As a parent, I read the schools section of the supplement Choices in July SC with an eagerness that quickly turned to dismay.

Despite presenting itself as a resource to help Christians make decisions about school choice, it was in fact nothing more than a thinly disguised advertising
brochure. The opening editorial quickly narrowed the choices we are offered to Anglican and Christian schools. The one brief article that did give advice on how to choose schools " suggesting some helpful lines of questioning " also warned us to not believe everything you read in private school advertising (followed, somewhat ironically, by pages and pages of exactly that). A token reference to government schools was made in passing, while the option of home schooling didn’t even rate a mention.

This got me thinking about what a Christian approach to school choice would look like. If we look not to the glossy pages of the Choices brochure, but instead to the not-so-glossy pages of the New Testament, what principles do we find that guide our decision making in this matter, and where do they guide us?

In this article, I’d like to suggest an alternative approach to school choice. It’s not based on whether a school is Anglican or Christian, public or private, but on the way Christians are to be known " by their love. As Christians, we are to live by Christ’s command that we love one another (John 13:34, Gal 6:10). So the relevant factors we need to consider in choosing a school, are those which contribute to, or hinder, our loving one another.

Given the vast array of situations people find themselves in " including the particular needs of individual children, family, and communities in question, and which schools are within geographical and financial reach " there will be no single answer that suits everyone. As a result, we must be gracious with those who make choices different to ours. On the other hand, school choice, just like every other area of life, is one where people will be tempted to make decisions for sinful reasons. Therefore we must make sure we are acting out of love, and not from worldly values.

We love people by acting in their interests, and to do this we need two pieces of information:
1. what is beneficial for the person (or community) in question, and
2. how do we act to secure that benefit.

Much of what is beneficial for people is obvious and agreed on fairly universally " things such as safety, warmth, sufficient food and drink, loving relationships, healthcare, exercise, and an adequate education. Christians, with the benefit of Scripture, add a few more into the mix: knowledge of God’s plans for us and the world, forgiveness from sins, and a relationship with God. (These aren’t mere add-ons, of course, but central " for what good is it to gain the world and lose your soul?) Then, of course, for those of us who have the means, there are lots of great ‘added extras’ which are good in that they enhance our lives: not just basic food, but fresh and delicious food; not just a basic education, but one extends and develops many of a child’s various potentials.

The second question is a bit trickier to answer, and with the best motives in the world, people will differ on how to achieve certain benefits. The recent SC discussion on fair trade is a case in point: everyone agrees that helping third world producers escape poverty and secure fair terms of trade is a good thing, but the issue of how to achieve it divides people. It’s a matter of understanding things about how the world works, and sometimes " often " we have to make decisions with insufficient information.

The goal then, in all such difficult decisions, is to be as well informed as we can, and to act in love.

So how does all this apply to school choice? The starting point is to work out who we need to love,and what benefits (or losses) they may face due to our choice. The most obvious people we need to love as we make decisions about schooling are God, the child(ren) who’ll be attending the school and our families as a whole. But no school is an island, and the impact of our schooling decisions reaches further than individual families into the school community, church community, and even the general community. How we love people in these communities too, then, should be taken into account when we consider our school options.

The list of factors considered below is not exhaustive, no doubt there are many I have missed. But I hope it provides a helpful starting point for thinking about who is impacted by our choice of school, and whether or not that impact is one of love.

Children

The overall goal Christian parents have (or should have) for their children, is to see them know God and his forgiveness, to grow in Christian maturity as they learn to live for him, and be standing firm on the last day. Of course, this is ultimately under God’s control, not ours as parents. But inasmuch as God has given us the privilege and responsibility of working with him, we work towards this goal, and everything we do as parents should be consistent with it.

One important part of growing our children as Christians is to teach them about God and his purposes. Another is to model living as God’s people, teaching them to love as Christ has loved them. Yet another, as we live as aliens and strangers here, is to teach them to live in the world but not be of it, and to stand firm in the face of opposition.

These overarching goals set bounds on our subordinate goals for formal schooling. How we decide which school will help parents work towards these ends depends largely on two things.

First, it depends on the extent to which the load of teaching and modelling Christian doctrines can be carried outside school hours (eg on the available time and Christian maturity of parents, whether the church provides good Christian education programs, whether the child regularly interacts with family and friends who model Christian living and will encourage them). If this kind of input is not available, it may be wise to consider a school where it can be given during school hours, that is, a school where good Christian teaching and modelling is available. This may be a Christian or church school,1 or a public school with a substantial Christian presence through Scripture and the attendance of other supportive Christian families.

