If Christians are to truly take advantage of the disruption in state-run education, much will depend on the training and formation of teachers. Well-trained teachers educate. Indoctrinated teachers indoctrinate. Thus, Christian educators have an incredible opportunity right now to make a difference in this culture. A few years ago, the Colson Center, in partnership with the Association of Christian Schools International, developed Colson Educators, a set of Christian worldview training and formation resources for Christian educators.
The list of reasons for parental rebellion against public education has grown long in recent years. From trans ideology to DEI curriculum to the constant push for activism, many public school classrooms are more committed to indoctrination than instruction.
Though recently intensified, the ideological push to reject objective truth and teach social conformity is not new. Karl Marx promoted removing children from families and enrolling them in state education. Adolf Hitler targeted youth with social propaganda well before the beginning of World War II. And for decades, the heavily federally funded Planned Parenthood has monopolized sex education, teaching risky behavior, abortion, birth control, and LGBTQ theory under taxpayers’ noses and with their dollars.
More recently, even as reading, writing, and math scores plummeted, classrooms and libraries have been stocked with radically sexualized books with no other educational value other than to … radically sexualize kids. Students are forced to comply with the latest “trans equality” efforts and punished if they do not. Third through 5th graders are given “anti-racist reading lists,” and The 1619 Project, which redefined the founding of America as entirely slave-based and racist, boasts that “thousands of teachers across every state” use their content.
This last point may be the most significant.