christian education. It was education founded upon biblical reasoning.

We also pose the question to faculty in our in-service training program: “What makes a Christian school Christian?” We offer, 1) Christian mission statement, 2) Christian faculty, 3) Christian books, 4) Christian board, 5) Christian parents, 6) All the above, or 7) None of the above. We then state, #7 is correct. You can have all six items, and still not have a Christian school. The point we then make is that a Christian school is one that is “Governed by biblical principles of education.” That means it functions under biblical principles of teaching and learning, not just having ‘biblical content’ from Christian people. There’s a world of difference, or as we say, a difference in worldview.
In the schools that rank in the Biblical Theism category, we find that they have gone to great lengths to restore this philosophy of education. These schools do not see academics and Bible training as two separate issues. They state (and practice) that good Bible training in ALL classes is what leads to high quality academic education. It is also what leads to a mature biblical worldview understanding. Their standardized test scores substantiate their claim to excellence in education.

We are familiar with two programs that do this very well. One is known as the Principle Approach and the other is known as the Classical Christian School Model. We have had Christian schools from these models where the class average on our PEERS Test was above 80. That is a remarkable achievement and evidence of a very different school than Christian schools which score in the 20’s on the PEERS Test, which is becoming the norm over the past 2-3 years.

Both of these programs can be viewed on our web site, www.nehemiahinstitute.com by going to the School Association tab and then links to ACCS (Classical model) and FACE (Principle Approach model).

If you are concerned about your school, the first place to start is with the worldview assessment program. PEERS Testing is available for elementary grades (5, 6), junior high and senior high. It is quite important to also have school leaders and faculty participate in the initial assessment.

Good Christian schools do exist. They generally are not the most expensive schools, usually smaller in size and have intentionally instilled biblical worldview understanding in three critical areas, 1) staff development, 2) curriculum selection, and 3) parent training. Strong leadership is a must.

For further information on our work with Christian schools, call 1-800-948-3101 and request a free information packet on PEERS Testing.

Dan Smithwick is the President of Nehemiah Institute, holds a B.S. degree in mathematics/ education from North Dakota State University, has taught in both public and private schools and has served as a board member of four Christian schools. The Nehemiah Institute a research foundation providing unique worldview testing and training materials to Christian educators. The testing program, known as PEERS Testing, has been used by nearly 1,000 high schools and colleges in all states in America and by various education groups in other countries.