Secondly, it depends on how you think Christian development happens. To illustrate this point, consider the following two metaphors for child development. In one, children are viewed as tender young plants who need protection from the world as they develop their own Christian understanding and maturity, until they are ready to face the lies and temptations of the world. Exposing children to the world before they have the resources to protect themselves will see them wither before they have had a chance to grow and strengthen.2

An alternative picture likens a child’s Christian development to that of an immune system: it’s important to constantly be exposed to the world’s contamination, bit by bit, and gradually build up resistance to it. A child who is constantly protected " kept in a sterile environment " simply won’t develop the necessary resistance to fight off what the world throws at them when that time inevitably comes. Both images have some intuitive appeal; which is more accurate is ultimately an empirical question (and one which, as far as I know, has never been rigorously addressed). The fact that people come through all kinds of school systems as strong Christians (and that people fall away in all systems) suggests that there is some truth in each, and that Christian parents need to wisely provide both protection from and exposure to the world throughout the child’s upbringing.

A large part of why we send children to school is to prepare them for life in this world, and this end is entirely appropriate given the Christian goals outlined above. We should choose a school that will enable children to develop the basic knowledge and skills needed to earn a living and live godly lives in our society (be generous, not a burden, live good lives among pagans). In order to do this they need to learn to read and write, to do maths, and to understand how the natural, political, and technological worlds operate. As humans in society we also want our children to learn mutual respect, how to work with their peers, and to engage in sport and artistic pursuits. We also want our children to be safe and happy in this process. Most schools will adequately supply a child’s needs in this area.

Some children have special needs, such as medical, physical or academic difficulties, which can only be met at specific schools, or through home schooling. Such needs must obviously have a big impact on school selection.

Finally, it is worth considering the overt and covert values your child will be exposed to in the various schools you have to choose from. Of the overt values taught by schools, some of these will be entirely appropriate given the Christian goals mentioned above: most school cultures will encourage some form of ‘love your neighbour’ values, for instance, and the importance of self-discipline. Others may conflict with Christian teaching, such as the view that all religions are equally valid, or that only university and corporate careers are valuable. The advantage of overt values is that they are easily identifiable, and so easy to discuss with children. Covert values are just as important to consider, as they are more difficult to identify and therefore to fortify children against. For instance, is there a culture of contempt for students from other schools in the area? Is sporting or academic excellence overemphasised to the point of idolatry? Is there a culture of disrespect for teachers? Will binge drinking be seens as a normal part of life, or brand name clothing a necessity?

No matter which school you choose, keeping an eye on the values your child is picking up is important. In a Christian school, one would hope such values would be consistent with Christianity, but this is not necessarily the case, and parents of kids in these schools cannot just sit back and assume everything is fine. It is often the ideas that can hide easily in a Christian context that are the most pernicious. In a secular school, too, non-Christian values will be present at times, whether through the system, individual teachers or students. Here too, parents will need to take opportunities to discuss these discrepancies as they arise, and to prepare children for the fact that the world we live in does not serve God.

Family

To a degree, loving your child when choosing a school is not independent of loving your family. Stress is put on the whole family when the basic needs of a child are not being met. This is especially the case where a child is being mistreated, but can also result from such things as lack of friends, a poor teacher, or a school culture that is too high-pressure, or that doesn’t value your child’s interests or strengths. Frequently these situations are unforeseeable and so don’t influence original school choice. In many cases, they can be relieved in co-operation with the school, but occasionally the best course is to remove the child from the school both for the sake of the child, and of the family.

Other potential family stressors are easier to predict, and it is worth thinking through which are likely to arise through attending various schools before making a decision. Will the cost put the family under financial stress? Will another source of income be necessary to cover the fees, and what are the implications of that for the family? Will the daily commute to a distant school in heavy traffic eat up family or play time? Are the homework expectations unnecessarily burdensome or are there compulsory activities outside school that mean children lose their family time " be it doing their bit through chores, or having fun together? Will all the children be able to attend the same school, and if not, how much stress will that place on parents trying to keep on top of two or three calendars, fundraisers, parent committees, school communities, and so on?

Church Community

How your school choice affects your church community is very much a matter of the particular circumstances surrounding churches and schools. As well as the traditional model where a number of schools might lie within a particular parish, there are schools set up by or affiliated with a particular church; and occasionally even churches are set up to serve particular school communities. How we love the church community in our choice of schools might look very different in each of these models, but the important thing is that we act in a way to love those in that community.

