Navigating Education: A Parent's Guide to Schooling

At one point, there was little question about where your child was going to school, it was simply the closest public school to your house. In a post-Christian culture that seems to be increasingly hostile to Christianity and Judeo-Christian values at large, it begs the question: where do I send my kids to school?

Depending on where someone lives, the choices may be limited, but in Arizona, where we have all our local Cross Church campuses, we have an abundance of options. So, how do you know what type of school is right for your family?

The Options

Public, Charter, Private, and Homeschool seem to be the four major categories of school today, and each has its pros and cons. Before we dive in, let me give you my experience with all of these various types of schooling. I grew up in the greater Phoenix area and went to my local public school from kindergarten through 12th grade. My two oldest kids attended a charter school for kindergarten through 2nd grade. I have served as an elementary principal and now Administrator over a small Christian School at one of our campuses for the past eight years. And lastly, I have many friends who homeschool and have a lot of experience dealing with different curriculums.

So, what factors should you weigh in selecting schools?

Academic Quality

The effectiveness of academic concepts reaching the student level and being fully grasped comes down to two major factors: the strength of the curriculum and the pedagogy of the teacher. If you have the right teacher teaching the right curriculum, your student is bound to be successful. Public and Charter schools typically thrive in this area because there is so much scrutiny in ensuring that a curriculum is meeting standards, and teachers are required to have the appropriate education and continuing educational credits to keep them up to date.

Parent Involvement

With a high-level curriculum and a professional teacher, students will find success, but to believe this will happen at every grade with every teacher at every school is not realistic. There must be parental involvement for students to have concepts reinforced, have their efforts commended, and just the increasing care of a parent to know what their child's educational journey looks like. There are varying levels of extremes and horror stories that pop up across our country of parents being shut out, but it's fair to say at a Private or Home school level is where parent involvement is seen the most.

Socialization

One of the hardest factors to balance with our children in their educational journey is how much or how little to socialize them. As Christians, do we want our children exposed to every kind of secular or immoral belief and lifestyle? Or do we want to go the other extreme and put them in a Christian bubble so they only see a "safe" community? The hard thing is no option of schooling hits all these categories. A public and charter school needs a strong church family and Christian home life to give a moral compass to guide their kids on what is right and what is wrong. A private and home school environment needs a sports, park, or other friends outside the church to understand what the world is like so our children don't grow up ignorant of the dangers out there.

Kingdom Impact

Here's where Christians have to think deeper about their school choices than our secular neighbors because we are not called to just make sure our kids are as successful as possible in their educational and professional careers, but they are making as great of a kingdom impact as possible. One of the things I am so grateful for growing up was having a strong church family and personal home life that bled into my public school journey and gave me a consistent opportunity to talk about Jesus and invite my friends to church. Can you still have a kingdom impact at a private Christian school or in a home school environment? Absolutely, but it takes more intentionality.

Finding Your Family Fit

Public, Charter, Private, Home...all have pros and cons...all check different boxes of academic quality, parental involvement, socialization, and kingdom impact, but all can fall into the will of God for our family. The question that it really boils down to is how are we going to give our child a godly education that allows them to practice their faith in the real world?

When you look at scripture, there are examples of being educated in a pagan context but rising up to thrive in proclaiming the gospel, like the lives of Moses and Daniel. Or we see the rural family trade that started close to home but branched out into ministries with worldwide impact, like the lives of David and Jesus. There is no one form to educate our kids that rises above all the rest; it's more about how we are Making Jesus Known to our kids and through our kids.