Pros, cons of area Christian Schools
In your feature on Christian Schools (“God, Grades, and the
Gospel,” February 15) I was disappointed to see little information on faith,
enrollment, standards, or test scores. I was dismayed to note only a half
sentence about one school — the Rochester Christian School — in the
four-page article.
This, the oldest Christian elementary school in Monroe
County, is a quality school. All classroom teachers are state certified. The
teachers are caring and talented; many parents volunteer. The student
population is diverse, with 15 percent minority students. The scores on
standardized tests are high.
Our daughters graduated in 1984 and 1987 and received a
great, well-rounded education in a safe, caring environment. As parents, we
wanted our children to be taught Biblical truths to reflect those taught in our
home and church.
Yes, at RCS the class size may be better, the parents better
motivated, and the students more orderly than in many schools. However, the
reason our children attended is the Christian perspective in every subject and
in all facets of life.
My neighborhood city school, School 46, is excellent, but we
wanted our children’s education to reinforce the saving faith so important to
us.
Life is short; eternity is long.
Sharon Bloemendaal,
Quentin Road, Rochester
The state of the nation, our society, our schools: all can
be studied and debated. Let us do so. But we can not when error stands in our
way, as is shown in the beliefs of some persons in charge of local Christian
schools.
To believe that in public education “there is no God… man is
the highest authority… we all belong under some kind of socialist-communist
doctrine” is an error. It shows the grossest ignorance of what is taught in
American public schools.
No matter how polite, no matter how dutiful, Christian
school students who are inculcated in such sadly wrong ideas are crippled in
any future taking on of the responsibilities of American citizenship.
Alexander Simpson,
Peachtree Lane, Pittsford
A Penfield parent who sends her children to a Christian
school laments that she gets “nothing” in return for her school taxes.
Apparently the message is that we shouldn’t have to pay for what we don’t
directly use or benefit from. If that’s the case, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and
transgendered individuals, who are often forbidden to marry or to raise
children, shouldn’t have to pay school taxes. Perhaps the GOP and Christian
Coalition should be stumping for that tax refund.
As a pedestrian, I could claim that since I do not use
roadways, I want a refund for the taxes used for salting, snow plowing, and
pot-hole repairs. Since I re-use, recycle, or compost 99 percent of my
consumable waste, I should get a rebate for what I’ve paid in taxes used for
landfills. I want a refund of the portion of my county taxes that COMIDA has
paid to ADT in Henrietta and Target in Irondequoit. I use neither of them, and
their presence does not benefit my neighborhood.
I guess when I was raised, I presumed incorrectly that we
did some things in life for the betterment of the collective because in our
unity we could not only wield support but also economic power. But perhaps my
rural, public-school upbringing has made me a part of “some kind of
socialist-communist doctrine,” as Greece Christian School’s Herbert Parker
claimed.
Shawn Patrick
Wallace, Hickory Street, Rochester
I admire the parents who take the extra step to provide
their children with a great education and moral foundation. But in reading the
article on Christian schools, I am reminded of the lines of division that run
through our lives:
Lines of separation that we make when we tell our children
that Christians have the market cornered on God and that only Christians can
have “consistent loving relationships.”
Lines that exist when school principals tell their students
that because public schools teach science and do not promote a particular
religion, they are trying to replace God with communistic man. (I think Christ
laid the way for socialism when he said that he pays all his workers the same
no matter how many hours they worked.)
In conclusion, we should remember the wacky far-out holes in
Darwin’s theory. They are:
1) Every organism produces more seeds or offspring than will
actually survive to adulthood. 2) There is variation among these seeds or
offspring. 3) Traits are passed down from one generation to the next. 4) In
each generation the survivors succeed — that is, they survive — because
they possess some advantage over the ones that don’t succeed. And because they
survive, they will pass that advantage on to the next generation. Over time,
therefore, the incidence of that trait will increase in the population.
Pretty revolutionary stuff. Where do those evil scientists
get off with their lies?
I see no division between the findings of science and the
workings of God. It is the lack of understanding of our neighbors that has
brought us to where we are on the world stage.
Adam Smith, Pearl
Street, Rochester
Thank you for an excellent article on Christian schools in
the Rochester area. Tim Macaluso is to be commended for his research and
relatively non-judgmental reporting.
Unfortunately, I have had a limited experience in the
college classroom with students who have attended Christian schools as well as
home-schooled students. The few students I have so identified have an extremely
limited perspective on United States history that is reflective of the
education they have received. One student went so far as to assert on a final
exam that everything in the US Constitution came from the Bible.
I am not the least bit surprised that they would have
pictures of George W. Bush or the Bush family in the classroom, or that at one
school, graduates not going to college go into the military. I would love to
see how US history is taught in some of these schools.
A small error in Mr. Macaluso’s article was the statement
that one of the first Christian schools in this region was “Houghton Academy in
Allegany.” Allegany is a village in Cattaraugus County and is the home to St.
Bonaventure University. Houghton Academy in is the village of Houghton in
Allegany County. Small point but a big difference in locations.
One last point: the mother who is so proud that her children
are well mannered is justifiably proud. However, I have always been told how
well mannered and polite my children were and are. They are graduates of
Brighton Central High School (a public school). Their manners are a reflection
of the home environment in which they were raised, not a reflection of a church
or school. Parental responsibility and example are what shape character more
than any outside influence.
James L. Swarts,
Brighton
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This article appears in Mar 8-14, 2006.