One obvious way is to avoid cliques. When a number of families in a church attend the same school it is inevitable that they will have a lot in common, and it will be easy to have conversations that exclude others, or to fill up all our social hours with these contacts and let others fall by the way. This is exacerbated even more if all " or most " members attend one single school. One way to avoid this is to forestall the situation, and encourage members to attend a range of different school options; where that isn’t an option it may be necessary to be constantly on guard against the temptation to be exclusive, avoiding school talk when others are around. Cliques are damaging not only for church members excluded from that circle, but also for a church’s ability to love newcomers.Would a newcomer from an elite school feel welcome in your church? From a public school? What about a home schooler?

Another principle we are given in Scripture as we exercise our freedom of choice, is to keep in mind whether that choice will be a stumbling block to others, leading them to sin. Again, varying circumstances within different church communities will determine how this could happen, but it is something to think through.

School Community

The community of families and teachers that you enter when starting at a school become one of the main focal points of your family life for years. Your school community will have an impact on your family, and the role you " children and parents " take in that community can influence that community as well. Therefore, as Christians, it’s good to not only think what we can get out of the school, but how we can serve people there. If, for instance, parent involvement is low, could you take leadership in getting involved and encouraging others to do so? Could you encourage parents to get to know each other socially? Do you have skills in building, IT, or the arts that could be used to the benefit of that community?

When looking at school options, we tend to think of different schools as existing in isolation to each other, but as mentioned above, no school is an island, and as we think about the impact of choosing one, it is worth also noting the impact of our choice on the schools we don’t choose. Consider the following quote from former President of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council, Chris Bonner:

All school principals know, and study after study shows, that the clustering of students with advantageous socio-economic circumstances is a critical factor in explaining the performance and "success’ of a school. The "best’ schools become those which are able to increase their density of such students. Schools use whatever discriminators can be wheeled into place to capture the middle class: admission by test, enrolment criteria, scholarships, enhancing school culture and most importantly, school fees… Even "low’ fees are high enough to ensure that the schools gather together those students and families with a capacity and willingness to pay, inevitably the latter are the most motivated and aspiring families in the district. Anglican and Christian schools, even in or near disadvantaged communities, have been very successful in harvesting these students.3

The more ‘advantaged’ families4 that attend a given school, the better it tends to perform on various measures, such as average academic performance. If, in a given area containing two schools, most ‘advantaged’ students attend school A, fewer will attend school B, and it will correspondingly perform less well overall on those measures.5 6

Parallel to this is the density of Christians in any school community. A strong Christian presence (teachers as well as students and families) in a school is a good thing. For Christians, the support and encouragement of other Christians is valuable. For others, it opens up an opportunity to hear the good news of Jesus " most people who turn to God do so through knowing a Christian. It also makes it easier for Christians to take up, or even create, opportunities to teach students about Christianity. Again though, the maths of distribution is easy: the more Christians are clustered together in one school in any given area, the lower the Christian presence in the others.

So while this clustering (of both ‘advantage’ and Christians) carries various benefits for those in it, we need to be aware that it can come at a cost to others, and weigh up whether the benefits to the advantaged/Christians can be justified in the face of likely costs to those outside these clusters.

The General Community

Our choice of school also has ramifications for our general communities. It’s worth thinking about whether you want to be at school with neighbours, so that you have opportunities to be involved in their lives and love them " in practical things like picking their kids up from school and knowing them when you turn up together at a local park, to socialising with them, being there in case of emergency, and sharing Christ with them. Another consideration is how much you’ll need to use your car, and the implications of this for environmentally responsible living, as well as the more mundane traffic congestion. (Attending a school within walking distance has a whole range of other benefits too " for health, parent involvement in the school, socialising, and convenience when the car breaks down!)

God

Above all, we should consider how we love God in our choice of school. Loving God should be our first concern in everything, and the source of our desire to love one another. After all, it is Christ’s command to us that we love one another: and we show our love for him by obeying it. So all the considerations listed above ultimately flow from our love for God. But there is one more I want to highlight, and that is concern for the honour of God’s name in our world. When we, who bear Christ’s name, live as he commanded, we reflect his character and glorify the Father. But when we fail to love our neighbours, we dishonour his name, and are just like the Jews in Romans 2:17ff, who caused God’s name to be blasphemed among the Gentiles (Romans 2:17-24). We need to ensure that as Christians, we don’t bring dishonour on our Lord, and this applies to both individual Christians and Christian schools.

