The American Crisis
The last three blogs have presented three different examples of how a historical event can be viewed. They laid out how biblical integration occurs within the context of worldview development. The American educational system has evolved since its inception. Look at the following timeline:
1635 Boston Latin School opened as the first American public school.
1635 The first “free school” in Virginia opens.
1636 Harvard University opens.
1642 Massachusetts Bay School Law is passed. It required that parents ensure their children know the principles of religion and capital laws of the commonwealth.
1690 The first New England Primer is printed in Boston. It becomes the most widely-used schoolbook in New England.
1710 The Quakers open the first religious school in the states.
1727 Ursuline Academy of New Orleans was founded, the first Catholic School in the United States.
1785 Noah Webster writes new textbooks to include the American Spelling Book, still used to this day.
1827 Massachusetts passes a law requiring towns of more than 500 to have a public high school open to all students.
1837 Horace Mann becomes Secretary of Education in Massachusetts. He promotes the Common School movement.
1837 The African Institute is founded in Cheyney, Pennsylvania. The oldest institution in higher learning for African Americans.
1849 Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that Boston Public Schools can deny enrollment of African American students. This case is later used to support Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
1852 Massachusetts enacts the first state law mandating school attendance. By 1918, all states have similar laws.
1867 Department of Education is created in order to help the state establish effective school systems.
1905 The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is founded.
1911 The First Montessori school is opened in Tarrytown. New York.
1919 The Progressive Education Association is founded with the goal of reforming American education.
1920 John B. Watson conducts experiments on children using classical conditioning methods.
1920 The National Union of Christian Schools was created to promote what was called “parent society schools” in the Midwestern parts of the country.
1926 The first SAT test is administered.
1946 Mendez v. Westminster ruling states that educating children of Mexican descent in separate facilities is unconstitutional.
1948 Supreme Court rules that schools cannot allow “released time” during the school day which allows students to participate in religious education in their public-school classrooms.
1956 The “Clinton 12” were successfully integrated into Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee.
1957 Little Rock 9, Federal troops enforce integration of students in Little Rock, Arkansas.
1959 First ACT administered.
1962/63 Supreme Court ruled that state sponsored prayer in schools was unconstitutional.
1964 Civil Rights Act, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, or national origin.
1968 McCarver Elementary School opens in Tacoma, Washington. The first magnet school in the nation.
1978 The Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), which is now the governing body that oversees evangelical schools in America and overseas.
1972 Title IX becomes law.
1980’s Increased growth of Christian Schools around America.
1985 Supreme Court rules that teacher-led voluntary prayer is a violation of the First Amendment.
1992 Nations first Charter school opened in St. Paul, Minnesota.
1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act requires common curriculum and statewide tests.
2000 Supreme Court rules that the district's policy of allowing student-led prayer prior to football games violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
2001 No Child Left Behind Act is approved and implemented under President George W. Bush.
2005 U.S. District Court of Pennsylvania rules that teaching “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution is a violation of the First Amendment.
2009 Common Core is launched and implemented in most states.
2014 Minnesota State High School League votes to adopt policy allowing transgender student to join female sports teams.
2016 The Federal Government tells school districts to allow transgender students to use the bathroom that matches their identity.
2021 The Florida State Legislation proposes a bill that would allow prayer before high school athletic games.
This is an intense and detailed timeline. You may ask, "Why spend an entire blog on this timeline alone?" It is important to see where education started, why it started, and where it currently stands today. You can trace the trend from a biblical foundation of education to a shift toward a secular foundation. Let’s examine this comparison as we close out today’s blog:
| Founding Mission Statement | Current Mission Statement | |
|---|---|---|
| Harvard | “Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.” | The mission of Harvard College is to educate the citizens and citizenleaders for our society. We do this through our commitment to the transformative power of a liberal arts and sciences education |
| Yale | Students were required to "live religious, godly and blameless lives according to the rules of God's Word, diligently reading the Holy Scriptures, the fountain of light and truth; and constantly attend upon all the duties of religion, both in public and secret." | The mission of Yale College is to seek exceptionally promising students of all backgrounds from across the nation and around the world and to educate them, through mental discipline and social experience, to develop their intellectual, moral, civic, and creative capacities to the fullest. |
| Princeton | “Cursed is all learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.” | Princeton University advances learning through scholarship, research, and teaching of unsurpassed quality, with an emphasis on undergraduate and doctoral education that is distinctive among the world's great universities, and with a pervasive commitment to serve the nation and the world. |
The drift from the fundamental foundations of education is The American Crisis. For those of you who have made it through this blog, you are now able to critically evaluate where the American educational system began and where it stands today.
“I think also, that general virtue is more probably to be expected and obtained from the education of youth, than from exhortations of adult persons; bad habits and vices of the mind being, like diseases of the body, more easily prevented than cured. I think moreover, that talents for the education of youth are the gift of God; and that he on whom they are bestowed, whenever a way is opened for use of them, is as strongly called as if he heard a voice from heaven.” Benjamin Franklin
"It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness." Noah Webster
"A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district--all studied and appreciated as they merit--are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty." George Washington
“The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” Abraham Lincoln
“I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from The Savior of the world is communicated to us through this Book.” Abraham Lincoln
This is the American crisis
Mr. Euler has over 20 years of experience working in Christian Schools, 13 as a Head of School and is currently the Head of School at Word of God Academy, Shreveport, LA., a ministry of Word of God Ministries.
Website www.wogacademy.org
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