Values in Public Schools
Education is more than teaching students to read, write and add. There is more to education than learning how to conduct a chemistry experiment or operate a computer. Education includes passing on to a new generation people's beliefs about what is true and good in life, and convictions about what is right and wrong. Education teaches how people should conduct their lives. In other words, education conveys what are commonly called "values."

All schools, whether public or independent, teach values. None is value free or value neutral. Schools transmit a whole range of values and beliefs to students through educational content as well as teachers' attitudes and overall environment. Schools communicate what they consider important in life through their curricula and required textbooks.

Public schools function with the assumption that commonly accepted community values exist. Certain values from our nation's traditions are considered necessary for citizens to live in a modern democratic society. There is, for instance, community consensus that citizens should know and practice the virtues of respect, tolerance, honesty, common decency, self-discipline and responsibility. Public schools, it is understood, are accountable to the community to teach these common values. Where different beliefs exist in the community, public schools are expected to refrain from taking sides and teach students how to live with these differences.

Some historians argue that in teaching common values, public schools have been instrumental in giving civic unity and social cohesion to our diverse nation. They assert that public schools have been the primary vehicle for immigrant groups to learn what it means to be an American, and for established citizens to learn to welcome new and different groups of people. Many people believe that public schools have been decisive in forming the very fabric that holds American society together.

Other historians view the role of public schools more critically. They think that public schools have functioned similarly to the way an established church functions in other countries. These historians dispute the idea that public schools have taught "commonly accepted community values." Rather, public schools have promoted the values and views of one segment of society. They argue that in the nineteenth century, large parts of society -- African Americans, Native Americans and Roman Catholics -- found public schools to be hostile to their experience and beliefs. Today, some insist, public schools often teach values that create an unfriendly setting for certain people. Among these are many religious conservative citizens, be they Christian, Jew or Muslim.

Whatever their unifying role in the past might have been, today public schools are often battlegrounds for citizens who disagree about what is good, true and beautiful. In local school board elections and meetings, parents sometimes engage in bitter disputes about what values their public schools should teach. Communities are discussing intensely what public schools should teach about moral authority, sexuality, the history of the United States, western and non-western cultures, and evolution/creation. They are debating what policies public schools should have on prayer or moments of silence in the classroom, appropriate books for the library, and religious symbols or garb worn by teachers and students. In these debates, citizens are giving very different answers to some basic questions.

What values do public schools transmit?

Who decides what these values are?

What values should public schools teach?

Who should decide?

What should happen when parents disagree among themselves or with school authorities on what beliefs and convictions public schools should teach?

For Discussion
1. What values (beliefs, convictions, virtues, attitudes) do the public schools in your community teach and promote? How do you discover this information? Perhaps there is someone in your class who would be willing to look at a public school reader or history book and give a report on what values the textbook transmits.

2. As Christian parents (grandparents) and citizens, are you satisfied that your public schools are teaching "commonly accepted community values?" Are they values you want your children to learn? Put yourself in the position of someone who differs from you in basic outlook on life (e.g., someone who is not a Christian, or a Christian who is more liberal or conservative than you are). How do you think that person would answer these questions?

3. Do you agree that public schools have provided and continue to provide social cohesion for our country? Is this a good and necessary function that public schools should fulfill? In your judgment, do public schools promote the values accepted by the whole community or those of a segment of the community?

4. Has there been a recent controversy surrounding value questions in your public schools? If so, is it easy for your group or congregation to talk about the controversy? What were the differing sides saying? How do you think the differences should have been or should be resolved?

Religion in Public Schools
The Bible instructs Christian parents, in company with the whole church, to teach their children: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." (Proverbs 1:7) We are called to tell our children what God has done for us, and that we and the world are God's good creation. We tell them how our faith in Jesus Christ answers the deepest human questions: who we are, whose we are, what is finally true and real, how we ought to live, and what is worthy of our ultimate loyalty. We encourage our children to appreciate human reason and knowledge as God's gifts to be enjoyed and used to benefit all people.

