All over America we hear, "The public schools are failing. The public schools are failing." But is that the case? Really? Let's examine the goals and purposes of public education.
As we begin our examination, we start with the premise that education has and has always had an agenda. If we were to ask, "What is the purpose of education," most parents would answer, "To make a good living." But would our founding ancestors have agreed? No.
When the Puritans established the first schools in America, they had an agenda for those schools as stated in what's called "The Old Deluder Act of 1647: "Satan
tries to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former
times by keeping them in an unknown tongue."
The original settlers of
Massachusetts believed that children needed to learn how to read the
Bible to receive salvation. That was the agenda for the requirement that any Massachusetts
town with more than 50 households was to appoint a town teacher. Towns with
more than 100 households were required to set up a grammar school for
the town's children.
The 1636 rules of Harvard included the following declaration:
Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17.3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.
And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let every one seriously set
himself by prayer in secret to seek it of Him (Prov. 2,3). Every one
shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that he
shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein."
Over a century after the founding of Harvard in , the state constitution of
Massachusetts reiterated the original and continuing purpose of the
institution:
"Article I. Whereas our wise and pious ancestors, so early as the year
one thousand six hundred and thirty-six, laid the foundation of Harvard
College, in which university many persons of great eminence have, by the
blessing of God, been initiated in those arts and sciences, which
qualified them for public employments, both in church and state: and
whereas the encouragement of arts and sciences, and all good
literature, tends to the honor of God, the advantage of the Christian
religion, and the great benefit of this and the other United
States of America—it is declared, that the President and Fellows of
Harvard College...shall have, hold, use, exercise and enjoy, all the
powers...which they now have or are entitled to have."
It goes without saying that The Old Deluder Act and the intent of a Harvard education are no longer the purpose of American public education. So, what is the agenda?
The purpose of American education today is to produce the rationalist, an adult whose basic presupposition is that the human being, unaided, can come to a knowledge of the truth. As a result, the Bible is banned from academia--A Wisconsin student has sued her college after she was barred from
handing out "Jesus Loves You" Bible-themed Valentine's Day cards last
February and the Wisconsin public university system removed all its copies of the
Gideon Bible from the campus conference center after the Freedom From
Religion Foundation complained of a constitutional violation. These are only two examples; time and space preclude a 360 degree look at the evidence.
The finished product is a rationalist who holds to evolution as the origin of man, who holds to relativism with no absolute standards of right and wrong. The process of American education is to leave God and His Word out. The end result is the rationalist.
On that basis, we can say that American education is a roaring success.
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