Equality is the Product of Freedom to Learn

America public schooling has shifted from our basic Judeo-Christian values.  The last three generations have been indoctrinated to ignore this heritage that is basic to our freedoms. The liberal, progressive focus does not want to look back to the presupposition—well described “One nation under God” on which our nation was founded.

Public education is shifting from moral to the amoral or immoral perspectives. The value of  “righteousness” has been shifted to “rights.” You can publicly say “GD”, and it is not politically incorrect, but whoa to the person who says the “N” word. In respect to creation by God’s sovereign “Word,” it has shifted to that of “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest” with this becoming ultimate with no room for questioning, even though Darwin himself was very much troubled by some of the implications of his theory. 

Ask most Americans if the “separation of Church and State” is in our Constitution, and they will answer, “Yes.” Scour our Constitution, and you will NOT find the phrase, “separation of Church and State” or anything close to it. Our Constitution, however, does affirm equality, but it is there “endowed by our Creator,” not imposed by the state.  

In the Constitution of the Soviet Union the doctrine of the separation of Church and State is found: “In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the State, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens” (Article 124). Article Twelve of the 1918 Soviet Constitution decrees that no church or religious organization “shall enjoy the rights of judicial person.” Instruction of children under age 18 in religious matters, whether in public or private, was against the law.

Rather than see people as individuals, our educational focus has been to set up programs and policies to promote what is esteemed to promote educational equality in respect to sex, race, and socio-economic backgrounds. Equality is not seen as a gift from God, but something established by the State, both dejure and defacto.  

But equality should not mean necessarily to achieve equal test scores on achievement tests. In the 24 September 2010 USA TODAY Mary Beth Marklein wrote an article, “College Board Encouraged by Lack of Change in SAT Results.” The encouragement was that the high school class of 2010 scored about the same as that of 2009, and that forty-one and one-half percent of those who took the test were minorities in contrast to forty percent earlier. The reading average was 501 for both years, math was up one from 515 to 516, and writing was down slightly from 493 to 492. With more minorities taking the tests and the score remaining the same, this seemed to be an affirmation of the direction of American public schooling. 

It was also noted that, “Over the past ten years as minority participation grew seventy-eight and three-tenths percent that math scores climbed two points while reading scores declined four points.” It is interesting also Marklein brought out the fact that the “No Child Left Behind” law has created problems in that since it was started 2003-04 that reading scores have declined from 508 to 501, math from 518 to 516, and writing scores  dropped five points from 497 to 492 since math was added in 2005.

Racial and ethnic gaps in test scores, however, are not narrowing; as since 2006 average scores for Asian-Americans are up thirty-six points in contrast to the scores for the blacks that are down fourteen points. Hispanics scores are low, slightly above the blacks. The results “contradict the claim that more high-stakes testing improves education and quality.” Marklein says. Can’t we see testing doesn’t affirm, nor promote equality, as each student is an individual!

John Stuart Mill wrote about 160 years ago, “A fixed rule, like that of equality, might be acquiesced in, and so might change, or an external necessity; but that a handful of human beings should weigh everybody in the balance, and give more to one or less to another at their sole pleasure and judgment, would not be borne unless from persons believed to be more than men, and backed by supernatural terrors” (Principles of Political Economy—1848). 

F.A. Hayek used Mill’s statement about the rejection of socialistic forces and the rejection of our spiritual freedoms. Back in the early 1940s he wrote that the “Socialists…traditionally hope to solve this problem…by education. But what does education mean in this respect? Surely we have learned that knowledge cannot create new ethical values, that no amount of learning will lead people to hold the same views on moral issues which a conscious ordering of all social relations raises.” (The Road to Serfdom, Vol. 2—2007)  Public education should see this fallacy!

Statistics indicate students in conservative Christian schools traditionally earn higher average scores on standardized tests in mathematics, reading, science, and writing compared to their public school counterparts (Council for American Private Education, 2008, and the National Center for Educational Statistics, 2006).

Let freedom and equality be promoted by education from the bottom up, not the top down. Private schools are doing this. Private schools enroll only eleven percent of all students but they are doing the job, while public schools are failing. Most private school students (eighty-one percent attending religiously affiliated schools) cost about one-third per student compared to that of the public schools.  Why not encourage private, even religious schools?

Equality is the product of freedom to learn wherever and however. Private schools are affirmations of freedom and equality. Private schools are outshining public education, so our leaders need to open their eyes. If we stopped trying to standardize God out of education, our academic achievement might move again toward being first among industrialized nations, which it once was, instead of twelfth  as it is now!

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by Joe Renfro, Ed.D., Radio Evangelist, Retired Teacher and Pastor, Box 751, Lavonia, Georgia 30553, 706-356-4173, joerenfro@windstream.net

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