When Christian parents entrust public schools with the education of their children, they do so expecting the school to respect, not undermine, their and their children's faith. But they should not expect or demand public schools themselves to teach, endorse or promote the Christian faith. Public schools are for children and youth of all faiths and religions or faith or religion. Just as we expect public schools to respect our faith, so we should expect them to respect the ultimate beliefs of all people.

In 1962 and 1963, the United States Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for states to require religious exercises, such as reciting prayer or reading the Bible for devotional purposes in public schools. The former ALC and LCA officially supported the Court's decisions. These churches stated that these religious exercises appropriate a proper function of the family and church and result in a government- sponsored religious preference. They may infringe on the religious freedom of individuals and groups and may invite divisiveness in the community. Furthermore, these exercises may become formal and mechanical ones that do not contribute to genuine religious piety. They may promote a vague religion that conveys none of the substance and cutting edge of the historical Christian witness. Prayer may be misused by making it a means to create a moral atmosphere.

The ALC and LCA also added a word of caution. One stated, "The vacuum created by the exclusion of religion opens the door to the cult of secularism. The Constitution prohibits the establishment of all kinds of religion--whether theistic or secular in character." In teaching respect for the ethics of a democratic society, [public schools] cannot commit themselves to either a theistic or humanistic philosophy respecting the sources and motivation of ethical conduct. The other voiced a similar concern: "It is as wrong for the public schools to become agents for atheism, godless secularism, scoffing irreligion, or a vague 'religion in general' as it is for them to make religious rites and ceremonies an integral part of their program."

While these former Lutheran churches rejected government-sponsored teaching and practice of religion in public schools, they called for the teaching about religion in public schools. One church affirmed: A rounded education ought to include knowledge of major religious groups and their emphasis, the influence of religion upon the lives of people, and the contributions of religion to society, taught in history, literature, social science, and other courses at levels consistent with the maturity and comprehension of the pupils. The other church was in agreement: Any education premised on indifference to the religious factors in history, in American life and in the life of the individual, is an inadequate education. The objective study of religion and the Bible in public school, gives promise of a constructive approach to neutralizing secularistic tendencies in public education.

Just as the Supreme Court decisions did not ban teaching about religion in public schools, neither did they ban private, voluntary religious expressions from schools. In appropriate circumstances, students may pray, read the Bible, or talk to others about their beliefs. The Equal Access Act of 1986 ensures that student religious groups at secondary schools have the same right to school facilities as are enjoyed by other student groups.

For Discussion
1. How do you understand the responsibility of parents and the church in teaching children the Christian faith? What do you say to your children about what they should expect from public schools' attitudes and policies toward their Christian faith and toward other people's religious beliefs?

2. Discuss what these two former Lutheran church said about religion in public schools. Do you agree with the positions taken? (You may want to read the social statements in which they spoke on this issue. Information is given about these statements at the end of this study in "Further Reading.") Consider what are appropriate student religious expressions in schools.

3. Suppose the following situation: For 50 years, the public schools in a small town have opened the school day with prayer. Almost everyone in the community is a Christian and supports this practice, claiming that the community has a right to transmit its values to its children through the public schools. A family with two children moves to the town and protests these prayers in the public schools as a violation of their constitutional rights. What do you think should be done in this case?

4. In his lengthy study, Religion in American Education, Warren A. Nord argues that public education either ignores religion or promotes secular views hostile to religion. Public education, he writes, is not neutral toward religion as required by the Constitution, but "in effect takes sides against religion." (p. 8) Do you or you not agree with this argument? What evidence from your own experience supports or counters his argument?

5. In studying public school textbooks, Nord found that religion is largely absent. Even where present, missing "is any sensitivity to contemporary religious ways of interpreting the subject at hand" (e.g., history, psychology, economy). (p. 159) "We have become so secular that most of us completely fail to miss religion in the textbooks" (p. 158). What, if anything, do your public schools teach about religion?