By claiming a special relationship with Christ, Christian schools take on a special responsibility to act Christianly. The obvious way Christian schools can dishonour God is through being corrupt or mistreating students, and while this does happen, thankfully it isn’t a common occurrence. But another way our schools can fail to honour God is by failing to reflect God’s values. When a school claims to espouse Christian values but is more concerned with preparing its students for corporate life/university entrance/leadership than ensuring all students in the area have access to a good education, for instance, God is not honoured. Christian schools need to be careful that in their dependence on government funding, they don’t compromise their moral purity or support unjust government policy to ensure their viability. They need to be careful not to show favouritism to the rich (James 2:1-4), and to this end, need to be careful that their policies and enrolments don’t lead to the clustering of advantaged and Christian families to the detriment of other schools. Where (or when) our schools cannot operate within these parameters, they need to cease existing as Christian schools, otherwise they take the name of Christ in vain.

As individual Christians, we need to be aware of this and not support a Christian school we see misrepresenting or dishonouring God (cf. 1 Cor 5:9-13), including church or faith schools outside Protestantism. Schools that don’t claim to be Christian have no such responsibility to honour God, and don’t tend to do so in their curriculum or culture. However this doesn’t necessarily prevent individual families from honouring God within their walls. So whether Christian or not, schools, like areas of life, provide opportunities for Christian students and families to honour God. The only difference is whether we are doing so within a culture of honouring God, or whether we have to be counter-cultural and stand out.

* * *

Here, then, is a range of factors that as Christians, we should consider as we choose where to send our children to school. Not all are of equal weight, not all will apply to everyone, and no doubt there are others I’ve overlooked, but I hope these provide a useful starting point. Once the relevant factors have been identified and considered, families still face the job of weighing the pros and cons of various schools for their particular situation. Perhaps there is one single factor that trumps everything else " for instance, if only one school can adequately deal with your child’s medical needs " or you may have an issue of conscience that dictates a particular option. If so, the decision is easy. But this isn’t the case for most families, and given that most children will get an adequate education in most or all of the options available to them, this process may provide no easy answer.

* * *

Finally, a postscript on advertising. There is nothing wrong with schools advertising. But when these schools are Christian, I want to urge them to do so in accord with Christ’s values:
- ads should be clearly identifiable as ads (2 Cor 4:2);
- they should avoid deception, manipulation, and capitalising on parental anxiety (2 Cor 4:2);
- they should not attempt to induce guilt or envy, but actively minimise this as a consequence (1 Cor 10:32);
- they should encourage people to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, and to look not only to their own interests, but also to the interests of others (Phil 2:3-4).

If The Gruen Transfer did an episode on how schools are advertised, Christians should have no cause to blush, nor should the one we represent. Let’s do better.

1 I will use the term ‘Christian school’ to cover both church-specific (Anglican, Presbyterian, etc) and non-church-specific Christian schools.
2 Richard J. Edlin, The Cause of Christian Education (2nd edn), Vision Press, Northport, 1998, p. 36.
3 [url=http://cpd.org.au/article/quality-education-all%3]http://cpd.org.au/article/quality-education-all%3[/url] A-view-ground. See also Laura B. Perry, "School composition and student outcomes: A review of emerging areas of research." (Referred paper presented at the annual conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education, November 2007 in Fremantle, WA.)
4 ‘Advantage’ is measured in a number of ways, usually involving such factors as income, parental education, even whether there are items of high culture in the house, such as original artworks, or literary books.
5 Interestingly, advantaged students tend to perform well regardless of overall school performance, whereas disadvantaged students benefit from the presence of advantaged students. That is, advantaged students don’t tend to be dragged down by low school averages, but disadvantaged students tend to be assisted by the presence of advantaged students (C. Bonner & J. Caro, The Stupid Country, University of NSW Press, Sydney, 2007, p. 91).
6 Note that this is not only relevant to faith and private schools mentioned in the quotation, but also selective vs nonselective schools. This also occurs in areas where one public school is perceived to be better than others nearby, leading to a clustering of advantage

Checklist

Child
- contribution to and consistency with Christian development
- special needs
- safety & happiness
- academic adequacy
- co-curricular opportunities
- overt & covert values of the school culture

Family
- child’s needs being met
- financial impact
- transport stress, time & costs
- outside school-hours expectations
- impact of number of schools attended

Church Community
- avoidance of cliques
- ability to make newcomers feel welcome
- is my choice going to help or hinder godliness in others?

School Community
- opportunities to serve and be generous
- opportunities to have a Christian impact
- benefits/costs of clustering of ‘advantage’
- benefits/costs of clustering of Christians

General Community
- is the school going to help me get to know my neighbours
- environmental concerns
- traffic congestion

God
- if a Christian school, does it honour God?
- if secular, are you as a family willing/able to be countercultural?

Dr Danielle Scarratt completed her PhD looking at how Protestant theology has affected post-reformation ethical theory and has lectured in Sydney University’s philosophy faculty. She attends Christ Church, St George and is currently full-time mum to three kids, two of which attend their local primary school.