Educating All God’s Children

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is America’s quintessential question for kids. For me, the answer had always been a pediatrician. Of course, I didn’t have a particular love for science or math, it just seemed like “the thing to do.” 

Similar to many American kids, I’d grown up going to church every Sunday. But I came to a point where I wanted to know God for myself and really live my life to honor him. I am forever grateful I came to this realization while I was still in college.

Through Bible studies with my campus pastor, I began to rethink my hopes of becoming a pediatrician (And, if I’m being honest, my sophomore organic chemistry class probably had a little something to do with it, too). Through prayer, conversations with caring professors and exploring new college courses, I gained enough confidence to rethink my life and my future. I wanted a meaningful career that would have a positive impact on the world. One of my constant prayers was to ask God to reveal his purpose for my life. 

Back then, I was a student who had made it through Detroit’s culture of low expectations and gone to college. Today, I’m the founding president of The Expectations Project, a non-profit mobilizing faith communities to help eliminate educational inequity in our public schools. I have no doubt—then and now—that God is working in the public school system to ensure our nation’s most disenfranchised children can realize their own potential and purpose. 

But we still have a long way to go. 

These academic challenges didn’t appear overnight. The educational disparities begin long before students graduate from high school. Inequities begin as early as preschool and, if left unchecked, become more severe in middle and high school. 

If you were fortunate enough to attend a strong public or private school as a child, it might be difficult to understand why some bright, capable, yet disadvantaged students can’t make it in college. It may seem unconscionable that only 50 percent of students in low-income communities will ever graduate from high school. And it may seem criminal that only one in 14 of these young people will ever graduate from college. 

After all, isn’t America the reigning world power with some of the finest higher education institutions in the world? Immigrants from all over are drawn to our nation, in part, for the illustrious promise of opportunity, equity and fortune. 

Yet is this an empty illusion? Despite our best efforts to rectify segregation in the 1950s and 1960s, the fact remains today that Native American, Asian American, Black, Latino and low-income students are more likely than White, non- Latino students to attend schools where they have little chance of demonstrating academic proficiency, graduating from high school, and attaining the postsecondary credentials that are becoming more and more essential in today’s economy. Less than two out of 10 black students are enrolled in well-resourced, high-performing schools. Double that amount (42%) attend poorly resourced, low-performing schools. This portrait of imbalance is similar across the board for Native American, Latino and low-income students. In stark contrast, the average white student is twice as likely to go to a well-resourced, high-performing school. 

The disconnect between our educational ideals and the reality of urban and rural low-income public schools is a strong one, yet it plays itself out every day in America. 

For most Americans, none of this is particularly surprising. Our FRAMES research shows Americans, at least on a surface level, are aware of this inequality. Yet if your child lives in a safe neighborhood and goes to a good school, or if you don’t have school-aged children at all, you may wonder: What does all this have to do with me? Of course, the conditions are alarming, but why should I get actively involved?

Here’s why: Because when students aren’t able to master basic learning skills, let alone the higher level critical thinking necessary to compete in our global marketplace, their life prospects are severely diminished. 

Our nation’s schools in crisis have to do with you and me because the next generation of our nation’s doctors, social workers, engineers, teachers and politicians is sitting in a classroom right now. And if these students are given a substandard education, it disables future generations in meaningfully contributing meaningfully back to society. 

It’s not just a crisis for students whose aspirations are cut short. It’s a crisis for the future of our society. And as Christians called to champion the image of God in each individual (Genesis 1:27), to allow these children with incredible potential to fall behind is unacceptable.

So let’s examine our nation’s education system a bit closer. If we do, we will quickly see what millions of Americans already sense: our education system is not living up to its promise. In fact, the FRAMES research reveals nearly half of American adults (46%) believe public schools have gotten worse in the last five years. Only 15% believe the public school system has made improvements.

How does this compare with people of faith? Overall, practicing Christians (49%) are slightly more likely than people of no faith (43%) to believe educational quality is in decline. Evangelicals, in particular, carry great concern for the worsening conditions of the public school system—two-thirds believe it’s in decline. 

But if we believe public schools are getting worse, what can we do to help improve them? 

I believe our nation is facing a watershed moment. We have a choice to make. We have to decide whether we are going to live up to our promise as the land of equal opportunity. We must decide whether we will allow our nation’s public education system to continue to prepare children for two very different futures. And as Christians, America’s educational crisis presents us with a unique opportunity to reflect on our often ambivalent (and, in some cases, adversarial) relationship with public schools. 

Christians are no stranger to the justice movement. We are actively involved in fighting international sex trafficking, installing clean water wells for remote villages, sponsoring at-risk children overseas and countless other ventures. While such compassionate action is to be commended, we cannot allow our perception of justice to be limited to countries of lesser privilege. We cannot afford to turn a blind eye on the educational injustice happening in our city, neighborhood or within our own family. Not when the future of the 16 million kids growing up in poverty in the U.S. is at stake. Not when quality education is often what can determine the difference between a high school drop-out unqualified to earn more than minimum wage and a future contributor to society. And certainly not when God calls Christians to “do good, seek justice, correct oppression” (Isaiah 1:17) and to “defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:9).

If a quality education is the fundamental pathway out of poverty, then Christians are called to lead the charge in ensuring all young men and women receive excellent educational opportunities. 

Americans—Christians and otherwise—already know the public school system is broken. But what most of us don’t know is what we can do about it. 

The immediate impulse, for many, is to simply get their own children out of “the bad schools.” When it comes to our own kids, we’re often willing to go to great lengths to secure a proper education—whether that’s choosing to homeschool, paying the expenses to put kids through private school or enrolling them in lotteries in the hope they will be one of the lucky few who find a better quality option in their own neighborhood. 

While these options may be good ones for some families, they are not options for millions of families in our nation—particularly for those in poorer neighborhoods. What can these parents and families do to get a high quality education for their children? Who will speak up for these children? 

This conundrum is precisely why Christians need to work together to improve the public school system. Our schools are in crisis—and the future generations of doctors, scientists, social workers, teachers, entrepreneurs and more are in crisis with them. 

The good news is we can work together to do something about it.