Public Schooling Breaks ALL Ten Commandments
It is not difficult for some devout Christians to see the ungodliness of government education in some way or another. Unfortunately, too few see how pervasively evil it truly is. Too many see only relatively limited evils and are willing to endure these for a variety of reasons. It is time to see and acknowledge the full truth.
The homeschool and Christian private school world is growing rapidly, and the largest single factor behind this growth has been Common Core. This means there is a large influx of people into the homeschooling movement who are relatively accepting of public schooling and have tolerated its evils for some time until Common Core arrived. Their critique of public schools will, therefore, not be as robust as it should be, and this is probably due to a lack of acknowledgment, and perhaps even basic knowledge of just how deep the evil in the system runs.
I don’t think I can put it any more succinctly than this: public schooling defies every one of the ten commandments. Now, it would take a little longer to spell this out fairly and make all the connections clearly. I won’t take the space for that today. I will simply make the case based upon the current condition of the public school system at which we have arrived, and which I think is the logical outworking of the system.
The “Ten Commandments” Case Against Government Schools
The public school system promotes (or at the very least, refuses to oppose) abortion.
It exposes children to, and in some cases encourages, early sexual activity. It simultaneously declines to say anything against pornography, easy divorce, homosexuality, or transgenderism.
It also is the number one avenue of introducing children to drug use, either through peers or through D.A.R.E. programs.
It is built and operated on taxation—money extracted by coercion, bonds floated on promises of future taxation, and inflation.
It involves the operation of a powerful propaganda machine of “for the children,” as well as all kinds of half-truths, deceptive maneuvers, and outright lies pertaining to budgets, pensions, curricula, infrastructure, referenda, and more.
Finally, it is never satisfied with current revenues and powers. Based in the taxation of other people’s property already, it continually eyes that property for ways to get more of it in order to build its own system to greater heights. It continually covets the property and income of citizens, whom it deems most fundamentally by the name of “taxpayers”—a telling admission in itself.
All of these things, and more like them, take place routinely in the larger public school systems throughout this land. When you boil them down to the basic sin beneath each one, you’ll have to acknowledge that the system taken as a whole (including your “our schools are different” schools, too) is guilty of the following basic sins:
Murder
Adultery
Theft
False Witness
Covetousness
I shouldn’t need to tell you what list of commandments those five things violate. In short, this system is built upon routinely defying the entire second half of God’s law.
Now, these alone should be enough to invalidate the system for any Christian, and should be enough to get any Christian to acknowledge that no system could be constructed upon these things and even be called good, let alone Christian. No Christian should be involved in such a system, dependent upon it, or certainly not trusting it to educate their children.
Further consideration, however, makes it even worse: many years ago, the system became logically consistent with itself and outlawed Bible instruction, then, any religious instruction, then prayer, then anything perceived to be linked to religion, such as morality. The system soon morphed into enforcing toleration of other religions, and, as reason would have it, enforcing toleration of other moralities, etc.
In short, we can say with confidence that the system is built upon, and operates by, defying the entire first half of the ten commandments also.
We shouldn’t be surprised at this. Any system built fundamentally upon theft, covetousness, and false witness will inevitably reveal its true god and its true morality eventually, unless it repents first.
Repentance of theft and covetousness would, of course, entail fully privatizing the system, and thus the full elimination of all government/public education systems.
When you then recall that the public education system is only one government agency built and operated on these same principles, you’ll be forced to take the same analysis to every other agency—all kinds of government officials at all levels, police, fire, federal, courts, prosecutors, and the full gamut of the alphabet soup agencies. You’ll soon recognize the same types of violations throughout the system.
In short, the modern state—federal, state, and local governments—beginning with public schools, are built upon the systematic defiance and trampling of the entire law of God.
If you want a real reason to homeschool, you must start here. Surface reasons like Common Core are but mere symptoms of a much large and deeper problem with poisonous roots. Once you start here, however, you must acknowledge that every area of government, and much of the rest of modern life, needs the same analysis and prescription for reformation and healing.
If we have ears to hear and the courage to acknowledge it, we have much work ahead of us. The good news is we have the tools to start getting it done.
If you would like a longer version of my views, you can of course read the first essays in Restoring America. There I lay out the unadulterated biblical view for ten areas of life—in an attempt at least to be radically faithful to the Ten Commandments.