Values and Educational Choice
For many parents, concern that their children grow up with a clear sense of what is good and right motivates their interest in educational choice. These parents may point to what they see as a wide spread breakdown of personal character, family life and community responsibility. They may decry the values that television, movies, videos and music promote. They seek for their children an educational setting that can resist this moral breakdown and instead will work with them in helping their children become mature and morally responsible persons.

Parents who do not find that their public schools provide this setting make these or similar assertions: "In my experience, public schools don't resist our society's moral breakdown; they reflect and encourage it. They seem unable to teach clearly and forcibly how people should live."

"Public schools sometimes offer classes that are supposed to help students clarify their own values. This approach only reinforces our society's individualism and moral relativism. Students learn that right and wrong are no more than a matter of personal preference (you do your thing, I'll do mine). That's no basis on which to build a life or society."

"Our public schools teach a sexual ethic for teenagers that our church and we believe is against God's will and harmful for young people. How can we trust our public schools with our children's education if they undercut what we believe to be God's command?"

"Since there are people who don't agree with us, it is probably not fair for the public schools to teach our understanding of sexual ethics. By the same token, it is not fair to teach someone else's sexual ethics. It's a matter of justice. I don't see how public schools can decide these questions justly. People are at opposite ends on what should be taught about sexuality, and there is no fair way for public schools to say, 'Teach this view and not that one.' It all seems like whoever has the power decides what view is taught. I'm tired of all those fights at school board meetings."

"My parents tell me that when they attended public schools back in the '50s, there really wasn't any tension between public schools and the churches. There was a community consensus that public schools should teach certain values that ultimately had their roots in the Bible. Today, in my children's schools, I don't find this consensus. Without this consensus, how can public schools teach values with confidence?"

Parents with this concern and these views ask if educational choice would give them new possibilities to fulfill their parental responsibility. Supporters answer yes. If public policy gave them financial assistance, parents would more likely than at present be able to find and afford a school supportive of their beliefs and values.

Proponents contend that public policy has an obligation not only to tolerate, but also to encourage parental responsibility and choice. Public policy should, in general, trust that parents are committed to their children's welfare and know best what is good for their children. Educational choice gives parents new opportunity to exercise their responsible freedom.

Proponents continue. Educational choice holds promise of benefiting the whole community by enabling religious or other value-oriented schools to exist and perhaps to flourish. This benefit would be felt especially in areas where public schools do not provide good values education. Furthermore, educational choice is a just way for government to support education in a pluralistic society. Parents who at present believe they are caught in a schooling situation where they are treated unfairly because of their beliefs and values would be able to explore other options.

Opponents counter these arguments. They issue the dire warning that educational choice would further fragment an already deeply fragmented society. Educational choice would destroy the role public schools play in promoting common values and loosen even more our country's fragile social cohesion. Opponents have a far less optimistic view of the outcomes of educational choice. They question whether it would improve education. They predict that it would likely encourage racist and religiously frantic groups to operate their own schools and to attract new adherents.

Many opponents recognize that public schools are not teaching values as they should. They believe, however, that with more parental involvement, improved teaching and better texts and resources, public schools will be able to teach values more adequately. They remind people that diversity in our society will not go away. The way to learn to live with diversity is not for every group to form its own separate school; our country needs to continue the American tradition of struggling with differences and finding common ground in public schools.

For Discussion
1. Do you think there is a serious moral breakdown in our nation? What evidence can you give that this is happening? What evidence can you give that the claim is exaggerated or overdrawn? How does the discussion about moral breakdown relate to educational choice? How important is a concern for values in motivating interest in educational choice?

2. The assertions made about public schools are provocative. Are there any with which you agree? Are there any with which you disagree?

3. Consider carefully the arguments put forth by proponents and opponents of educational choice. Which arguments are most convincing? Which ones are least so? What arguments would you add?