{"id":382,"date":"2010-09-29T09:07:17","date_gmt":"2010-09-29T09:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/how-christians-could-save-americas-public-schools.html"},"modified":"2010-09-29T09:07:17","modified_gmt":"2010-09-29T09:07:17","slug":"how-christians-could-save-americas-public-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/how-christians-could-save-americas-public-schools.html","title":{"rendered":"How Christians Could Save America’s Public Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a new post at her.meneutics: “How Christians Could Save America’s Public Schools<\/a>.” It begins: <\/p>\n

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Sixty-eight percent of eighth graders in the U.S. <\/span>can’t read at grade level. 1.2 million teenagers drop out of school every year. And 44 percent of dropouts under age 24 are jobless. These statistics, from the Broad Foundation for Education<\/a>, are grim. And the children are the ones who suffer: Not only are their long-term prospects for employment and economic stability jeopardized, they also miss out on the joys of learning and the relationships with peers and adults that develop in a supportive, structured learning environment.<\/p>\n

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Few people disagree that all this is a problem. But the solution? Well, there’s Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg giving<\/a> $100 million to the Newark Public School System. There’s Arne Duncan, President Obama’s Secretary of Education, who is using empirical data to drive change and is taking on teachers’ unions.The<\/i> New York Times Sunday Magazine<\/i> recently devoted an entire issue<\/a> to the role of technology, reporting that students will perform better via smart pens, video games in the classroom, and proficient Internet use. Time <\/i>ran a cover story this summer in which the author claimed<\/a> that summer vacation accounts for the learning gap between lower- and higher-income students. Time<\/i> addressed education once again last week in “What Makes a School Great<\/a>,” which emphasized the importance of hiring the right teachers. David Brooks similarly identifies teachers as the solution in July’s Atlantic<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

So is it more money? Computers? Summer programs? Better teachers? Certainly each of these factors plays a role. But improving schools extends beyond policy and unions and technology. For those of us with school-age children, sending our kids to public school and developing relationships with others in the school — parents, teachers, and administrators — might be part of the solution.<\/p>\n

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To keep reading, click here<\/a>. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a new post at her.meneutics: “How Christians Could Save America’s Public Schools.” It begins:  Sixty-eight percent of eighth graders in the U.S. can’t read at grade level. 1.2 million teenagers drop out of school every year. And 44 percent of dropouts under age 24 are jobless. These statistics, from the Broad Foundation for Education, are grim.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Christians Could Save America's Public Schools - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/how-christians-could-save-americas-public-schools.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Christians Could Save America's Public Schools - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have a new post at her.meneutics: “How Christians Could Save America’s Public Schools.” It begins:  Sixty-eight percent of eighth graders in the U.S. can’t read at grade level. 1.2 million teenagers drop out of school every year. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}