# 091 07/23/01 Private schools have strong involvement from their parents

I want to make a public apology to Brenda Russell, the administrator at Plainview Christian Academy. I was asked to pray for the school administrators at the July 4 th Prayer Breakfast. I failed to mention Brenda even though her name was on the list in my pocket. Brenda, please accept my sincere apology.

Even though I am proud to live in a country that offers free education to every child, I am also a supporter of private education. Plainview Christian Academy is an example of what happens when schools are free to teach Christian values along with academics.

Private schools are successful because of the strong involvement of parents in the entire education of their children. If you take a close look at PCA and most other private schools, parents are teaching, leading, coaching and making decisions in the schools. Parents also choose the textbooks, sponsor the trips and help where they are needed.

The public schools that were established in this country’s infancy were very much like the good private schools today. The Bible was an important textbook. Parents were involved in the discipline, the hiring of teachers and the curriculum. They were recruited to build the schoolhouse and to keep it repaired. School was an integral part of family life.

Today, public schools are struggling to survive because important decisions are being made in places far away from the children they serve. Even those of us who have no children in school need to be involved with policy decisions affecting our schools. Otherwise, we may not have the moral and educated citizens we need for our nation to survive.

We should look at private schools to see if there are ideas we could use to make our public schools better. We definitely need more local control. If we do not take our public schools back from the bureaucracy, private schools will become the only way we can decide what and how our children learn.