The RenewaNation Review 2022 Volume 14 Issue 1 | Page 37

“ The spiritual food we serve to our children should nurture their walk with Christ .”

Under the control of the radical teacher and administrative unions , public education is now waging open war against the values Christians seek to promote in our homes . They diminish our parental rights and implement destructive ideologies and psychologically abusive policies . They teach racism through Critical Race Theory ( CRT ), sexualize children , and dumb down education through revised history , pseudo-science , and lowered standards . The damage this does to our children has become obvious with the rise in physical violence , suicide , drug and alcohol abuse , gender dysphoria , and sexual confusion .

Many Christian families rely on public schools to educate their kids and are now awakening to the fact that we ’ ve placed our children under the tutelage of non-believers for far too long , some openly hostile to our faith .
As followers of Christ , we are required to nourish our children in their physical , mental , and spiritual development . The spiritual “ food ” we serve to our children should nurture their walk with Christ . For many parents , it can be an uncomfortable feeling when first realizing that education is , in fact , discipleship .
MY JOURNEY OUT OF PUBLIC SCHOOL
My journey of realization started ten years ago with my oldest entering kindergarten at L ’ Etoile du Nord French Immersion ( LNFI ) elementary . It was one of the top schools in the Saint Paul Public School ( SPPS ) District in Minnesota . Despite instruction exclusively in French from kindergarten through fourth grade , with limited English brought in during fifth and sixth grades , the school consistently had the highest standardized test scores for math and science in the district . LNFI ’ s academic rigor featured Saxon math , cursive , music , and orchestra taught by a Ph . D . teacher , an excellent art program , a science specialist , and international French-speaking interns funded and hosted by parents to serve as teaching assistants .
The school ’ s creator and principal and over a third of the teachers were immigrants from Africa , Asia , the Caribbean , the Middle East , etc . The student body was also ethnically and economically diverse . As a Black parent , I was particularly attracted to the school ’ s relatively low achievement gap : Test scores of minority children were dramatically better than other elementary schools and gradually approached the scores of White students . LNFI had a waitlist of students from both in and out-of-district .
Fast forward to now , SPPS identified LNFI as a school with less than 70 percent capacity placing it in danger of closure . I contend what happened to LNFI is not a story of mismanagement but is the type of outcome desired by institutions controlling public education . The overarching goal is to prop up the narrative that America is racist , and the problems in America ’ s educational system come from systemic racism . By having Black and minority kids excel , LNFI ran afoul of this narrative and had to be brought in line . Upholding the narrative is money ; failure pays . There is more money in remedial and special education than in honors . The worse the education outcome , the more the shouts of inequity and racism , and the more dollars flow into the system .
In 2013 , I witnessed the then SPPS superintendent showering attention on the school , complementing LNFI , and suggesting she might add even more grades to capitalize on our success . However , her actions told a different story than her words . She eliminated sixth grade ; split kindergarten through fifth grade into two campuses ; eliminated cursive , art , and music ; downgraded math instruction ; required the introduction of English instruction in the second grade ( instead of fifth ); and insisted children spell words as they sound , ensuring maximum confusion for kids trying to navigate phonics in two languages . She also lowered behavioral expectations and integrated students with learning disabilities into classrooms without extra assistance .
Anticipating the impending disaster , parents accused the district of dismantling what was working instead of extending successful strategies to other campuses . For this , we were called “ privileged ” and told that preserving our programs was “ not equitable ” for kids at other campuses . I was struck by the language , recognizing them years later as part of the Critical Race Theory lexicon . As it turns out , SPPS had secretly hired and paid upwards of $ 350,000 to Pacific Education Group , a private consultancy with ties to the Obama Administration and a Marxist agenda of pitting minorities against Whites .
Changes at LNFI and district-wide resulted in a marked decline in academic performance , and violence and assaults increased in SPPS classrooms . Like other Black and Hispanic parents that fled the district , I moved my three kids to charter schools in 2016 . By 2017 , the Star Tribune reported nearly 30 percent of Saint Paul ’ s school-aged children were attending charter schools or using open enrollment to go to other districts . But my family did not find relief . Charters are under the thumb of the same corrupt political and union-influenced system . The Minnesota Department of Human Rights insisted charter schools abandon
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