Public Education–Is It Spiritual Warfare?

Back in the early 1980s I read an excellent book by Samuel Blumenfeld called Is Public Education Necessary? Mr. Blumenfeld felt that it wasn’t. He has passed away now, but when alive he had considerable credentials to back up his position. He was a graduate of the City College of New York, had taught in both public and private schools, including a private school for children that had learning and behavioral problems. He had participated in educational conferences all around the country. I once heard him speak at a conference in Illinois and was impressed.

He had the history of the public education system in this country down pat. He knew and understood its origins, both from a theological and political perspective. His articles had been published in such periodicals as Esquire, Reason, American Education, Education Digest, Conservative Digest, and others. So, when he talked about education, he knew whereof he spoke.

In the preface for the second edition of this book, Blumenfeld observed: “…not only is public education not necessary, but its continued existence makes true education for the vast majority of American children an impossibility, and it poses a threat to this country’s freedom and security.”

Blumenfeld quoted a 1983 National Commission on Excellence in Education report which very cogently stated that: “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves.”

Actually, it was, and is, an act of war. The problem is that most of America’s parents, Christians included, do not realize that the educational system that “educates” most of their children is at war with them and with whatever Christian beliefs they may have taught their children. That’s not to say that every public-school teacher is anti-Christian in their worldview. I have known several fine Christian folks who have been public school teachers and who try to live out their faith. Some of these had major problems with the public-school bureaucracy. Most of them are now retired or have simply quit because they could not deal with a system that refused to really educate kids and wanted grades padded so kids could pass onto the next grade when they really hadn’t. And many of them do not hesitate to speak out against the public school system now that they are free of its entanglements.

During the textbook protest in Kanawha County, West Virginia in the mid-1970s there were several public-school teachers that spoke against the horrendous textbooks that were being forced on the children there. Blumenfeld noted that this country began its history without public education, “except for some local common schools in New England–and that the federal Constitution did not even mention education…” Education was not to be the prerogative of government–at any level. It was an area left up to parents to deal with. Wherever government tries to deal with it they make a mess of it, and it seems their only solution to what they have done is to pass more laws and create an even bigger mess.

Parents have got to start assuming responsibility for their children’s education and not continue passing that chore on to an omnipotent public education system that is giving us trans-closets and drag queen story hours and then labeling parents as domestic terrorists if they find out what’s going on and don’t like it. The solution is simple–if you don’t like what’s going on–get your kids out–because you are not about to be able to change the system. It is doing what it was designed to do–and that is why this is spiritual warfare and why Christians need to wake up to that fact!