Are America’s Schools Safe?

A safe learning environment is important to parents and students. It is a valid reason for placing children in a Christian school and keeping them there.

LITTLETON, COLORADO was a little known community until two Columbine High School seniors went on a killing spree that left fifteen people dead. Americans watched this terrifying event unfold on television in what became the third most closely watched news story of the 1990s. This horrible atrocity was a reminder of the unprecedented number of mass shootings, six in all, that have occurred in public schools since October 1997.¹

An outgrowth of these shootings produced an unusual merger of liberal and conservative planks: toughness on guns, violent culture, and criminals.² National politicians quickly seized the opportunity to tighten gun control laws while many state legislatures either adopted or considered adopting school safety packages aimed at curbing school violence.

The increase of violence in public schools has alerted many parents to the seriousness of violence in public schools, a problem that seems to get worse instead of better. Parents want their children to attend a safe school where the emphasis is on character development and classroom learning.

A number of reasons are given to explain the rise in public school violence: easy availability of drugs, increase in single-parent homes, violence portrayed on television, frequent child abuse, and messages promoted in rock music. Strangely missing from this list is the absence of Christian moral standards and values that produce order and respect. A speaker at a Littleton memorial service was applauded when he stated ''It is time for this nation to recognize that when we empty the public schools of the moral teachings and the standards of our holy God, they are indeed very dangerous places."³

The long-term answer to the problem of violence in America's classrooms is not the passing of stronger crime laws, or building more reform schools and prisons, or installing metal detectors in public schools, even though some of these measures are definitely needed. The problem of violence goes much deeper. It is a problem that reaches into the very nature of man, his sinful nature, and the need to recognize a total dependence on Jesus Christ instead of man. The removal of the Biblical standards and moral teachings that once prevailed in public schools stripped our nation of the only restraint and understanding needed to curtail violence in schools and in society.

Until the sin problem is addressed, violence in the public schools will continue to increase. Students will continue to do what they think is right in their own eyes. They will set their own standards and make their own rules. This do-it-my-way attitude was reflected in a survey recently conducted by two Tulane researchers. Twenty percent of the high school students surveyed believed it was all right to shoot someone if he stole something from you. Eighty percent believed it was all right to shoot a person who had offended or insulted you.⁴ When standards of right and wrong become this obscure, selfwill prevails, and where self-will prevails, security guards and metal detectors become commonplace in our schools.

Times have certainly changed. The guiding principles of Biblical truth no longer serve our nation's public schools. First Amendment rights have suffered distortion and dilution at the hands of the courts. A religious cleansing of the public schools has expunged the Bible, the Ten Commandments, and prayer from public school classrooms. This, plus a cultural and morality shift in America, sets the stage for the loss of what was once a safe environment in public schools. God's standards are out; permissiveness is in; and violence is on the increase.

Violence is not a problem in Christian schools because Biblical standards for discipline and morality are the norm, not the exception. School officials enforce behavioral and academic policies that parents appreciate. A student's spiritual growth and personal behavior are as important as his academic development. It is the balance between these pivotal areas that keeps the Christian school violence free. A safe learning environment is important to parents. It is a valid motivation for placing children in a Christian school. But, it must be remembered that Christian education exists for a higher purpose. This purpose, to direct students toward a practical, active relationship with Christ, makes it possible to ensure the kind of environment and the kind of future that parents desire for their children.

1. Pew Research Center. 2. U.S News & World Report. (June 21, 1999.) 3. World. (May 8, 1999.) 4. Source unknown.

Dr. Charles Walker is the education director of the American Association of Christian Schools and the executive director of the Tennessee Association of Christian Schools.