Scripture tells us to “train up a child in the way he should go…even when he is old, he
will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6 ESV). The early American approach to education
intended to honor this scripture text. This is clear by the words of a founding father Benjamin
Rush. Rush claimed that public education should have a three-part agenda that is: to love and
serve God, to love and to serve America, and to love and to serve the family. [ CITATION
Bar12 \l 1033 ]. Understanding these words from Benjamin Rush they clearly exhibit the
differences from early American education to modern day education.
So early American schools focused on the virtues of religion, country, and family while
today modern schools have practiced education that is the complete opposition to that. Schools
today do not teach the principles of the bible, given that history cannot be understood apart from
the Bible nor can the Bible be studied apart from history.[ CITATION Whi28 \l 1033 ]. While
looking at the differences of early American education approach to our modern approach it is not
hard to see that education today is more available then in the early days of America [ CITATION
Bur09 \l 1033 ]. David Barton states that, a fourth of the US founding fathers was self-taught or
homeschooled [ CITATION Bar12 \l 1033 ].
Throughout the years of education in America homeschooling has ebbed and flowed as an option
to education. There have been significant decreases in homeschool in years past whereas now
there is a continued increase [ CITATION Gai08 \l 1033 ]. As for the continuing rise that has
been seen in homeschooling is due families feeling alienated since public schools have become
larger, not as personal, more bureaucratic, less responsive to parents or not held accountable
[ CITATION Gai08 \l 1033 ]. It would be a save assumption to state that school shootings, and
the acceptance of schools toward homosexual, transgender and many other social issues has
played a factor in the rise of homeschooling in recent years. Therefore, the view that
homeschooling has become a “political movement” [ CITATION Gai08 \l 1033 ], would be a
correct ascertain due that these social issues have fallen along party lines in America.
Homeschooling allows the parents to have more control over what their children are learning,
and, in the way, they learn it. For this same reason parents may remove their children from public
school and place them into a Charter or private school which has also become a fast-growing
trend [ CITATION Bur11 \l 1033 ]. These options of education for parents have consequential
placed some competitive pressure on the public schools in improving as well on the bureaucrats
who oversee education at all levels of government. [ CITATION Bur11 \l 1033 ].
Bibliography
Barton, David. "Introduction: Our Purpose and Approach" ." Constitution Alive! Series 21:09.
Wall Builders, 2012.
Burke, Lindsey. "Homeschooling Sees Dramatic Rise in Popularity." The Heritage Foundation.
January 28, 2009. https://www.heritage.org/ (accessed April 28, 2020).
Burke, Lindsey M., and Rachel Sheffield. "School Choice in America." The Heritage
Foundation. August 17, 2011. www.heritage.org (accessed April 28, 2020).
Gaither, Milton. "Why Homeschooling Happened." Educational Horizons 86, No. 4, 2008: 226-
237.
White, Wilbert W. ""The Bible in Education" Christian Education no 3 ." Jstor. December 1928.
www.jstor.org/stable/41174169 (accessed April 28, 2020).
