The Harsh Truth About Public Schools.

The Harsh Truth About Public Schools, by Bruce N. Shortt (Vallecito, California: Chalcedon Foundation, 2004), 466 pages, trade paperback, $22.00. Available from American Opinion Book Services, P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI 54912 (plus shipping and handling); by phone at 920-749-3783; or online at www.aobs-store.com.

Bruce N. Shortt, a Harvard-educated, Baptist home-school parent, offers an infuriating but indispensable look at "the many ways in which government schools are hazardous to children, and especially Christian children." Not one to deal in euphemisms, Shortt describes the typical public school as a "pagan seminary" devoted to undermining biblical values and cultivating collectivism. As a result, he warns, "government schools are killing our children spiritually, morally, and intellectually."

In his 400-plus page indictment, Shortt does recognize that "government schools, like all institutions, involve a complex interaction between people, institutional culture, and legal rules ... [with] a sizeable remnant of wonderful teachers and administrators ... who struggle daily with the strange and toxic places government schools have become." These countless decent and conscientious people, who often work on sacrificial terms, could be "the subject of several books," but they are not in this book. Nor does this book cover other factors contributing to our cultural decline, such as the absence of many parents in the lives of their children (see the review on page 31).

What this book does do is expose "the harsh truth about public schools," as promised by the title. The harsh truth includes the fact that these schools cannot teach that God exists and that we have a moral obligation to follow His laws. The curriculum is often not merely value-neutral but anti-Christian, with sinful behaviors such as homosexuality treated as normal.

In one particularly egregious example of a sex education course, students in one Ohio school were taught "practical skills" involving condoms, lubricant, spermicide, and models of male genitalia. The course ridiculed sexually abstinent students as "hermits" who are "so unpleasant that everyone stays clear of you." "Out of an undoubtedly sincere concern for parents' sensibilities, teachers and students in the course signed a 'code of silence' in which everyone agreed that whatever was said or written in class would not be disclosed to anyone, including parents," Shortt ironically observes.

Elsewhere in his book, Shortt delves into such topics as grade inflation with the concurrent trend of dumbing down the curriculum, and how education officials across the country have used creative accounting on their states' test results to continue receiving federal money.

The central problem is not any particular government policy, Shortt writes, but rather "the error of transferring responsibility for education from parents and church to the government." And that is the crux of the whole matter: education will never improve until parents take back full responsibility for their children's education.