The Gospel Coalition, an evangelical Christian resource ministry, hosted a debate earlier this year entitled “Should Christian parents send their children to public school?” There were two participants and a moderator, although everything was as cordial as can be expected considering the fraught topic.

Bible teacher Jen Wilkin took on the mantle of representing Christian parents who happily send their children to government schools. She spoke for approximately fourteen minutes and essentially exhorted Christian parents to, if at all possible, choose public education for their kids. Detailing her personal experience of sending her five children to public school, she went on to weave a fabric of partial truths about Christian mandates from Scripture and got very close to claiming it imperative for Christians to uphold our educational system in America, heavily relying on Philippians 2:4 to bolster her admonishing: “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

Regardless of your opinion on schooling, anyone listening to the debate would notice that Wilkin was binding the conscience of fellow believers. We could possibly give Wilkin a pass with these strongly worded yet kindly delivered suggestions; after all, her children did attend school almost two decades ago when the landscape looked quite different. Still, Christians have to reckon with what she said and with what is actually happening in our schools.

In current culture, you don’t have to search hard to find criticism lobbied against private and homeschools. One of the chief concerns of opponents is the issue of “indoctrination” and “extremism.” Wilkin said that extremism can be a feature of private or home schools and shared that she endured negative experiences within private school spaces. Critics claim a belief system will be transferred to children (which is true for all children), without their consent (correct, as they are not yet mature enough to consent or decide knowledge transfer),  which will be harmful (well, it depends on who you’re asking).

Regardless of your opinion on schooling, anyone listening to the debate would notice that Wilkin was binding the conscience of fellow believers. Still, Christians have to reckon with what she said and with what is actually happening in our schools.

These nay-sayers assure us that the government-run education system in the United States provides a neutral and religion-free education. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Private schools, be they Orthodox Jewish, Muslim, or Catholic institutions, make no bones about the curriculum, teachings, and religious beliefs to which they adhere. Homeschoolers are the same. So it has been for all of time. For most of human history, families have educated their own children based on their own belief system. The American people either have amnesia or have never really understood that public education for the masses began rather recently.

Yes, there were public schools in the United States as early as 1630, but these were sparse and explicitly Protestant. It wasn’t until the mid-nineteenth century that they became more widely available and began to spread countrywide. Since the early twentieth century, government schools have created a robust workforce with a production line concept to administer academic transfer.

Slowly, and then all at once, the public education project in our country began to derail.

Fueled by and as an outcome of the feminist and sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, schools became a new battleground for progressive teaching and thought. The 1980s added a layer of unique decadence, the 1990s a new layer with a hint of social justice, and the 2000s a full-on assault on anything traditional. Once Obergefell was handed down in 2015,  anyone with eyes could have predicted that any number of sexual predations would become commonplace and eventually be addressed with children in educational atmospheres.

Fast forward to 2020. Lockdowns hit. George Floyd. Social and racial unrest. Riots in the streets. Critical race theory. School at home. “Pride” initiatives are inserted into school activities, both openly and covertly. Social-emotional learning appears within state frameworks that promote “equity and inclusion” based on socioeconomic status and privilege.

Move quickly to 2023. Record low math and reading scores among American youth. Violence in schools against teachers and students. Depression skyrockets in teens. Social contagion spreads in the country regarding transgenderism and LGBT identification, and civic awareness falls to an all-time low for young people. Children are not being taught basic life skills but being force-fed gender ideology, and an overwhelming number of students are addicted to their smartphones and pornography.

Once Obergefell was handed down in 2015, anyone with eyes could have predicted that any number of sexual predations would become commonplace and eventually be addressed with children in educational atmospheres.

Even still, many critics of any type of education other than government education will assert that “public education is neutral.” They falsely claim that government schools are simply transmitters of facts and data, and nothing more.

It’s past time for Christian parents to awaken to the fact that no neutral education can exist. Your child will be indoctrinated in something. The real question is what indoctrination is acceptable to you.

I believe that Wilkin had the best of intentions. However, her plea to Christians that it’s a biblical mandate to use what limited time we have with our children to make inroads at the local government school in order to maintain a withering education for all is very misguided. We are finite creatures and our time is at a premium; for Wilkin to assert that Christian families need to use public schools or else risk neglecting society is placing a dangerous and undue burden on families.

It’s also underestimating the negative cultural impact these schools are having on children. The time has passed when Christian parents can reliably claim that their child would receive an adequate and “neutral” education within our government schools. It’s a hard truth to accept, but it is true nonetheless.